A political war of words has broken out between the MP for Bracknell in Berkshire and the Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner over claims that shop staff should confront shoplifters. The Conservative PCC Matthew Barber told a Police and Crime Panel that bystanders and shop staff need to do more to "challenge" shoplifters.
The Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has welcomed news that his force has increased the charges for shoplifting offences by 98 per cent. Matthew Barber said he was "pleased" to see 1,691 shoplifting charges made between April and October across Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Milton Keynes. This is compared with 852 for the same period in 2023.
Emergency measures to ease prison overcrowding have been activated by the Ministry of Justice after hundreds of rioters were charged for their roles in the recent unrest that included the looting of retail stores.
The new offence will carry a maximum sentence of six months in jail.
A UK police force is giving shopkeepers and retail security staff in its area an indelible DNA "marking spray" to target prolific shoplifters from a safe distance.
Chair of the National Business Crime Solution (NBCS) calls upon the wider retail and law enforcement communities to reset priorities to better identify and prosecute prolific offenders.
Government Tools Up to Fight Equipment Theft Impacting UK Businesses
More than 100 of the UK’s leading retail voices have written to Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales, calling on them to commit to making retail crime a priority in local policing strategies.
Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Katy Bourne has called on retailers to sign up to the region’s Safe Space scheme which has been designed to help people who feel unsafe outside their home.
Anti-competitive practices are being investigated by international regulators concerned over the operation of cartels masking their activities behind pandemic-related disruption across the global supply chain.
Katy Bourne, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners’ lead on business crime, talks to Loss Prevention Magazine Europe about ‘levelling-up’ and the sharing of good practice.
Sweeping new laws to restore public faith in the criminal justice are set to enter the statute book.
The Home Office has put aside an additional £60 million to reimburse police forces across England and Wales for their increased enforcement of the Coronavirus rules.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced plans to invest a further £30 million in securing the capital’s policing capability.
Counter Terrorism Policing knows how busy businesses and local communities are, preparing for the changes in restrictions and understand the challenges everyone has faced this year. Whilst planning for COVID-19, we ask that businesses and community representatives support the Winter Vigilance campaign and amplify the safety and security messaging and help to deter those who look to do others harm.
Offenders with minor criminal records such as shoplifting will no longer have to disclose them to employers under new laws designed to help rehabilitation efforts that came into force on 28 November 2020.
The Home Office is to get tough on EU criminals from next year when they could be barred from entering the UK under new border rules designed to make the country safer.
Just days after non-essential stores have been allowed to re-open, a stark warning has been issued relating to the multi-million pound online frauds committed in the three months since they were forced to close.
Social media ‘baiting’ during the Coronavirus lockdown could be stoking an atmosphere where gang violence spills onto the streets as restrictions are lifted, according to a senior police officer.
Fake menthol tobacco products have been seized in the UK in the run up to the ban on the cigarettes in May 2020.
An international trade body has set out a blueprint for a global tobacco control system that can cut fraudulent trade and promote best practice.
The police service is announcing a new partnership with online marketplace Wish that will tackle the sale of illegal knives in the UK.
The Government has announced a new increased funding package of more than £1 billion for the police.
Home Secretary Priti Patel has been advised by one of the UK’s most senior police officers that the Government needs to attract twice the number of recruits to get the forces back to 2009 levels.
Police have welcomed a 20,000 boost in new officer numbers from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but the views of operational officers must be at the heart of any policing reform if it’s to really make a difference, according to a new report from the Police Federation of England and Wales.
The City of London Police, the force that oversees Action Fraud is launching an investigation after an undercover operation by The Times newspaper at its call handler training centre filmed one instructor telling raw recruits that police were ‘useless people’ who would do anything to avoid investigating fraud.
The controversial Offensive Weapons Act, introducing tough new measures to strengthen law enforcement’s response to violent crime, has received Royal Assent.
There are at least 181,000 offenders linked to serious and organised crime in the UK, according to the NCA as it launched its most comprehensive study yet of the deadliest threats facing the nation.
Fraud victims are being betrayed by police who fail to investigate tens of thousands of scams, according to a report from police watchdog Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS).
Tackling violent crime across the capital is in the sights of the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan as he published his multi-million-pound budget.
The Mayors Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) will be holding a Business Community Public Safety Summit this Spring.
The Home Office has announced a £14 billion cash injection into the police budget, the largest increase in funding since 2010.
Consumer watchdog Which? has claimed that several major retailers are breaching data protection laws after an investigation found many were including unwanted marketing information on e-receipts sent to shoppers.
Online giant Amazon has teamed up with US police in an attempt to put a halt to parcel pilfering over Christmas.
How the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) determines whether a criminal case should be prosecuted.
How the British Transport Police is getting the measure of travelling retail crime
Home Secretary Sajid Javid unveiled the Offensive Weapons Bill on June 20th to make it harder for young people to buy knives and acid online with sellers requiring rigorous age verification to prove those purchasing knives or corrosives are over 18.
