BUSINESS CRIME STRATEGY2015-2017

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BUSINESS CRIME STRATEGY 2015-2017

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to define business crime, highlight the need for a strategy, and outline the planned content of that strategy, taking into account the diversity of the business community across our county. Consultation on the proposed content has taken place with local Business Clubs, Shopwatch schemes, District Councils, Community Safety Partnerships and Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce, as well as with internal stakeholders.

DefinitionBusiness crime is defined by the National Police Chiefs’ Council as:

Any criminal offence that is committed against a person or property that is associated with the connection of that person or property to a business.

Based on the perception of the victim.

BackgroundUntil the introduction of the Business Crime definition in April 2015 the Home Office recording standards recognised business crimes as the following:

• Abstract Electricity

• Making Off Without Payment (Bilking)

• Business Robbery

• Theft by Employee

• Theft from meter or automatic machine

• Shoplifting

These crime categories alone accounted for almost 22% of all recorded crime in Lincolnshire in 2014/15.

Current sources of data on business crime include the Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS). Published by the Home Office, the survey uses 6 main industry sectors: manufacturing, wholesale & retail, transportation & storage, accommodation & food, arts, entertainment & recreation and agriculture, forestry & fishing.

The results from the 2014 survey, published in April 2015 highlight the following key points:

• The overall crime rate against businesses in England & Wales fell in both the wholesale & retail and accommodation & food sectors between 2012 and 2014.

• The proportion of premises that were victims of crime in these two sectors also fell during the same period.

• Both the rate of burglaries and the proportion of premises experiencing burglary fell in the wholesale & retail sector and the accommodation & food sector between 2012 and 2014.

• The rate of shoplifting in the wholesale & retail sector fell between 2012 and 2014.

• The agriculture, forestry & fishing sector experienced the lowest levels of crime of all the sectors surveyed in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

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• Levels of anti-social behaviour against business premises have remained steady over the last three years.

In addition to the CVS, the British Retail Consortium produces an annual Retail Crime Survey. The 2014 results showed:

• The direct cost of retail crime was £603 million in 2013/14, an increase of 18% from 2012/13.

• The average value of each shop theft rose to £241, the highest recorded for a decade.

• Fraud increased by 12% from the previous period.

• An increase in cyber attacks.

• 90% of respondents called for police to develop strategies to tackle business crime.

These figures are particularly relevant as the retail sector is now larger than the manufacturing sector in the UK.

At the start of 2014 the Federation of Small Businesses calculated that nearly 48% of employment in the UK was by small private sector businesses alone (those employing 10-49 people). In this economic climate small businesses cannot afford expensive security

upgrades, but equally cannot afford the costs associated with theft, damage and increased insurance premiums. For national retailers the disparity between how individual forces handle business crimes causes additional work, frustration, and ultimately breeds a lack of confidence and under reporting, further compounded by the widespread perception that crimes against a business are victimless.

In the 2014 Retail Fraud Survey, managers were asked to identify their top 3 loss prevention issues. The findings showed maintaining/introducing a culture of loss prevention was most commonly experienced, with internal/staff fraud being a close second. Crucially the same survey showed that police were deemed to be the organisation that would benefit most from collaboration with retailers.

The figures from these surveys show the alarming effects and costs of crime on businesses themselves, but what about ramifications on the Police? 2010 Home Office data shows a cost to police of dealing with retail crime alone as £71 million. When we consider that other figures highlighted earlier are rising annually, it can be said with some certainty that cost will have risen since 2010, and all at a time when police budgets are being reduced.

Cyber It should be recognised that although retail is one of the largest sectors in the UK, the number of high street stores are still decreasing and online presence is growing in its place. This in turn has lead to an increase in cyber crimes, in particular online fraud which largely goes unreported. Although cyber crime could be viewed as a separate issue, when £77.3 million is lost each year in UK retail due to cyber crimes, it is important that our business crime strategy

reflects this growing trend and acknowledges the threat posed to businesses.

