It has become abundantly clear that it’s businesses, whether local or national multiples, who bore the brunt of the mindless rampages that swept across England last week.
In point of fact, many retailers were actually targeted by way of social media sites as having the ‘most desirable’ goods to steal. Much of that ill-gained stock, of course, will now be on show at car boot sales and in the less reputable pubs.
All of which leaves business owners with significant loss, damage and – in some cases – total destruction.
There are a significant number of publications – both print and online format – containing lots of photos of actual looting as well as acts of criminality. Pleasingly, individuals have already been identified and targeted for arrest as a result of those images having been displayed.
However, newspapers will be used to wrap fish and chip suppers within a few days while the news media websites will be on to ‘the next big story’ if no further trouble erupts.
There’s a good deal of information being passed around on the looters and rioters, then, and much of it pictorial in nature, but is it being sorted out and disseminated to the right people?
We’ll surely also reach a tipping point whereby there’s dwindling interest from members of the public, the Government and maybe even the police service as other priorities hove into view.
Engineering a new digital platform
To its great credit, Cardinal Group isn’t prepared to let that situation come to pass, and has duly engineered a digital platform whereby the retailers can ‘hit back’ at those who’ve callously robbed from or otherwise trashed their High Street outlets.
“Put simply, we have set up a website at www.crimeintel.com,” explained operations director Jim Gibson. “We’re inviting anyone to log-on to a simple screen and upload photographs of suspected offenders and some basic facts regarding the image, the place it was captured, the date and time of capture, etc. We’ll then place this information directly onto the Cr:iisp platform that’s already in use by local crime partnerships and which has a successful track record of identifying unknown offenders via local intelligence.”
In practice, the uploaded images will be shared as ‘galleries’ to identify offenders and energise police action to bring them to justice.
“We have also established a space on our CRIISP-lp platform for this crime-fighting initiative,” continued Gibson, “and we will be providing retailers and other businesses with a free log-on ID so that they can upload photos and or CCTV images of offenders and details of any incidents they’ve witnessed.”
All those with a log-on will be able to share this information and view statistical reports and maps of the incidents. A search facility is also included as part of the package.
“As I said,” stated Gibson, “crime-fighting partnerships in the areas affected are being contacted to provide them with a log-on ID so they can review the photo ‘galleries’ and circulate them within their local communities to establish the identities of the offenders and prompt police intervention. If any readers of Info4Security and SMT Online are aware of a crime-fighting partnership that would benefit from this service then please ask its representatives to visit the site and request a personal ID.”
Vibrant retail and business communities
In an altruistic move, Gibson and his colleagues are keen to ensure that commercial concerns create “a vibrant retail and business community” by taking proactive steps towards preventing the kind of criminality we’ve witnessed of late from happening again (and thus further impacting on trade and profitability).
“The police and the Government will only continue to hold these incidents as a priority if they’re maintained as high profile cases,” asserted Gibson.
“The more cases that are indentified and brought to trial over the coming weeks and months,” he suggested, “the greater the publicity and impact that will have.”
The Cardinal Group isn’t viewing this development as a ‘quick win’, but rather as a longer term project designed to protect all businesses large and small within the local communities in which they trade.
“It’s all about a crime-fighting partnership approach where data and intelligence sharing is a central component in tackling all business crime and anti-social behaviour,” stressed Gibson, “and where the business community can take a lead, together with the police, in helping to create safer and more prosperous environments.”
In conclusion, Gibson told SMT Online: “National coverage is great for whipping up public fervour in terms of the desire to catch criminals, but identification of suspects really has to happen at a local level. By providing a site for crime partnership managers where they can see the offenders’ details, this means that over the coming weeks and even months those offenders will still be vivid to local business communities and, hopefully, brought to justice.”