Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

Making It Our Business: Auditing and consulting the business sector on

Nacro Community Safety Practice Briefing

The business sector is a vital part of the local community, but it also has its own crime reduction needs and presents special challenges for local community safety partnerships and practitioners. This briefing sets out an approach to auditing local business crime and consulting the local business sector effectively.

The scale of business crime

• A Dutch study found that offences committed against the public sector came to 9% of total crime, those against private individuals 36% and those against the commercial sector overall 55%.

• Recent statistics from Thames Valley Police suggest that business crime forms almost 30% of total local crime in their area.

• The Home Office estimates that 44% of the total cost of crime to England and Wales (£60 billion) is suffered by business and other organisations and that the annual cost of fraud is £14 billion.

Summary

Local crime and disorder reduction partnerships now routinely audit public agency data, consult local households and ‘at risk’ groups in the residential sector.

Most, however, do not place a similar emphasis on the business sector and the many individuals who own, work for and use businesses. For example in 1999, 43% of crime and disorder strategies prioritised commercial/business crime, but few included data from consumer protection services or the business sector itself in their audits.

National and international research has shown that similar forms and levels of crime and disorder can take place in both the public and private realms; some may even follow the victim or offender across sectors. It is important that this is also recognised in local research, so that the resulting data builds the foundations of an evidence-led approach.

There are some limited examples of the involvement of the business sector in public crime and disorder consultation; these provide a focus for this practice-led briefing. Such practice has tended to emphasise crime against employers, and particularly crime against static business premises and property. It therefore suggested that a longer-term stakeholder approach be developed to prioritise and tackle crime and disorder in the business sector.

This is the balanced approach advocated in this briefing - one that not only involves employers (including manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and insurers) at all stages of the business cycle, but also involves consumers, employees and shareholders. Key to this approach is the recognition that crime in the business sector can also involve the victimisation of the individual (often related to the movement of people, goods and information, both physically and digitally). Such an approach will ensure that everyone is aware of the scale and impact of crime in the business sector and take concerted action to tackle it.

Conclusion

The audit and consultation processes are the foundation of the problem-solving approach. If the business sector is not involved, public agencies and the public in general will not perceive crime affecting the business sector to be of local importance. National and international research suggests that crime in the business sector is substantial, affects the local economy and community, and results in the victimisation of local individuals.

Business crime is often seen to be a national or international problem (for example, organised or white collar crime), but by also defining it as a community safety issue which affects local people, this paper calls for a more localised debate, data collection, and preventive responses. Nacro need to collect the local evidence, and if it shows that there is a real problem, this should be reflected in local agencies’ strategic priorities and performance indicators.

The full report contains further information on:

• A problem-solving approach to business crime

• Identifying potential stakeholders

• Identifying vulnerable businesses and individuals

• Making initial contact and winning support

• Identifying data sources and establishing information-sharing protocols

• Consulting business and auditing business crime

• Using the results of your audit and consultation

• Conclusion

• Bibliography and further reading

Getting a copy

Making it our Business: Auditing and consulting the business sector on crime and disorder PDF 56Kb

Last update: Wednesday, August 27, 2008