Over 200 SaBA Days planned for the national month of action
The NBCC has been overwhelmed by the level of support from police and partners for the national month of action to tackle retail crime, with over 200 individual SaBA Days planned already.
The targeted week of action last year, which saw police and partners across the country joining together to tackle business crime in their communities, resulted in over 300 arrests and thousands of positive interactions with local retailers and businesses about the issues they face.
The SaBA month in March will see police work with retailers and private security in a defined area for a day of targeted activity, which will include joint high visibility patrols, proactive activity against known offenders and crime prevention campaigns.
NPCC Business Crime lead Paul Betts, Assistant Commissioner, City of London Police and NPCC Retail Crime lead Chief Superintendent Alex Goss, North Wales Police and have personally written to all Chief Constables asking for their support. Each force is being asked to hold a SaBA Day in March working with their local Business Crime Reduction Partnerships and Business Improvement Districts, highlighting the important role they play in our town and cities in preventing crime.
Several forces have already conducted SaBA Days and they have proven to be an effective and popular activity to engage with retailers to tackle offenders, protect businesses, their staff and increase business confidence. The initiative is also recognised as best practice by the College of Policing and is included in their Practice Bank.
NBCC lead Supt Patrick Holdaway said: “We have been contacted by police and retailers who are keen to keep up the momentum of collaboration in the face of increasing levels of retail crime and violence against shop workers. Traditionally we start to see a rise in retail crime in the spring, therefore, that’s why we have proposed a targeted month of action in March. It allows forces to better plan resources, gives the retailers and private security opportunities to support in multiple locations, and disrupts and deters prolific offenders.
“We have over 30 police forces confirmed as taking part and we are confident that with retail crime being such a significant problem for local communities, all forces will get behind the SaBA month and plan some proactive operations.”
The NBCC has developed specific SaBA Month branding which forces can use and bespoke SaBA Day branding which can be adapted to include the location of the SaBA Day taking place. The branding can be accessed via the website links below:
https://nbcc.police.uk/business-support/saba-days
https://nbcc.police.uk/media/sabamonth/safer-business-action-month.zip
To view the list of confirmed SaBA Days taking place across the country in March click here: Police Force SaBA Days - March 2024