Abstract
A growing body of research has both described and forwarded hypotheses to account for the crime drop that has been observed in many western countries since 1995. Commentators have focused on falls observed for households and individuals, with little reflection on the commercial sector. This is surprising given that previous research has recognized both the high rate of crime against some business sectors and the potential impact of crime against more economically vulnerable enterprises. This article explores the crime drop in relation to businesses in England and Wales. It considers whether there is evidence of a crime drop, the extent to which this appears to mirror the patterns observed for households/individuals and presents some tentative hypotheses to explain the patterns observed. Some suggestions are also made for areas that require further research.
Introduction
A body of research has identified that there have been substantial falls in crime in the western world since the mid-1990s and various explanations have been offered as to why these falls occurred (see Farrell et al., 2010; Levitt, 2004; Van Dijk et al., 2012). The ‘crime drop’ was first observed in the USA with falls in violent crime, although significant falls have also been observed across many European countries and further afield in Japan, Canada and Australia (Farrell et al., 2011a). Through their analysis of the International Crime Victimization Survey data, Van Dijk and Tseloni (2012) illustrate that the volume of crime appeared to peak across many western countries in 1995 and that significant falls have since been witnessed. In England and Wales, Britten et al. (2012) identify that between 1995 and 2011 overall crime decreased from 19 million offences to 7 million, with reductions in burglary, vehicle theft and violence of 57 per cent, 72 per cent and 47 per cent respectively. The long-term trends in all British Crime Survey crime in England/Wales from 1981 to 2014 for burglary, vehicle-related theft and violence are presented in Figure 1. This suggests that the trends observed by Britten et al. (2012) appear to be continuing as there are declines across all of these types of crime post-2011.
Trends in crime in England/Wales: Burglary, vehicle-related theft and violence (1981–2014): indexed at 1981.
Farrell et al. (2010: 24) lament the ‘absence of adequate explanation’ in relation to the crime drop. They note that while a number of explanatory hypotheses can be located in the literature, many are only ‘partially tested’ and others remain untested. Partially tested hypotheses include: demographic change; increased prison populations; policing strategies; more police; gun control; changing drugs markets; increased abortion; stronger economies; and lead exposure (also see Farrell, 2013; Van Dijk et al., 2012). Untested hypotheses include (for example): increased religiosity; cultural change; immigration; and improvements in crime scene investigation. However, Farrell et al. (2010) forward two primary criticisms of the crime drop literature. First, they argue that many of the partially tested hypotheses lack external validity in that they are not applicable internationally to all nation-states where a crime drop has been observed (for example, US abortion laws are different to those in the UK). Second, it is observed that many hypotheses are offender based and thus focus around offender numbers (or supply) and offender motivation. This is problematic as ‘such a narrow orientation may be unduly restrictive’ (Farrell et al., 2010: 34). Crucially, the authors state that despite opportunity theories (such as routine activity theory, situational crime prevention and rational choice, crime pattern theory and environmental criminology) offering the most ‘compelling explanation of the major post WWII increases in crime’ (Farrell et al., 2010: 37) these have largely been ignored in relation to the crime drop.
Based upon this critique, Farrell et al. (2010) argue that the relationship between ‘opportunity’ and the crime drop requires further exploration (i.e. through understanding how wider changes in lifestyles and routine activity patterns, increased security consumption and technological changes have impacted upon crime opportunity). A growing body of work has subsequently focused on many of these themes. For example, there is growing evidence that basic situational crime prevention measures (such as window locks) have been effective in reducing domestic burglary (Tseloni et al., 2014) as have measures such as central locking and immobilizers in relation to vehicle theft (Farrell et al., 2011b).
Another major limitation of the current literature on the crime drop is that the falls in crime are only explored in relation to households and individuals. To date, there has been virtually no reflection on longitudinal patterns of crime in the commercial sector or whether the patterns of crime observed reflect those of households and individuals. Previous research on business crime has demonstrated that a large volume of crime occurs within the context of the commercial sector (see Home Office, 2013, 2014, 2015) and that businesses often face higher rates of crime than individuals or households (see Burrows and Hopkins, 2005). However, a criticism of the research is that survey findings are generally presented as a ‘snapshot’ in time with little sense of the longitudinal trends 1 in victimization (see Burrows and Hopkins, 2005). Nevertheless, if the long-term trends in business crime replicate those of households, then potentially, this is an important finding. Therefore, this article explores three primary questions in relation to the commercial sector. First, has there been a ‘crime drop’ in the commercial sector that mirrors the falls observed in the wider population? Second, how has the distribution of crime against businesses changed? Third, if falls are observed, what plausible hypotheses can be forwarded to explain these falls? Finally, some suggestions for future research are made.
