Christian Harrison leads Central BID Birmingham’s Business Crime Reduction Partnership(BCRP), which works on behalf of businesses to prevent and reduce shoplifting and other offending.
He appeared on BBC Radio WM’s Ed James Show today(April 22) to explain the breakthrough work to address shop theft in central Birmingham and advised retailers and other business to “always report every crime”.
Central BID and the BCRP team have already saved Birmingham’s retail sector over £7million in potential shop theft after its intelligence from stores helped jail over 300 repeat offenders in a year.
The expert – a former Police Inspector for Birmingham city centre who now works for Central BID on its UK-leading crime prevention service – told the BBC: “There’s £2.5billion worth of retail theft in the UK and Birmingham is no different to other cities.”
Christian explained: “By coming together and recognising that retail is suffering, along with the size and scale of the problem and that there is vast under-reporting of these crimes, we are making a difference.”
“But businesses must keep reporting these incidents,” he added, so that police could get a realistic picture of what was taking place and allocate suitable resources.
In Birmingham, Central BID’s BCRP has been able to tackle shoplifting by working in partnership with West Midlands Police and British Transport Police, which both have officers based within the BCRP team.
They have access to intelligence from Central BID’s dedicated DISC crime reporting system, which logs incidents reported by shops and businesses in the area, often through the BID’s City Safe radio scheme.
Central BID’s Business Support Officers also liaise directly with businesses during high visibility patrols and are ‘eyes and ears on the ground’ for BID members and able to gather information.
Christian added: “We’ve found 10% of offenders are causing 70% of all retail crime and it’s these repeat offenders that we are going after as a crime reduction partnership involving the police. We are working together to target it.
“We have to be smart when challenging this problem. In the last 12 months, we’ve seen 300 offenders apprehended and imprisoned. The saving we are making to the retail sector has been about £7.5million.”
Crime Reduction and Safe and Secure are two of Central BID’s main five priorities, along with offering businesses in their area Business Support, Events and Footfall boosting projects and keeping central Birmingham Clean and Green.