{"id":86,"date":"2016-07-12T13:40:38","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T13:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/?page_id=86"},"modified":"2016-07-12T13:40:38","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T13:40:38","slug":"crime-and-the-business-community","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/speeches\/crime-and-the-business-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime and the business community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Business Crime Seminar<\/em>
\nThames Valley Chamber of Commerce and Industry<\/em><\/strong>
\n24 July 2001<\/p>\n

\n

It’s been a long morning, so I will not go over the ground so excellently covered by previous speakers.\u00a0 Instead, I will underline some points and then take you to some places where you may not have expected.\u00a0 My purpose in doing so is not only to push ahead the Government’s agenda on crime – for that is my job – but also to help to make your business more profitable, which can’t be bad.<\/p>\n

Business crime has three major aspects:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • crimes against the business, and we’ve heard quite a lot about that this morning;<\/li>\n
  • crime associated with your product or service, about which we have heard rather less; and<\/li>\n
  • crime and your staff, and it may surprise you that I raise at all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    As far as crimes against your business<\/strong> is concerned, I hope you have got the message that all agencies of the criminal justice system take it seriously.<\/p>\n

    In relation to retail crime, the British Retail Consortium’s annual survey demonstrates how retail crime can fall dramatically when it is tackled by a partnership of retailers, police, local authorities and town centre managers. For example, the Romford Partnership against Retail Crime has reduced the incidence of retail crime by 27% in two years through its use of CCTV, radio links, exclusion notices and offender targeting schemes.<\/p>\n

    A serious issue, of course, is that businesses can be hard-nosed about crime.\u00a0 Some businesses take the view that it is more profitable not to invest in security and just call the police when a theft takes place.\u00a0 Some stores are singlehandedly responsible for a significant proportion of crime in their town simply because they promote their goods in an unsafe way.<\/p>\n

    One of the most famous examples is putting CDs or records in open stacks rather than behind the till.\u00a0 I know that a CD costs less than \u00a33 so may not be worth defending.\u00a0 But, if you have decided that you don’t mind losing the CD and, I\u00a0suspect, have no intention of making an insurance claim, why call the police?\u00a0 Just because the service is free to you?\u00a0 An investigation and\u00a0 prosecution costs the taxpayer about \u00a33500 for starters and this kind of crime is on the increase.\u00a0 And who loses, who are the victims, when police time is taken up on this kind of business?<\/p>\n

    The truth of the matter is that looking to the criminal justice system to protect you against crime is like regarding A&E as a way of protecting you against accidents.<\/p>\n

    Other examples of highly preventable crime are allowing cars to leave petrol stations without paying; not having real security on many cash machines, for instance spraying the wadges of notes with dye when the machines are carried off in a forklift; and the general resistance to having greater security on payment cards.<\/p>\n

    As far as payment cards are concerned, you may have heard of the possible introduction of chips or PIN numbers to reduce fraudulent use of credit cards.\u00a0 There is also the possibility of a joint police-industry team working to tackle organised payment card and cheque fraud, and better exchange of intelligence information across the two sides.<\/p>\n

    From a business point of view, offences like these can be offset against increased revenue or lower costs: but society sees and fears rising crime.\u00a0 In the Thames Valley area, increases in crimes of this kind – described as “Other crime” in the statistics – may even wipe out the significant improvements that have been achieved with target crimes like house burglary and vehicle crime.<\/p>\n

    But we must not overlook the simpler bread-and-butter of crime reduction.\u00a0 Securing your car parks as well as your premises.\u00a0 There are private car parks – including at some quality hotels – which are not as secure as the local authority’s. \u00a0They are exposing their customers and their cars to unnecessary risk and they, too, push up crime.<\/p>\n

    On the more positive side, it is possible for businesses to play their part in trying to keep the community safe.\u00a0 For instance, by allowing the local council to put a CCTV mast on your land, or the cables across your land.\u00a0 Even better, allowing them to put it on your building if that is what the sightlines require.<\/p>\n

    There are some excellent companies who not only do that but clean and maintain the camera for the public good: and there are some who are just difficult, who may not want crime but don’t want to do anything to help.\u00a0 I am sure everyone here would wish to be in the first group.\u00a0 Reflect on what your company’s policy is and decide whether it is right.\u00a0 And if you would like public recognition for this, I don’t think that would be a problem.<\/p>\n