Commercial Victimization: Sources of Data
The data presented in this article focus on commercial victimization data collected from samples of UK businesses. Although Mugellini (2013) illustrates that surveys of commercial victimization have been conducted in several European countries and further afield in Australia, China and Nigeria, most surveys are conducted infrequently and commonly concentrate on one or two business sectors (commonly they focus on retail). However, in England/Wales there have now been five sweeps of the Commercial Victimization Survey (CVS). The fieldwork for the first was completed in 1993 (see Mirrlees-Black and Ross, 1995); this was followed by a survey in 2002 (see Shury et al., 2005) and then a survey annually in 2012, 2013 and 2014 (see Home Office, 2013, 2014, 2015). In addition to this, since 1992/1993 there have also been annual sweeps of the British Retail Consortium (BRC) surveys of retail crime.
Within the UK, efforts to measure the extent and costs of commercial victimization began to gather pace in the early 1990s due to growing frustration from those in policy circles and business trade bodies over the limited utility of official police recorded crime statistics. Police statistics not only under-record the true extent of business crime, but crimes are usually not recorded in ways that allow for analysis of the extent of crime against a commercial premises to be identified 2 (Maguire, 2012; Burrows and Hopkins, 2005). Consequently, efforts to measure business crime utilized two methodologies: premises-based surveys and head office surveys. Premises-based surveys aim to capture data about crime victimization and costs of crime directly from business premises via interviews with the manager or owner of the enterprise. The first national business crime survey to use this method was the 1994 English/Welsh CVS (Mirrlees-Black and Ross, 1995) and this approach has been used in four subsequent sweeps of the CVS. The head office methodology collects data on the numbers of crime incidents experienced/the costs of crime from the head offices of large businesses for all premises from across the enterprise. This methodology was first used in the BRC Crime Costs Survey (see Speed et al., 1995) and has since been used in all iterations of that survey and various other business crime surveys (see PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), 2014, for example). 3
The relative strengths and weaknesses of these differing methodologies have been subject to detailed discussion elsewhere (see Bamfield, 2012), though it is often suggested that premises surveys can provide more accurate counts of crime (and the relative costs) than the head office approach as one would expect managers to know what criminal events have occurred on their premises (Burrows and Hopkins, 2005). It is also important to note that most surveys only sample businesses from a relatively small proportion of the whole business population. Table 1 outlines the types of sectors covered by the five sweeps of the CVS to date and the numbers of businesses sampled. This illustrates that the retail and manufacturing sectors tend to receive the most attention, although these sectors only cover a relatively small proportion of UK businesses (according to Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) (2014) data, 5 per cent of UK business premises were manufacturers and 10 per cent were wholesale/retailers). Recent sweeps of the CVS have expanded their sector coverage with business sectors such as transport, accommodation/food, agriculture and arts/entertainment being sampled. This means that recent sweeps of the CVS have still only sampled business sectors that represent around a third of all business premises (BIS, 2014). In addition, some criticism has been levelled about the representativeness of the sampling strategies used in some CVS surveys. For example, Bamfield (2012: 97) is critical of the 2002 CVS sample and notes that 62 per cent of the sample of retailers are drawn from small and medium sized enterprises, even though these business represent ‘only 20% of total retail sales’. Indeed, the BRC surveys have tried to paint a more accurate picture of the total crime costs to the retail sector by using a head office survey methodology. While some sweeps of the BRC have sampled smaller independent businesses, the focus is on the collection of data from large multi-site enterprises. Therefore, it would seem that premises-based victimization surveys allow for good coverage of smaller independent businesses, with head office surveys potentially being a more robust methodology for capturing data from businesses with more than one premises.
Major national UK surveys on crimes against businesses – sector coverage, sample size and estimate of economy coverage.
Notes:
Several other ad hoc and localized surveys have been conducted. See Burrows and Hopkins (2005) for a review.
Economy coverage refers to the approximate proportion of the total business population that are in the sectors covered in the surveys.
