Who can Help?

Successful crime reduction generally depends on combining a range of approaches which:

• Make crime less rewarding and more difficult to commit

• Challenge offenders’ attitudes and behaviour and reduce the risk of young people offending

• Empower individuals and communities to prevent crime and avoid becoming victims

The fact that no one agency can achieve all this alone underlines the importance of effective partnerships.

Ingredients for strong successful partnerships

For local partnerships to be strong and successful a number of ingredients need to be in place. The table (link to table) is a checklist of what makes partnership working successful.

What different partners can contribute

The table (link to table) outlines what various agencies or organisations can contribute to reducing business crime; the benefits for them and possible constraints. It also gives some illustrations, with contact details.

Involving business in crime and disorder reduction partnerships

Local businesses are important partners in reducing business crime. Home Office guidance on the Crime and Disorder Act recognises this, requiring that shopkeepers, retail organisations and other employers should be invited to co-operate with local partnerships, along with trade union organisations and public transport providers.

Link to Home Office guidance at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs/cdaguid.html

To engage local businesses to work with crime reduction partnerships it is worth giving thought to:

• Who to involve? At what level? And in what capacity? (As an individual or a representative?)

• How to make a persuasive case to get business on board in a field that has traditionally been seen as the public sector’s responsibility.

• What role(s) will make best use of their skills and experience.

• How best to link the work with other groupings / work in progress, Eg with town centre and/or retail crime reduction partnerships or with other partnership activity to tackle business crime.

• How businesses can be involved as an integral part of local initiatives, and not merely treated as a source of funding.

Research highlights the importance of making the economic or business case for business involvement in local crime reduction. For example, one study concluded that:

Collaborative and partnership approaches may founder on the ‘economic rationality’ of proprietors if the issue is not addressed in the early stages. Business managers need to be persuaded from the onset that there is a trading benefit for participating in preventive initiatives.

Marlow, A & Wells, M ‘The Impact of Crime on Small Business’ in The Police Journal Vol LXX No 2, April-June 1997.

Good practive guidance, issued by DETR, identifies good practice for local authorities in engaging the business community, and highlights pitfalls to avoid.

DETR (2000) Doing the Business. A Guide for Local Authorities on Engaging the Business Community (York Consulting)