Retail crime prevention day touted as ‘most successful yet’
A MAJOR crackdown against crime took place in Glasgow City Centre as part of Retailers Against Crime‘s (RAC) Day of Action initiative in the city.
The retail crime prevention experts teamed up with Police Scotland to organise an intensive Day of Action in the city centre which resulted in five arrests as well as an additional 12 people charged with offences including shoplifting and drug possession.
RAC has called it its most successful Day of Action yet as the firm continues to stand up to the rise in retail crime across Scotland.
Stephanie Karté, national operations manager at RAC, said: “This was our most successful Day of Action so far with an outstanding turnout from retailers and our partners.
“A good number of offenders were prevented from shoplifting and causing anti-social behaviour on the day.
“Days like these are so important and it brought police, security staff and retailers together to build relationships and help fight the ongoing battle against retail crime which is a substantial problem and can seem extremely overwhelming.”
In total, a team of 31 plain-clothed and uniformed officers took part in the day, including two from British Transport Police, and spent their time on the streets of Glasgow focusing on the most prolific retail crime offenders.
The RAC team used intelligence from the SentrySIS crime-fighting tool, which sees users share real-time information about thefts and other incidents with each other across a digital database, to find details of the most active and up-to-date shoplifters in the city.
Further to this, Glasgow retailers also gathered for a morning briefing before they were supplied with APEX radios to contact police offers if they spotted suspects in their store in in the area.
The Glasgow Day of Action followed on from RAC’s crime prevention seminar, which took place in Edinburgh in April, and set out the firm’s intentions to work with police to ensure retailer safety.
Police sergeant Andrew Muir said the Days of Action help to demonstrate how retailers and police can work together to target offenders and reduce overall retail across the country.
He said: “It’s important to focus on how we can all work together as partners to fight retail crime. We have a lot of issues in the city centre, with retail crime and violence going up, and we want to make retailers feel safer and know we are there to work with them.
“We are here to help and listen and to get these offenders off the streets as quickly as possible.
“This is something we do on a day-to-day basis, but having specific Days of Action really helps us to target prolific offenders and act on the information coming back from the retailers so we can get out there and pick people up.
“The connection with the tea, from RAC is particularly important as they gather so much information and intelligence which they share from their member retailers.
“Retail crime is an increasing and ongoing problem and something we need the help of everyone involved to tackle efficiently.”