Although there are clearly methodological problems with commercial victimization surveys, the publication of the recent sweeps of the CVS and data gathered from the annual BRC surveys allow for some analysis of the long-term trends in commercial victimization. Of course, care has to be taken when comparing samples that have been generated at different points in time. Of primary importance is ensuring that similar crime types are measured (and defined in the same way) and that the types of businesses sampled are comparable across each survey. Both the CVS and BRC have asked a similar set of ‘core’ questions in all sweeps of their respective surveys. Across each sweep of the CVS, respondents were asked whether the business had fallen victim to a range of crime types (burglary, theft, vehicle crime, fraud, assaults, threats and intimidation) over a 12-month recall period and how many incidents occurred during that time. The BRC asks businesses to report on the number of incidents of crime (across a similar range of crime types) to which they have fallen victim. Since 2002, the CVS has also included questions around electronic crime such as hacking, online theft, phishing, online information theft, online vandalism and computer viruses (as has the BRC since 2010).
Care also has to be taken when comparing business sectors over time. 4 UK business sectors are defined by standard industrial classification across 16 business sectors, which are then broken down into further subgroups (see HM Government, 2008). 5 As identified in Table 1, six of these sectors have previously been sampled in the CVS and BRC surveys, though the classification codes altered between the 2002 and 2012 sweeps of the CVS. Consequently, there were wide-ranging changes in the manufacturing sector, which means that the 1994 and 2002 CVS sample data are not strictly comparable to the 2012 sample. Between the 2002 and 2012 surveys, the retail sector also became the wholesale and retail sector. Therefore, care has to be taken when comparing data from early CVS samples of the retail sector to later samples of the wholesale/retail sector.
Crime Trajectories in the Commercial Sector 1993–2014
Table 2 compares the five sweeps of the CVS to the BCS/CSEW (British Crime Survey/Crime in England and Wales) data. The data show that between 1993 and 2014 crime against the commercial sector (as with households) fell. For example, the 1993 CVS (Mirrlees-Black and Ross, 1995) recorded a total of 8.5m crimes against the retail sector and by 2014 this had fallen to 4.1m (Home Office, 2015). A total of 420k crimes were also recorded against the manufacturing sector in 1993 which had fallen to 164k by 2012. It is important to note that between 1993 and 2002 the total number of crimes against the retail and manufacturing sectors increased (from 9m to 22m). It is unclear why there should be such an increase followed by a rapid decline (a similar methodology was employed in the 2002 CVS to other surveys). However, the long-term trend in the retail and manufacturing sectors is of falls in crime. Indeed, recent sweeps of the CVS (2012, 2013 and 2014) also indicate that crime might be falling across other business sectors. For example, businesses from the accommodation/food sector were sampled in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and falls in overall numbers of incidents (from 985k in 2012 to 565k in 2014) were observed. Likewise, the agricultural sector was sampled in 2013 and 2014, with falls in crime also observed (from 133k to 95k).
Number of crimes recorded by the CVS as compared to BCS/CSEW (1993–2014).
Note: aIn the CVS the total numbers of incidents are generated by using weighted data to make an estimate of all crime against each sector.
Because of the way that business sectors have been sampled for the CVS, any longitudinal analysis of trends in commercial victimization by sector is difficult. The only sector that has been sampled in each sweep of the CVS is the retail sector; therefore this is where the analysis focuses. Table 3 presents the prevalence and incidence rates for a range of crime types that were asked across all surveys and where broadly similar definitions were used. Prevalence is defined here as the percentage of the sampled population that was victimized over the recall period (in this case 12 months). The incidence rate is defined as the average number of crimes experienced per 1000 businesses.
Prevalence and incidence (per 1000 premises) of crime against the wholesale/retail sector (incidence rate in brackets). CVS data 1993–2014.
Notes:
For CVS 2002, incidence rates have been calculated by dividing the total numbers of incidents presented at page 7 (for retailers) by the weighted population of businesses (retail = 326,397).
There is an indication that comparing the patterns of retail crime by using the pre-2012 SIC (standard industrial classification of economic activities) codes for retail makes little difference to the general assertion that crime has fallen. In the 2012 CVS report (Home Office, 2013), comparison was made between prevalence and incidence of crime for retail businesses – as they would have been defined under the pre-2012 SIC codes – to the 2002 CVS findings. This shows that in 2012, 12 per cent were burgled (274 per 1000), 18 per cent vandalized (590 per 1000) and 27 per cent were victims of customer theft (13,327 per 1000). Therefore, this makes relatively little difference to the overall crime rates.
For the 1993 and 2002 surveys fraud by outsiders commonly includes credit/debit card fraud, invoice fraud, forged banks note and bounced cheques. From 2012 this begins to include online banking frauds and various types of refund frauds.
Source: base: all five CVS sweeps.