    My second point is about your product or your service<\/strong>.\u00a0 One of the first lessons learnt by any criminologist is that all new inventions or developments are associated with new crime.\u00a0 2000 years or more years ago when coins were invented, they soon needed to retrofit security to avoid fraud. You would have shocked Henry Ford if you had told him that his product would be become the single biggest driver of crime in the 20th<\/sup> century and we are only just beginning to get cars anywhere near an acceptable level of security.<\/p>\n

    The same story reappears, as night follows day, with mobile phones and the internet which are today’s insecure inventions creating significant crime waves all of their own.\u00a0 And, to finish with a seasonal example, we heard earlier this year how cricket can be the vehicle for major and serious crimes.<\/p>\n

    I’m not blaming Henry Ford or the brilliant inventors of modern telephony and the internet for these crimes. The problem is that we are not brought up to think about crime early enough.\u00a0 You wouldn’t be allowed to market a product which endangered health.\u00a0 We need to think in a similar way about crime.<\/p>\n

    I\u00a0know the urgency of getting the product to the market early but the history of criminology is also full of examples of where insecure products have led to massive losses – losses on insecure mobile phones might do and, if it were a product, I don’t suppose the cricket scandals have done the game a great deal of good.<\/p>\n

    Sure, the Government is prepared to play its part.\u00a0 It has announced a cash injection of \u00a325m to boost the police service\u2019s capability to investigate crime committed through computers, including fraud, extortion, hacking and paedophilia.<\/p>\n

    This\u00a0 will enable each force to have at least one dedicated hi-tech crime investigator with expert knowledge of Internet technology.\u00a0 The Prime Minister has also announced plans to establish a National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, which will start in April 2001.<\/p>\n

    These changes should place the UK at the forefront of the international fight against cybercrime and, in line with our G8 commitments, help fund a 24-hour international hot line to trade information on potential attacks on the national infrastructure and promote closer cross border working.\u00a0 We take this seriously.<\/p>\n

    My third point is about your staff<\/strong>.\u00a0 It might surprise you that I raise this at all, especially as I am not going to talk about employee theft which is an issue all of itself.<\/p>\n

    Your staff are your most valuable resource and sickness and low morale are expensive.<\/p>\n

    Which is why I want to raise the importance of domestic violence.\u00a0 It is commonplace and accounts for perhaps 60% of all violent offences.\u00a0 The tip of the iceberg is represented in this country by the two women who are killed each week by their partner or ex-partner.\u00a0 Below that grim summit, there is endless beating, cruelty and depression.<\/p>\n

    Violence against women is so commonplace that at some stage it affects one women in three.\u00a0 Some will be in your workforce yet, while you will have provisions in place for back pain and RSI,\u00a0 I doubt if many of you have anything in place to handle the effects of violence in the home. And, if victims are commonplace, so are perpetrators.<\/p>\n

    There is no doubt in my mind that this will be having an impact on the health of your business.\u00a0 Safeguarding the welfare of your staff is not only a good thing but good business sense.<\/p>\n

    How would you take this forward if you wanted to?\u00a0 There are a number of options.\u00a0 First, your crime and disorder partnership should be able to help.\u00a0 The police are members of that, and your personnel people may wish to contact them direct; or they can access the Home Office website which I will put up as I finish.\u00a0 That contains good links and advice, including how to get in to the health and safety aspects of this.\u00a0 You need to devise a method of supporting your member of staff and helping her manage both her work and home life.\u00a0 That is nothing like as difficult as it sounds if the victim has help: it is pretty ghastly if she doesn’t.<\/p>\n

    Lots of aspects of crime have the potential to cost you money.\u00a0 But then there is a further hurdle to doing anything about it.\u00a0 Largely because of the media<\/strong>, too many of us have formed the view that there is nothing much you can do about crime except grin and bear it – that we are helpless and must nothing works.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s always a pleasure to see the press but I suspect that they won’t report what follows.\u00a0 We have a distorted view of crime because of the rather distorted view we generally get through the media.<\/p>\n

    It is plain wrong to think that there is nothing we can do about crime.\u00a0 Crime has been falling<\/strong> in this country for six or seven years and this year recorded crime fell in all the English regions, including the South East.\u00a0 It fell in the Thames Valley area by nearly 9%.<\/p>\n

