New 'travelling offenders' database for crime reduction partnerships

Action Against Business Crime has announced that it will set up a database and incident reporting system aimed at identifying and reporting on prolific, high-value, national and regional travelling offenders. The database will be made available to all AABC-accredited crime reduction partnerships.

The service, initially called the Business Crime Information Service (BCIS), will enable accredited BCRPs to circulate information and images about these offenders, their vehicles, MOs and other relevant information, as well as information about unidentified high-value offenders where further information is being sought by a BCRP to identify them.

At a future stage  the service will be opened to retailers so that they can provide AABC members with information which they may not have. Further on, AABC will be talking to the police and other organisations to discuss whether there are ways in which AABC can extend the service to them.

The system will allow Administrators or crime managers of AABC-accredited Partnerships to contribute mugshots of known travelling offenders, and to browse images of similar individuals contributed by other Partnerships. Linking like this means information can be shared between Partnerships, addressing the key issue of travelling offenders who are, often, the most prolific and account for a high proportion of total retail theft and fraud, as well as other crime.

BCIS will be managed centrally by AABC, which has been working with the Information Commissioner's office to ensure that the database itself, and the provision of the service, is compliant with data protection legislation and privacy Good Practice. The service will be accessible through the AABC website through a separate password-protected gateway. The service will only be available to BCRPs who are current members of AABC.

The new system is to be implemented by Littoralis Limited, based on a version of the company's existing BCRP Intranet product which is used by crime reduction partnerships throughout the country.

William Price, AABC director, said, "This is the first step of a project to provide member BCRPs with the sort of services which they need so that they can play an even more central role in fighting business crime.  We hope we will be able to offer the service to members before the end of the year, and we are also talking to retailers and other businesses about the type of support that they can provide to BCRPs as part of a closer working relationship which will provide benefits to everyone."

Read more about AABC on their website at www.businesscrime.org.uk

Read more about BCRP Intranet on their website at www.bcrp-intranet.com