Since 1993, the overall prevalence rate of crime fell by 48 per cent and the incidence rate by 62 per cent. The prevalence and incidence of crime fell for all crime types except robbery and the downward trend has continued in the three recent CVS sweeps. There have been falls in the prevalence of customer theft, burglary and fraud in each CVS sweep and falls in the prevalence and incidence of all crime types (except robbery) since 2002. The largest falls since 1993 were witnessed for burglary and customer theft. For both crime types, the prevalence rate drops by over half and the incidence rate by over two-thirds. The evidence suggests no change in the prevalence rate of robbery and an increase in the incidence rate between 1993 and 2014. However, care has to be taken as there are falls in both the prevalence and incidence of robbery between 2002 and 2014.
Where comparable, some of the falls in retail businesses appear to be greater than those observed for households. For example, the reduction in the number of burglary and criminal damage incidents since 1993 appears to have outpaced the falls observed for households. Between 1993 and 2014 there was a 55 per cent reduction in household burglary, and criminal damage fell by 58 per cent. 6 However, the reduction in the incidence of violence is lower than that observed for individuals (which for individuals fell by 57 per cent) (ONS, 2015a). Of course, caution has to be expressed in inferring that the patterns observed in the retail sector are representative of all businesses. However, CVS data do infer that there are also falls in crime across other business sectors. The manufacturing sector formed part of the CVS sample in 1993, 2002 and 2012 and a sharp decline in crime was also witnessed in this sector (although the 2012 sample is not strictly comparable to the 1993 and 2002 samples) with declines in the prevalence and incidence rates for all crime outpacing those in the retail sector. For example, there was a 52 per cent reduction in the prevalence of all crime (from 63 per cent to 30 per cent) and a 69 per cent reduction in the incidence rate (from 4770 per 1000 to 1500 per 1000). There were also notable falls in burglary, with a fall in prevalence from 33 per cent to 13 per cent (a reduction of 60 per cent) and a 72 per cent fall in the incidence rate per 1000 (from 190 to 53). The other sectors included in the recent sweeps of the CVS – accommodation/food, agriculture and arts/entertainment – were not sampled in 1993 and 2002, thus making any longitudinal comparison impossible. However, as the accommodation/food sector was sampled in all three of the recent CVS sweeps and agriculture in 2013 and 2014, it is worth commenting briefly on what the data seem to indicate about the crime trajectories of those sectors. Across both the accommodation/food and agricultural sectors the crime trajectory is downwards. In total, 43 per cent of businesses in the accommodation sector were victims of any crime in 2012 and this fell to 37 per cent by 2014. Over the same period, the incidence rate fell by 36 per cent from 7361 to 4677 per 1000. In the agricultural sector, the prevalence rate fell from 30 per cent to 26 per cent between 2013 and 2014, with a 23 per cent fall in the incidence rate from 1,475 to 1,131 per 1000.
Because of the paucity of data on business crime both in the UK and internationally, it is difficult to corroborate these long-term trends or to identify if similar patterns are evident globally. Although a different methodology is used, some comparison of long-term crime trends in the UK retail sector can be made with the BRC Retail Crime Costs surveys. As the BRC is a head office survey, data are collected on the total number of incidents against a whole enterprise and prevalence rates per outlet are unknown. Figure 2 shows the long-term incidence rates across all crime types that are comparable with the CVS data 7 (presented as three-year rolling averages and indexed). In addition, Table 4 compares the incidence rates from each BRC survey in the year that is comparable to each sweep of the CVS. The BRC data concur with the CVS data in that falls for burglary and violence are observed from 1993/1994 to 2012/2013. Both data sources also indicate that the incidence rate for robbery increases between the comparison years. The main difference between the trends observed in the CVS and BRC data are for customer theft and vandalism. While the CVS records a fall in the incidence of customer theft and vandalism, the BRC records an increase. 8
Trends in retail crime from BRC data (indexed = 100) at 1993/1994 and three-year rolling average applied (based upon rates per 100 stores or 1000 staff).
Incidence rates (per 1000 premieses) – all sweeps of the CVS compared to BRC data from comparable years (CVS data in brackets).
Source: base: all five CVS sweeps (retail only) and BRC sweeps 1992/1993; 2001/2002; 2011/2012; 2012/2013; 2013/2014.
Changes in the distribution of commercial victimization
Recent research on the crime drop has started to highlight how crime falls might be unevenly distributed by factors such as inequality and geography (see Grove et al., 2012; Ignatans and Pease, 2015; Tilley et al., 2011). Ideally, further work in relation to the commercial sector could usefully explore changes in victimization in relation to the location of businesses or by businesses’ turnover. Limitations with the 1993 and 2002 CVS data mean that any analysis of long-term changes in crime distribution by such factors is not possible. However, the 1993 CVS did present data on the distribution of crime by employee size and when compared to the 2013 CVS data, this reveals some important findings.
