Serious Acquisitive Crime & Business Crime

Acquisitive Crime

Acquisitive crime comprises theft from the person, theft from vehicles, theft of vehicles, cycle theft, vehicle interference and domestic burglary.

Working with the region’s CDRPs we provide support and advice, manage and monitor CDRP’s progress against agreed targets, support improvements in their performance and share best practice of community safety initiatives.

Government schemes that are helping tackle acquisitive crime include the Prolific and Priority Offenders (PPO) and the Drug interventions programme (DIP). More information can be found on the Reducing reoffending page and the Drug interventions programme page respectively.

Since the British Crime Survey (BCS) survey of 2003/04 acquisitive crime has fallen dramatically in the South East. The BCS is one way we effectively measure reductions in the region. Latest figures available (2006/07) show that the recorded crime BCS comparator offences in the region are below the average for England and Wales - 54 offences per 1,000 population regionally compared with 61 offences per population for England and Wales.

Information, examples of best practice and resources for people working to reduce crime are available from the crime reduction website. We welcome from our partners details of initiatives that they have delivered to tackle, reduce and prevent acquisitive crime and which we can share as best practice across the region.

We are currently developing a Self Help Pack for CDRPs to help them think through their approach to analysing and tackling acquisitive crime and will include guidance, best practice and proposed interventions. This will be available shortly.

From April 2008 we will be working on the delivery of a new Public Service Agreement (PSA 23) in reducing crime.  The offences that are included in this new PSA are:

• burglary in a dwelling
• aggravated burglary in a dwelling
• robbery of business property
• robbery of personal property
• theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle
• aggravated vehicle taking
• theft from a vehicle

PSA 23 focuses on making communities safer and we will continue to work and support the region's Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships and will drive local delivery by negotiating local area agreements for the serious acquisitive crime indicator.

Business Crime

Following a public consultation exercise at the beginning of 2003 a Business Crime Team was established within the Home Office.  The Team was tasked with developing a strategy for working more closely with businesses to reduce crime. The resulting strategy focused on five key areas:

• obtaining regular and accurate information on the levels and types of business crime
• developing a central advice/support service for businesses
• improving links between business and existing partnerships
• implementing measures to reduce retail crime
• raising business awareness of its capacity and responsibility to reduce crime

The crime strategy ‘Cutting Crime’ 2008-2011 includes a focus on business crime and the need to reduce opportunities to commit crime and in turn reduce the impact of crime and the fear of crime. In the first year of this strategy the Home Office will be working with the following sectors to achieve these aims:

• Environmental development & planning – designing out crime from new development
• Manufacturing industry – design out crime from mobile electronic products
• Retail sector – working with them through the creation of a new retail Crime Strategy Group
• Banking industry – working with them on the introduction of technical design solutions to fraud
• Identify fraud – working closely with them via the Identify Fraud Steering Committee
• Raise profile of crime against businesses – ensure CDRPs engaged with business community as part of the Strategic Assessment

The role of the Government Offices will be in raising the profile of crime against businesses in the region.

Information about crimes experienced by businesses, what the Government is doing and where businesses can go for more help is available from the crime reduction website. We welcome from our partners details of initiatives that they have delivered to tackle, reduce and prevent business crime and which we can share as best practice across the region.