Environmental Criminology Research Unit (ECRU), Department of Civic Design, University of Liverpool email: douglass@liverpool.ac.uk

Abstract

Business Crime Direct is an initiative funded by the Home Office's Targeted Policing Programme which aims to reduce crime against small businesses throughout Merseyside. It was envisaged that this initiative would build on the experience of previous research, which had found that it was crucial to access those harder-to reach businesses that saw crime as an inevitable part of everyday life; these were often the most victimised businesses. It was also seen as important to provide a continued support service to those at the greatest risk, to maintain and extend the longevity of the effect of any assistance that was given and to increase the momentum of crime prevention efforts. BCD was therefore set up using a call centre to manage potential recipients of security improvements and to grant assistance. It would so this by receiving inward enquiries and making outward contact with businesses, and referring those of the latter most at risk to Security Advice Officers, who then made site visits. This dual approach to managing the contact between businesses and crime prevention experts, along with accurate recording of the history of this contact, should assist in providing such long-term support to hard-to-reach higher-risk businesses. The extent to which the service achieved these aims, and the problems experienced in implementing such an innovative scheme, are discussed in this paper.