A common finding in much of the research on commercial victimization is that larger businesses (in terms of employee size) tend to experience higher prevalence and incidence rates of crime (see Shury et al., 2002). Tables 5 and 6 compare the prevalence and incidence rates across the retail sector from the 1993 and 2013 CVS by employee size. 9 Table 5 illustrates that for each crime type not only do businesses employing less than 11 staff have lower prevalence rates, but between 1993 and 2013 the decrease in the percentage of smaller businesses that are victimized outpaces their larger counterparts. For example, the decrease in the prevalence rate for customer theft and violence is over twice that of the larger businesses.
Changes in crime prevalence by business size: retail businesses 1993 to 2013 (per cent of business victims).
Notes: The 1993 CVS presented data for one to 10 and 11+ employees. The 2013 CVS presented data for one to nine employees and 10+ employees. Therefore, the comparisons are not exactly accurate. Forty per cent of CVS 1993 retail business employed 10 or more staff as did 38 per cent of CVS 2013 retail businesses.
Source: base: retail sector 1993 and 2013 survey.
Changes in crime incidence (per 1000 premises) by business size: Retail businesses 1993 to 2013.
Source: base: retail sector 1993 and 2013 survey.
Differences are also observed in the incidence rates. Farrell et al. (2010) note that the crime drop has disproportionately been driven by falls in repeat victimization – thus, the number of crime victims (prevalence) has fallen more slowly than the number of crimes (incidence). This pattern is also observed in relation to smaller businesses where overall falls in incidence have outpaced falls in prevalence. However, the same cannot be said for larger businesses where, although overall falls in prevalence are observed, incidence rates have increased. Indeed, the fall in the incidence rate for customer theft and violence for the smaller businesses significantly outpaces that of the larger enterprises. The larger businesses also have much larger increases in incidence rates for robbery and fraud than the smaller enterprises.
These data not only indicate that smaller businesses appear to be benefiting most from the crime drop, but they have other important implications. Further analysis shows that the businesses employing less than 10 staff are more likely to be independent enterprises, have a lower turnover and ultimately appear to be less able to withstand the financial impact of crime. For example, the 2013 CVS survey revealed that of the businesses employing less than 10 staff, 93 per cent had a turnover of less than £100k per year and 75 per cent were independent businesses (74 per cent of those employing over 10 staff were not independent businesses). Previous research has often suggested that it is these smaller businesses that often suffer disproportionately from the impact of crime (see Burrows and Hopkins, 2005). This finding suggests the effect of the crime drop might not only further accentuate the differences in crime risk between the larger and smaller businesses, but it might also reduce the potential burden of crime on smaller enterprises as identified in previous research.
Understanding Longitudinal Commercial Crime Patterns: Plausible Hypotheses and Directions for Future Research
One has to be cautious when suggesting that a ‘real’ crime drop has been observed in the commercial sector. Surveys of commercial victimization are no different to household surveys in that data can be unreliable due to inconsistencies in the way data are collected, the types of questions asked and the way data are analysed over different survey sweeps. However, the data strongly point to falls in crime since 1993, with both the CVS and BRC indicating falls for burglary and violent crime.
While several studies have now utilized opportunity theories as explanations for the crime drop in relation to individuals/households, some reflection on possible explanations for the crime drop in the commercial sector is made below by drawing upon such theories. The analysis begins to consider whether changes in routine activities of businesses (see Felson and Boba, 2010) might have led to falls in crime. Using a routine activity perspective, understanding why there are falls in crime requires an understanding of why motivated offenders and suitable targets converge in the absence of capable guardianship less frequently. Within the contexts of businesses, this might involve understanding whether businesses are becoming less desirable/attractive to potential offenders as crime targets or if there have been changes to businesses (such as security consumption) that make convergences between offenders and potential victims more difficult. Alternatively, by using the language of situational crime prevention (see Clarke, 1997), one might ask if the effort required by offenders to commit crimes against business and the associated risks are increasingly outweighing the potential rewards on offer. Finally, it is also considered whether opportunities for new forms of crime (or new ways to commit old crimes) are being generated by businesses and if these represent new threats that could see crime increase in the future.
