Liverpool city centre has a new crime intranet. Jane Kennedy, the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Merseyside, and Jon Ward, the Police Commander of Liverpool North Chief Superintendent, visited Liverpool Chamber of Commerce for a meeting with the Liverpool Crime Alert team.
The PCC and her team and Chief Supt Ward were shown Liverpool Crime Alert’s new crime intelligence intranet, now available for crime alert members. This new software delivers criminal intelligence and information to businesses in the city centre in real time. Members can also view and print from galleries of crime suspects and those known to do anti-social behaviour (ASB) in the city or those persons excluded from member premises. The intranet can also be used to report incidents and download images captured on camera or CCTV to the Liverpool Crime Alert offices almost as they are occurring. Via the intranet, a member also receives a weekly e-newsletter with crime alerts and other information.
Tony Jopson, Business Crime Reduction Officer for Liverpool Chamber, said: “The new intranet is named DISC, which is the Database and Intranet for Safer Communities. It takes what we already provide and delivers it in a much smarter way, and allows us and our members to be in instant communication. The more criminal intelligence and information our members receive helps narrow the opportunities for those that target our retailers to commit crime. This is more important when dealing with organised groups travelling the length of the country intent on stealing merchandise in bulk. This new intranet is now being used by some 60 towns and cities across the UK and, more significantly, by our immediate neighbours in Manchester and Chester, bringing us much closer together to monitor the North West.”
Liverpool Crime Alert, with Merseyside Police, provides crime reduction initiatives for the city centre retailers, for hoteliers, car park operators, building and facilities managers, and for the numerous university and hospital sites around the city.
Hosting the event, Jenny Stewart, Chief Operating Officer at Liverpool Chamber, said: “I felt encouraged by the Police and Crime Commissioner’s visit, and I think that it is essential that the Liverpool Crime Alert service is maintained in the City Centre and look forward to the continuing support of Merseyside Police and the Police and Crime Commissioner.”
The PCC also met members and supporters representing the various business sectors of the Crime Alert schemes and was given a brief presentation of their work. Peter Clarke, regional manager for the JD Sports Group, said: “We take loss prevention very seriously. We have ten retail outlets in the city centre and, across the group, we carry the
most popular sporting and leisure clothing brands right up to our high end fashion designer wear in our Tessuti outlets, and it is imperative that we the retailers work together with the Chamber and the police. We can be competitors in business, but we should be united in Loss Prevention.”
Also present, representatives from the City Central and the Commercial District BID Companies and Liverpool ONE. These support the Liverpool Crime Alert team in the provision of services to their respective members and their tenants building the Crime Alert membership to some 500 businesses across the city centre.
Ged Gibbons, the Chief Operating Officer of the BID companies, said: “We have provided the Crime Alert services to our members for some six years now, and it is one small part of the sort of joined up thinking we are famous for in our city. It should not come as a surprise to anyone to learn that Liverpool is acknowledged as the safest city to live in and visit in the UK, having been awarded the Safer Business Award and attained Purple flag status in recognition of this fact.”
Jane Kennedy has now been in the role of Police and Crime Commission since November 2012. Her task is to manage the police budget and develop a new relationship with the police, putting in place a Police and Crime Plan which was published in March, and to implement strategies that meet the needs of people across Merseyside. She has already managed to reduce the costs of the previous Police Authority by some £1.3m by restructuring her office moving into police premises at Allerton Police Station. She said: “Cutting crime and making our communities safer is a priority for us all and involving partners ensures our priorities are shared. I am keen to support the successful ways in which Liverpool Crime Alert are working to reduce and prevent crime amongst the business communities. I have established a Merseyside-wide Community Safety Partnership to maximise scarce resources, and I am very pleased that this approach appears to be working well.”
