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Harnessing the power of county-wide Disc Networks to drive down crime
In over 500 town- and city-centre crime reduction schemes across the country Disc enables tens of thousands of local businesses to share information about low-level crime, ASB and prolific offenders. But Disc systems can network together to share information across a county or metropolitan area mapped onto police force areas. Already county-wide Disc Networks represent…
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Self-managing anti-social behaviour to make a difference
For almost a year now, high street businesses have faced unprecedented challenges. Covid has closed tens of thousands of retail premises resulting in a temporary decline in shoplifting, while the virtual closure of the night-time economy has reduced the level of associated anti-social behaviour (ASB). Yet overall, data show that lockdowns, job losses, business closures…
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Self-managing low-level business crime – with the police.
Reduced budgets – and now the added challenge of Covid-19 – have forced police to concentrate their scarce resources where they can be most effective. For retailers and licensees across the UK this has meant less police engagement in low level business crime such as shoplifting and anti-social behaviour around the night-time economy. While police…
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Crime Reduction Schemes – filling the policing gap
Napoleon once famously described Britain as a ‘Nation of Shopkeepers’. Our retail industry is currently facing unprecedented pressures, especially on the High Street. This is irrespective of being a large retail brand or a small independent – the challenges are very real. The British Retail Consortium 2020 Retail crime survey estimates that over £1bn has been…
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Why, for BIDs, ‘bouncing back’ is simply not enough
Covid presents two challenges to Business Improvement Districts. One is to deliver practical assistance to levy-payers to maximise their ‘bounce back’ from lockdown. The other, put brutally, is to protect them from insolvency. Covid is an existential threat for retailers and licensed premises. BIDs that simply do what they have always done – but perhaps…
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Priti Patel: “shopworkers need protection” – local, grass roots ‘active crime reduction’ is the only way
Forget about our streets: it’s inside our corner-shops and take-aways that criminals are running riot. In July Priti Patel commanded a crack-down on abuse and violence in the retail sector. But there’s a crucial gap in her chain of command – a gap that only local retailers themselves can fill. Talk about Best Practice Guides,…