It is evident that businesses still remain attractive targets for crime. When compared to households, businesses still face higher rates of victimization (e.g. 2.7 per cent of households were burgled in England and Wales in the year ending September 2014 (ONS, 2015a) as compared to 8 per cent of retail premises (Home Office, 2015)). Across the retail sector in particular, it is evident how the routine activities of most businesses promote the ease of offending. They are semi-public spaces that stock high volumes of lightweight/ high value or CRAVED (Clarke, 1999) – Concealable, Removable, Available, Valuable, Enjoyable and Disposable – items. In order to function, such businesses require that the public be able to walk in, browse and select items. These public/business convergences create ideal camouflage for crime as potential offenders can gain easy access to the business/products (Felson and Boba, 2010). Therefore, business/offender interaction generates opportunity for crimes. In addition, businesses also have clear working hours, which not only makes their routine patterns of activity clearly identifiable to offenders, but also allows offenders to select times to commit stealth crimes – such as burglary. The hours when businesses are vacant can also give offenders time to overcome the security measures in place (such as in the London Hatton Garden robbery of March 2015).
Target suitability can, of course, be mediated by increasing the effort and risks for offenders, while reducing the rewards for crime. This can be done by changing businesses routine activity patterns (through opening hours or operating practices), though businesses often aim to achieve this through security consumption. There is growing evidence that basic situational crime prevention measures (such as window locks) have been effective in reducing domestic burglary (Tseloni et al., 2014) as have measures such as central locking and immobilizers in relation to vehicle theft (Farrell et al., 2011b). However, while Van Dijk et al. (2012: 4) argue that ‘opportunistic criminality in the 21st century would no longer be a mass phenomenon due to more and better situational crime prevention’, there is scant evidence for the ‘security hypothesis’ in relation to the long-term impact of security in the commercial sector. A number of ad hoc evaluations do suggest there is a short-term impact of security measures such as Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS), alarms, cashier training and CCTV on crime in retail environments (see Eck and Guerette, 2012 for a review) 10 and Bamfield (2012: 117) asserts that ‘it is difficult to conclude therefore that the efforts of loss prevention have not reduced the average rate of shrinkage’.
While successive BRC surveys have pointed to increased security expenditure across the retail sector since 1993, CVS data also point to increased ‘securitization’ of businesses. Table 7 compares the proportion of retail business with selected security measures in place in 1993 as compared to the combined sample of retailers from the 2012 and 2013 CVS surveys. 11 There are some difficulties here as slightly different labels are used for many security measures across both surveys. However, the data point to increases across all these security types (except for security guards). Indeed, the most substantial increase is for CCTV. In 1993, around one in five retailers had CCTV on the premises but this has now increased to over half.
Comparison of security measures in premises: 1993 to 2012/2013 for the retail sector (per cent of businesses with security measures present).
Notes:
For the 2012/2013 sample, this includes CCTV inside or outside of the premises.
For the 2012/2013 sample, this includes guards, caretakers and those employed to control entry to premises.
Includes locks, shutters and grilles.
Source: base: 1993 CVS (Retail = 1656) compared to combined sample of retail businesses from 2012/2013 CVS data (Retail = 1,956).
Naturally, the key question is whether any of the decreases in crime can be attributed to these security measures. Further exploration of CVS data in relation to this was only able to provide limited evidence of impact due to methodological problems. As burglary was the crime type with the largest decrease in prevalence and incidence since 1993, some additional analysis focused on the relationship between security and burglary victimization (as one might expect to observe differences in victimization between businesses with security measures in place compared to those without). To this effect, Table 8 outlines the percentage of retailers with selected security measures in place, the percentage with such measures who were victims of burglary and the percentage with such measures who went on to be repeat victims of burglary (logically, if these security measures are effective, there would be lower rates of burglary for those businesses with the measures in place). The data show that the proportion of burglary victims with burglar alarms, window protection and CCTV is higher than might be expected if these security measures prevent burglary. There appears to be a slight marginal effect for security guards with 16 per cent of victims employing security guards as compared to 17 per cent of the total sample. However, the proportion of repeat victims with the security measures in place is also higher than expected across all types of security except window protection (where there is a slight marginal effect).
Security and burglary risk: 2012/2013 CVS for retail premises.
Source: base: retail from 2012/2013 CVS samples.