    Burglary, for instance, has fallen for the last eight successive years.\u00a0 Last year, domestic burglary fell by 9% and non-domestic by 6.6%.\u00a0 The Government is on course to reach its target of reducing domestic burglary by 25% between 1998\/99 and 2004\/05. This is not magic.\u00a0 This is largely as the result of people taking simple and common-sense precautions.\u00a0 21% of burglars enter through an unlocked door and a further 6% through an open window.\u00a0 We could shut out those offenders for a start.<\/p>\n

    The theft of cars has similarly been falling – by 7% last year and is now below a million for the first time in 13 years.\u00a0 Again, the Government is on course to meet its target of a 30% reduction in the five years to 2003\/04.<\/p>\n

    Much of that is also because of improved security.\u00a0 But 10% of people still do not even lock their cars.\u00a0 There are things your company can do to stop its cars being stolen and laptops being taken from the backseat of your company’s vehicles when your staff are filling up at Thames Valley’s petrol stations.<\/p>\n

    But perhaps most of all I should get the message across that we catch most offenders. Known offenders account for the vast majority of reported crime.\u00a0 It may surprise you to hear this but, in this country, we catch and punish the vast majority of persistent offenders.\u00a0 People who go on committing offences get caught and are punished for it.<\/p>\n

    It would be unrealistic to think that we could ever detect or prosecute every offence, so the experience of most of us will be that “our” offender is not caught.\u00a0 We hear a lot about detection rates for offences, but not for offenders.\u00a0 But call in at any court and see how offenders are brought to justice so regularly that they have strings of convictions. Our prisons are full: indeed the prison population is rising rather fast.\u00a0 There aren’t many who are getting away with it.\u00a0 A major part of the Government’s drive to reduce crime is to target the relatively small number of people who account for the vast majority of offences.\u00a0 We know who they are.<\/p>\n

    And that again is where you can help us.\u00a0 Businesses don’t like reporting crime.\u00a0 That’s not surprising.\u00a0 Most victims – whether battered wives or multinational conglomerates – don’t like reporting crime: the offence was bad enough and the hassle of the aftermath is something we could do without.<\/p>\n

    But the police can’t detect and convict offenders if they don’t get the full picture, if they are simply not told about the offences which are being committed.\u00a0 We have made a big drive to get higher levels of reporting for the top-level crimes of violence against women and race crimes.\u00a0 Better co-operation with the business community over the crimes which are taking place and better intelligence about them will help the police.\u00a0 For their part, the police are greatly improving their handling of this.<\/p>\n

    Which brings me to Crimestoppers.<\/strong>\u00a0 Thames Valley has an active and energetic Crimestoppers.\u00a0 This enables people to give information to the police anonymously and even, sometimes, to claim a reward for doing so.\u00a0 It is a valuable initiative led by Roy Trustram-Eve, who is here today.\u00a0 Please support it.\u00a0 Publicise the Crimestoppers number throughout your company.\u00a0 If you are in media, consider giving Crimestoppers a plug.<\/p>\n

    As I have the floor and this is the last formal presentation before the question session, I would like to finish with some\u00a0thanks<\/strong>: to Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce and Industry for setting up this seminar, to those who have contributed this morning – and we have heard some excellent speakers – and also to you for coming along and taking part and being prepared to get engaged.<\/p>\n

    This is a super part of England with real resources and an excellent quality of life.\u00a0 An integral part of that quality of life is a low crime rate, so maintaining it is in all of our interests, makes it a nice place to live and work and keeps costs down.<\/p>\n

    Although we use crime as entertainment, it’s not funny.\u00a0 Even small crimes fuel the economy for bigger ones.\u00a0 There is no acceptable level of crime, and there are no crimes which are fun.\u00a0 Victims will tell you that.\u00a0 If we are not clear on that point, we lose the plot. Reducing crime involves real co-operation and sometimes giving priority to some longer-term and wider considerations.\u00a0 I\u00a0am grateful to you for coming here today to engage in that debate.<\/p>\n

    \n

    Address given by Hugh Marriage OBE
    \nCrime Reduction Director, Government Office for the South East<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Business Crime Seminar Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce and Industry 24 July 2001 It’s been a long morning, so I will not go over the ground so excellently covered by previous speakers.\u00a0 Instead, I will underline some points and then take you to some places where you may not have expected.\u00a0 My purpose in doing so is not only to push ahead the Government’s agenda on crime – for that is my job – but also to help to make…<\/p>\n

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