Identifying Problems: A checklist

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ISSUE

QUESTIONS

1. What types of crime against businesses are occurring?
  • What are the number of crimes involving businesses?:
  •                - criminal damage

                   - commercial burglary

                   - robbery

                   - shop theft

                   - violence against staff

                   - fraud and forgery

                   - racially aggravated offences

    • How does this relate to the number of businesses?
    • What are the number and rates of incidents involving businesses?
              - juvenile nuisance

              - vandalism/graffiti

              - verbal abuse

              - harassment / intimidation

              - racially motivated incident

              - disorder on licensed premises

    • How does this relate to the number of businesses?
    • How do crime and incident rates compare with other areas?
    • What patterns and trends can be detected?

    2. Where is crime occurring?

     

     

     

    • Are there particular hotspots (neighbourhoods, shopping centres or industrial estates)?
    • Are there particular types of location? (Eg outdoor shopping parade; industrial estates near housing?)
    • Do locations share common physical features? E.g. ease of access/egress

    3. When?

     

    • Do crimes and incidents cluster at particular times of the day, week, month or year?
    • Can links be detected with shift or other working patterns?
    4. Who or what is the target?

     

    • What types of business (sector, size, situation) are most vulnerable?
    • Is there evidence of racial motivation?
    • What security features did the business possess?
    • What was stolen / what damage was caused?
    5. Are repeats occurring?

     

    • If so, within what period?
    • Is there evidence of crime ‘migrating’ to similar properties nearby?
    6. What is the impact?

     

     

    • What concerns businesses the most?
    • What is the value of items stolen, damage caused or business lost?
    • Is crime / fear of crime affecting business confidence/decisions?
    • Are customers deterred from coming to the location?
    7. What is known about offenders?

     

    What is known about offenders;

    • Age
    • Gender
    • Ethnicity
    • Where they live
    • Persistent offending behaviour
    • Motivation
    • Risk factors associated with offending e.g. drug misuse

    8. How are they doing it?

     

    • What is known about offenders’ mode of operation? (This may give clues about the sophistication of offenders involved and inform the responses put in place.)
    • How are goods disposed of?
    9. Contextual Information and information on risk factors

     

     

    • Social, environmental and economic factors associated with business and retail crime.

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