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Implementing Business Watch: problems and solutions
The Australian Institute of Criminology has published this paper as part of a project investigating crimes against small businesses, funded by the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department's National Crime Prevention Program. A survey of Business Watch participants and others within the scheme area shows a severe lack of awareness about the program which in turn results in low levels of participation.
Title: Implementing Business Watch: problems and solutions
Author: Natalie Taylor
Series: Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice No 244
Number of pages: 6 pages
Date published: December 2002
This paper reports on a process evaluation of a Business Watch program currently underway in the Northern Territory. The evaluation was undertaken due to a lack of evidence of Business Watch as an effective crime prevention tool in spite of its apparent popularity. The evaluation investigated how many businesses became actively involved in the scheme, the percentage of businesses being targeted who were aware of its existence, reasons for non-involvement, perceived objectives of the scheme, perceived effectiveness and willingness to become involved in future programs.
The paper shows that dissemination of information to participants is a critical issue, with 30 % of the survey respondents actually unaware that a Business Watch program was in place. Only 66% of members who were aware of the program knew about each component, with even fewer becoming involved. Reasons for non-involvement included belief that a particular component was not useful, an unwillingness or lack of enthusiasm on the part of the participant and the presence of other security systems at their business.
There was some confusion about the objectives of the Business Watch program and few participants felt they could make an assessment of the effectiveness of the scheme. Almost half of the businesses aware of the current program were unwilling to commit to future involvement in Business Watch, at least as it currently stood.
The evaluation illustrates the level of difficulty experienced in implementing a Business Watch program. The problem of time, enthusiasm and competition, dissemination, and targeted goals and evaluation need to be addressed for a Business Watch to succeed in any measure. Steps can be taken to overcome these issues and there is still a market for Business Watch. Further evaluative studies are recommend to establish whether programs are meeting objectives and are worth pursuing as a crime prevention strategy for businesses.
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Thanks to the European Crime Prevention Network (EU CPN) for highlighting this publication.
Last update: 3/4/03