Due to the way CVS data were collected, caution has to be expressed in relation to these findings. The CVS questionnaire asks businesses if they have different types of security in place – but not the exact date when security was installed. Therefore, it is possible that security devices could have been implemented after the last incident of crime was experienced. In total, 1.6 per cent (N = 64) of all premises in 2012/13 had a burglar alarm and 1 per cent (N = 41) a CCTV system that had been installed as a result of crime victimization during the CVS recall period. However, even when businesses that reported security installation after the commencement of the crime recall period are removed from the sample, the presence of some security devices is still associated with an increased risk of crime. For example, for the 2013 CVS sample, 61 per cent of all businesses had alarms on site before the survey recall period, but 69 per cent of burglary victims had alarms that were on site prior to the recall period (for retailers the figures are 82 per cent and 85 per cent respectively).
It is clear, however, that there is a paucity of evidence in relation to the impact of security consumption and crime prevention efforts generally in the commercial sector. Indeed, some scholars have been critical of the way that retailers in particular have sought a technological ‘silver bullet’ to reduce crime without evidence of efficacy. For example, Beck (2009: 98) states that ‘if CCTV or EAS were a drug we would be absolutely appalled at the way it has been introduced and widely used without any prior testing of its likely impact on the patient’. In addition, there are also other forms of crime prevention that could have influenced the drop in commercial victimization, but where little evidence of impact exists. While Bamfield (2012: 168) notes that collaborative efforts to tackle business crime (particularly in the retail sector) have a ‘200 year history’, there has been a recent plethora of crime prevention partnership development taking place. For example, the National Association of Business Crime Partnerships (NABCP) was established in 2004 (as Action against Business Crime). This oversees business crime reduction partnerships at a national level and helps facilitate linkages between police, community safety partnerships (CSPs) and businesses. At the time of writing, there were around 150 business partnerships in England and Wales, compared to 322 CSPs. It is possible that such partnerships have not only raised the profile of business crime at a local level, but have also helped to reduce crime. In addition to this, Stutzenberger and Fisher (2014) also note how changes in workplace policies and practices, such as conflict management and cash handling, might have affected the decrease in violence in commercial establishments.
Further research might usefully explore why incidence rates of customer theft, violence, robbery and fraud have increased in larger businesses (particularly in relation to robbery and fraud). It is, of course, possible that many larger businesses are now better at identifying that they have been victims of crimes such as fraud and customer theft as the majority now have widespread CCTV coverage and manned security. For example, 75 per cent of all retail businesses employing over 10 people had CCTV and manned guards (as compared to 41 per cent of businesses who employ less than 10 staff). These forms of guardianship could be monitoring a greater number of crimes which subsequently find their way into the statistics. As Coupe and Kaur (2005) suggest, the actual benefit of CCTV comes in the form of recording and detecting offences, rather than prevention. However, as crime prevalence (numbers of victims) has fallen across the business population, the increased incidence rates suggest that – once victimized – some larger businesses go on to suffer high rates of repeat victimization. Here future research might usefully consider whether such businesses have risk heterogeneity characteristics that make them particularly attractive targets to offenders or if they tend to be victims of high rates of event dependent repeat victimization – where the same offenders return to the business after successfully completing an initial crime (see Farrell and Pease, 1993). Of course, it is also possible that some businesses accept high crime rates as part of their business model. While it has often been stated that crime can be detrimental to the long-term sustainability of business (see Burrows and Hopkins, 2005), others have also made the point that businesses (particularly larger corporations) are often willing to tolerate certain levels of crime as long as profit margins remain healthy (see Tilley, 2010). Finally, even where up-to-date security systems are implemented it can still be difficult to protect larger businesses from crime events. Indeed, many larger superstores cover thousands of square feet of space and have customer flows of hundreds of people per day. Thus, the combination of large flows of people, wide spaces to protect and the numerous potential rewards from crime on offer may render many business environments impossible to totally protect from crime.
Despite the overall reductions in crime observed in the data, it is also possible that there is an ‘illusion’ of a crime drop in the commercial sector due to the emergence of new crime forms (Farrell et al., 2010). It has widely been argued that ‘traditional’ volume crimes (such as burglary) are slowly being displaced by electronic and cyber enabled crimes. While recent CSEW data (see ONS, 2015b) point to large volumes of electronic and cyber enabled crime, the BRC (2015) suggests that online credit card fraud now accounts for 69 per cent of all retail card fraud. Online crime was initially measured in the 2002 CVS where it was reported that only 1 per cent of retailers were victims of such crimes 12 (Shury et al., 2005). By 2014, there was a significant rise in this figure as 10 per cent of retailers were victims and they experienced 430 incidents per 1000 premises – higher than the rate for burglary, vandalism and robbery. Moreover, in the PWC global survey of economic crime, 13 24 per cent of respondents reported that their businesses had been victims of cybercrime in 2014 (PWC, 2014) while Ernst & Young (2014) 14 reported that 45 per cent of businesses not only see cybercrime as the major threat to their operations, but view securing technologies (such as cloud/mobile computing) as their most pressing security challenge. The seriousness of the concern over cybercrime and e-crime has been raised by the BRC, who, in their crime costs survey 2014–2015, state that ‘such attacks continue to pose a critical threat to businesses’ (BRC, 2015: 14).
