The North East Retail Crime Partnership (NERCP) has launched this year’s festive campaign to tackle retail crime across the North East and North Yorkshire region.
The top 350 prolific offenders in the region received a Christmas card at the beginning of December informing them that the NERCP network including retailers and police, share information on them and will be looking out for them particularly in the festive season. This year’s campaign was supported by retailer Asda.
Sarah Dougherty manager of the NERCP said: “We’re running this initiative in partnership with North East retailers and participating police forces Durham, Cleveland and North Yorkshire in a bid to tackle the displacement of retail crime throughout the region. There is some excellent work being done by many local areas to reduce the opportunity for thieves to steal from local stores, but in many cases resulting in offenders being displaced to more vulnerable areas.
“The message being sent out in the Christmas cards is clear and simple; the partnership operates throughout the region and will be tracking criminal activity around the area, leaving nowhere to hide. The result of retailers and police working in partnership with each other consistently throughout the region, increases confidence and collaboration between the two, ultimately reducing crime and disorder.”
The initiative as ran last December found 87pc of offenders who received the message were not detected for taking part in retail crime over the festive period.
And meanwhile warning messages were appearing across Durham City to remind shoplifters they are being watched, as police patrols were stepped up on the run up to Christmas. PC Mark Garfoot said: “We know that retail crime increases before Christmas when the city centre is at its busiest.
“This year we have a designated team of officers who are specifically targeting shoplifters and they have already had some good results, with 82pc of offences in the past month solved. There will be plain-clothed and uniformed patrols running throughout December. We’re also using signs positioned across the City to make it as clear as possible to thieves who target our retailers that we are watching them.”
And staying in County Durham, beer mats are being used to warn drinkers to behave on the run-up to Christmas. Police in Ferryhill and Spennymoor are using the unusual tactic, along with social media and posters, as a way to stop people causing damage to their neighbourhood after a night out.
Sergeant Chris Metcalfe said: “Drink-fuelled anti-social and criminal behaviour is an increasing problem in Ferryhill and Spennymoor and it is something that local people have asked us to take action against. In particular there are concerns about damage caused to vehicles when people are returning home after a night out.”