Business are being urged to give ex-offenders a chance at employment.
Operation Sceptre is a national anti-knife crime initiative targeting those who carry, use, supply and import weapons.
Business crime is on the Government agenda after Home Secretary Amber Rudd has announced the creation of the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) within the National Crime Agency (NCA).
If you ask most people what the acronym ESP stands for, they would probably answer extra sensory perception or the ability to foresee events through means other than the physical senses we are all born with.
Police forces are struggling to stem the tide of ‘genuine increases’ in crime, according to figures published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
Shocking new figures released this week highlight that almost three quarters of modern slavery victims are women.
Rank and file police officers need to be more tech-savvy to fight cyber-crime, according to a new report.
The National Business Crime Solution (NBCS), a not for profit initiative that enables the sharing of data between law enforcement agencies and the business community in order to reduce crime, is embarking on the next stage of its development after securing significant government funding.
The UK General Election and the Manchester terrorist attack have drawn fresh attention to the threat to crime intelligence sharing across Europe post-Brexit.
British Home Secretary Amber Rudd has announced a Government investment of £6 million in ambitious projects designed to tackle modern slavery around the world and provide vital support for victims.
Criminals are being shown that crime doesn’t pay as the Metropolitan Police Service reveals it has seized more than £73 million from convicted perpetrators during 2015-2016 - the largest total seized in London in a single year since the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) came into force back in 2002.
The National Business Crime Solution (NBCS), winner of the Retail Risk award for Best Crime Partnership 2016, has recently met with several member businesses to look at how it can support retailers to tackle the growing issue of foreign national offending.
Concerns that the UK Government is about to cut its ties with Europol and its co-operation on cross border organised crime as part of a tough Brexit negotiating strategy, may have been unfounded.
Christmas shoppers in Ireland are being urged to be more vigilant as they prepare for the festive season as part of a national ‘day of safety’ organised by An Garda Siochana.
Law enforcement agencies will be given new powers to seize the proceeds of crime (POCA) and demand criminals explain the origins of their wealth under new legislation that has just been issued by the Government.
Modern slavery, an offence often hidden in plain sight, is to become the focus of a new police crackdown.
More than 450 international senior police officers gathered at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague for the 2016 European Police Chiefs Convention (EPCC) for what was the highest ever turnout at the Convention.
One million people who work in crowded places in the UK are to be trained over the next 12 months in how to deal with a possible terrorist attack.
The Police chief in charge of UK business crime is urging businesses to back a public private partnership to crack organised and industrial scale crime.
Europe is currently facing the most significant terrorist threat the region has experienced in over a decade, according to the EU.
The heads of Interpol and Europol have called for urgent and coordinated action by law enforcement to identify and disrupt the organised crime networks behind unprecedented levels of people smuggling.
Tough new sanctions aimed at businesses that employ slave labour will be introduced this October.
New legislation aimed at tackling the illegal use of specialist printing equipment is being welcomed by the trade body representing the global hologram industry.
How collaboration between the National Business Crime Solution, StoreGuard, Retailers and the Police really works to reduce business crime.
Europol has taken down a highly organised crime group linked to human trafficking. Based in the UK and Slovakia, the criminal gang is suspected of trafficking people, including children for proposed exploitation in forced labour and social benefit fraud.
A leading fleet expert is calling on industry to be aware of new UK drug driving rules surrounding the limits of both illegal and prescription medication that could put drivers on the wrong side of the law.
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, has taken the bold step of confirming what many retailers have been fearing - that tougher Policing priorities have to be agreed in the teeth of deeper service cuts.
International organised crime costs the UK £24 billion every year with networks behaving like nation states or large corporations, according to UK Home Secretary Teresa May, who is establishing a Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce.
The City of London Police has formed a new media partnership to help its intelligence team reach retailers with quick time fraud alerts.
Richard Stones, Security Director, National Business Crime Forum, talks about how retailers must collaborate and share data to reduce crime.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary’s (HMIC) latest report reveals that victims of criminality receive a different response from the Police for the same kind of incident depending on where they live.
Catherine Bowen, Policy & Stakeholder Director for the National Business Crime Solution (NBCS) looks back at the first half of this year’s successes and explains how the NBCS is helping to keep business crime on the agenda.
Police in Merseyside, UK are trialling a more proactive approach to retail crime as part of a wider cross-agency strategy.
Our reliance on computers has absolutely exploded in recent years. The concepts of social media, big data, and bring your own device (BYOD) are very recent developments. One could argue that our lives are now dependent on our access to computers and the Internet.
Retailers with ‘hot’ stores – those in mainly urban centres where levels of theft are high – are more likely to employ security guards than store detectives, according to a recent poll of retailers.
Deputy Chief Constable for Nottingham and ACPO national lead on business crime, Sue Fish talks about collaborative working with retailers and how to be “legally audacious” in fighting fraud.