The attractions of e-commerce are obvious for business. In such a competitive climate there is a need to ‘do business’ efficiently and to be innovative. However, innovation and evolution of the business landscape also generate new opportunities for crime (Beck, 2009; Curtis, 1971). In recent years, notable innovations in retail have included the development of customer self-checkouts, where customers scan and pay for items at fixed point checkouts or (increasingly) through the use of their own mobile phone. Research has increasingly identified that such innovations not only provide offenders with the camouflage for crime, but they can also make it increasingly difficult for retailers to identify or prove that they have been victims of theft. Indeed, the move to customer self-scanning might not only lead customers to make genuine errors in an increasingly complicated and technologically driven process, but also generate ‘excuses’ for non-payment through the use of neutralizing techniques (Cromwell and Turman, 2003; Sykes and Matza, 1957). Indeed, Beck (2011: 211) notes that in relation to customer self-checkout, proving guilt on the part of the offender is difficult as they have a series of ready-made excuses – ‘I thought I had scanned that item’ or ‘I thought my credit card had been accepted’. Research conducted in relation to self-checkout indicates that users may regularly take advantage of the system to take items, with one self-report survey of 2634 self-checkout users finding that one in five (19 per cent) admitted to stealing from self-service checkouts (Carter, 2014). In another study, Beck and Hopkins (2015) observed that, where customers were able to self-scan using scan guns provided by retailers or their own mobile phones, the rate of shrinkage was 170 per cent higher in such stores compared to those stores not operating mobile self-scan systems.
Concluding Remarks
Van Dijk et al. (2012: 2) note that one of the few certainties for criminologists has always been that ‘crime was always on the rise’. While the evidence clearly points to reductions in crime against households and individuals across many countries since 1995, this article also illustrates that – at least within the context of the UK – crimes against business appear to be falling. However, there is an indication that, while there have been long-term falls across several volume crime categories, electronic crime is rising and businesses are increasingly concerned about its impact. Indeed, we are potentially witnessing a bifurcation of crime in the commercial sector – with many physical ‘direct contact’ crimes becoming less attractive to offenders and gradually being replaced by those that can be committed online.
A positive effect appears to be that the rate of decrease is highest for smaller businesses – those that many have argued are less able to withstand the effects of crime. However, the drivers of the decrease are unclear. Previous research supports the security hypothesis in relation to vehicle crime and household burglary. However, whether growing securitization is a primary driver within the commercial sector is unclear. Some scholars would argue that it is difficult to believe that the rise in security consumption has had no effect on the sustained decrease in crime. While the ‘security hypothesis’ (in the context of the commercial sector) requires further exploration, crimes such as commercial burglary and shoplifting do not appear to be as attractive to offenders in 2014 as they were in 1993. This, potentially, has far-reaching social and economic consequences. Farrell et al. (2011a: 164) refer to the concept of ‘debut crimes’ which are committed by novices on the ‘low rung of the offending ladder’. As much business crime – shoplifting in particular – is widely recognized as an ‘onset’ or ‘debut’ crime, the reduction in the number of successful debutants could have significant long-term implications for the criminal justice system.
The findings presented here need to be built upon in a number of ways. First, international comparisons in relation to the commercial crime drop would be welcome. Second, further research might usefully explore some of the hypotheses forwarded both in previous research and in this article in order to test their robustness in relation to the commercial sector. Indeed, testing the security hypothesis across different business sectors and international boundaries might be a good starting point. Finally, whether the emergence of online crime means the commercial crime drop is an illusion requires long-term observation. If traditional volume crimes against businesses are indeed being slowly displaced by other forms of crime, then this has three potential implications. First, it suggests that the current crime drop could be short-lived. Second, rather than focus on the physical forms of crime prevention, criminologists need to start to think more carefully about how opportunities for online crime can be prevented and how to evaluate the efficacy of online/virtual forms of crime prevention. Finally, it is also evident that theoretical frameworks – such as routine activity and rational choice – that have previously been utilized to explain spatial and temporal patterns of volume crime, will also require some refinement if they are to be effectively utilized in explaining crime events that are commissioned in the virtual, rather than the physical world.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.