The 2013-17 Police and Crime Plan for Lincolnshire states “we will focus on crimes against rural communities and against businesses” and that “we must work in partnership with the public, volunteer groups and with local businesses through, for example neighbourhood watch and farm watch.” Therefore it is essential the strategy reflects those aims.

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BUSINESS CRIME STRATEGY 2015-2017

AimTo identify and understand the true extent of business crime in Lincolnshire and work in partnership with businesses so that together we

can work effectively towards preventing crime and anti-social behaviour.

ObjectivesThe objectives set out within this strategy follow the nationally recognised PIER framework of Prevention, Intelligence, Enforcement and

Reassurance and are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-scaled.

Ownership and DeliveryThe force Business Crime Coordinator and strategic lead for Business Crime will have joint ownership and will work together to implement the strategy over a 2 year period, in line with the Operational Policing Plan 2015-17.

Delivery will be undertaken by Neighbourhood Policing Teams, the Community Safety Department, single points of contact in each policing district and other relevant departments, local authorities, agencies and partners.

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Prevention

Specific crime prevention advice will be produced and made readily available in multiple formats, primarily featuring on a new business crime webpage which will be live from September 2015. This will also include links to partner organisations such as Action Fraud and will provide contact details for referrals. The guidance will be targeted based on analysis and seasonal crime trends, rather than just generic advice.

We will continue to promote and publicise Lincs Alert Business Watch service to deliver preventative advice and highlight emerging trends. It will be routine for all operational officers to promote this service when attending a relevant incident. Technology will be utilised to sign people up to the service real-time as part of the Mobile Data project.

Crime Reduction Tactical Advisors will be available to visit business premises and offer security surveys and advice. These sites will be identified by both Neighbourhood Policing Teams working proactively to identify vulnerable locations, and by improved analytical work to identify hot spots.

There is an input with new builds from a Crime Prevention Design Advisor as part of the ‘designing out crime’ agenda. In addition to this a referral scheme has been established with the county and district councils for start-up businesses to receive advice and guidance on security and crime prevention and to promote ‘Secured by design’ at an early stage.

Retail premises will be encouraged to adopt the ‘Challenge and Prevent’ mindset and follow the OSCAR model, challenging known and suspected offenders as soon as they enter shops, rather than wait until an offence occurs. Training will be offered to retailers on how to spot the most common methods or ‘Modus Operandi’. Other materials will be produced to reinforce this message such as deterrent posters.

We will identify best practice internally and work with partners in the business community to create a ‘Business Watch’ model that has a strong preventive stance, has a clear escalation process for persistent offenders, meets clear standards and can be implemented county wide. This will include both day time and night time economies. A ‘Secured by Design’ style accreditation is already being developed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council for such partnerships.

Business crime will be promoted as a priority for inclusion within Community Safety Partnership plans.

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BUSINESS CRIME STRATEGY 2015-2017

Intelligence

The county wide standard ‘Business Watch’ model will have clearly defined information sharing agreements to enable a joined-up and coordinated approach to the exchange of intelligence. Businesses must first have the confidence to share intelligence with us and see the results.

We will work to the newly created National Operating Model for Business Crime Solution (Appendix 1) encouraging use of the regional intelligence and assessment hub so that cross border intelligence can be exchanged. A single point of contact is to be established within the Force Intelligence Bureau.

The recording of crimes against businesses became mandatory in April 2015. This will enable better analysis of offences, offenders, methods and provide early identification of hot spots and trends so we can improve the targeting of resources and ensure relevant information forms part of daily briefings and tasking for neighbourhood policing teams.

Liaison with Fire and Rescue Arson Task Force will occur on a regular basis for early identification of hot spots.

Enforcement

Officers will be encouraged to use Restorative Resolutions when dealing with low level offences and first time offenders, to help businesses keep insurance premiums down and recover costs, as well as provide education to offenders to prevent reoccurrence. Officers will be educated to recognise all businesses as victims. Research into the use of Restorative Justice in shop theft is being undertaken, the results of which will form the content of future enforcement strategies.

