Business and Retail Crime

Crimes committed against commercial businesses fall into a series of sub topics from fraud;  to factory and farm thefts; to retail theft;  to cash in transit robberies, to copyright theft. The descriptions of these, their impact and projects and programme to challenge them can be found on the UK government  Business and Retail Crime mini site ( Home Office 'toolkit' giving the background to specific area of offending, an analysis of the issues and local).

Specialist crime prevention organisations exist to offer advice and develop actions to tackle the issues and at a local level police Crime Reduction Officers and Community Safety specialists will actively advise on the issues. The  Action Against Business Crime  site from this umbrella organisation  offers a guidance to the issues, up to date news on projects and links to member organisations sites for retail and business crime. Additionally, many of the larger companies have their own advisers and security personnel who will deal with these matters in-house. Other links are below.

It is generally accepted that business and retail crime is hard to measure but it is accepted that 'businesses are at greater risk of crime than domestic households.... (and) the risk of repeat incidents, and the costs of incidents, are also greater for businesses than for private households.' (UK Home Office).

The impact of this type of crime is significant - effecting employment prospects in areas, company profitability, access to retail and business outlets for communities etc. The impact is variable but is especially significant for Small Retailers, and the communities they serve, in deprived areas (and that is not to reduce concern about these crimes of fraud, theft, robbery etc. for all the retail and business community).

  Business and Retail Crime Good Practice Links