The new ‘Business Watch’ model will set out a clear, streamlined process and escalation map utilising powers under the new Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to help reduce reoffending and encourage confidence from the business community. It also sends out a clear message to offenders that such crimes will be taken more seriously than before and gives further weight to the argument when placing offenders before the courts.

Under the new Victims Code businesses are classed as victims in the same way as individuals. Where relevant we will encourage businesses to submit impact statements to be read out in courts to highlight first-hand the effects of the crime to magistrates. Officers are to routinely offer the Impact Statement for Businesses when taking any witness statement for a business related crime. We will continue to promote and publicise this internally.

We will engage with the second hand industry, encouraging them to challenge and report anyone offering suspicious items, check for property markings, and routinely compare against the CheckMEND database. A media campaign will run to promote this.

The existing collaboration between the 5 East Midlands police forces will be utilised to the full extent in targeting the most prolific travelling offenders and Organised Crime Groups and used as an opportunity to examine and adopt best practice.

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Reassurance & Communication

The Business Crime Coordinator will act as the single point of contact externally for businesses and other relevant parties to ensure a consistent approach and build trust and confidence to combat underreporting.

We will target all business premises that are subject to repeat victimisation in a 12 month period. Whether this is in the form of a follow up phone call or site visit and full security survey by Crime Reduction Tactical Advisors. It will be the Business Crime Coordinators role to ensure this happens as a priority, in accordance with force policy on repeat victims. The new recording requirements will enable quicker and easier identification of repeat crimes.

The new definition of Business Crime has been disseminated internally and features on the internal Business Crime intranet page under Performance.

The Lincs Alert Business Watch forms a vital communication tool for the prevention, intelligence and reassurance strands and will be promoted in conjunction with the launch of this strategy.

Media coverage of partnership working and success stories surrounding business crimes and specific operations will be publicised using all media channels.

An annual survey will be distributed to businesses across the county to gauge their perception of crime levels and what they see as the most serious offences, the number of incidents over that period, the police response, and any other suggestions. This will help us in shaping future strategies and also provides us with honest data, something currently lacking for business crime.

We will regularly engage with representatives of the business community such as the Chamber of Commerce and Federation of Small Businesses to discuss current issues and concerns and ensure the strategy is still relevant.

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BUSINESS CRIME STRATEGY 2015-2017

Cyber

We will commission a survey to gauge the current level of understanding within the business community around the growing cyber threat. This will also serve as a reassurance tool with the aim that businesses will recognise the importance Lincolnshire Police place on them and the threats and risks they face. We will utilise ties with external partners to facilitate this work and undertake it on an annual basis as a method of analysing our success at raising awareness.

Analysis of the survey results will enable us to correctly target prevention initiatives, which should see greater success than a blanket approach, as per the Government Office for Science Summary Report. The force Cyber Crime Strategic Analysis and Action Fraud data will also assist in demographic targeting of prevention and reassurance messages.

Cybercrime prevention advice will be added to the new business crime webpages along with signposts to advice and guidance documents from government and other external bodies such as Get Safe Online. The site will also explain when and how to report cybercrimes and most importantly who to, to maximise reporting to Action Fraud and reduce demand internally.

We will begin to routinely communicate alerts and briefings from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, National Crime Agency and other bodies to the business community. An internal process is now in place for this.

We will build in advice around cyber security and business continuity planning as a routine part of the security survey officers provide, including promotion of the Cyber Essentials scheme and the CiSP (Cyber Information Sharing Platform).

We will utilise all opportunities to promote Crimestoppers charity and their ‘Fearless against cybercrime’ initiative as both awareness raising and intelligence gathering routes.

LinksRepeat Victimisation Policy – PD 36

Information Sharing Policy – PD 132

Partnerships Policy – PD 189

Police and Crime Plan 2013 – 2017

Operational Policing Plan 2015 – 2017

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Appendix 1

National Business Crime Solution

Lincolnshire Police Headquarters, PO Box 999, Lincoln LN5 7PHwww.lincs.police.uk