Small Business Crime: The Evaluation of a Crime Prevention Initiative

Abstract

There has been a dearth of evaluation research concerned with assessing the effectiveness of crime prevention schemes that aim to reduce levels of crime committed against businesses and non-residential properties generally. This paper describes the implementation of a scheme aimed at reducing small business crime, with a particular emphasis on burglary in the county of Merseyside. Details of the results of an evaluation of the scheme are then given. The evaluation found that contact with a Crime Prevention Officer significantly reduced levels of crime against businesses. Advice offered by such experts was more effective than the isolated installation of target-hardening measures. The paper also attempts to gather evidence regarding the means by which and the situations in which particular crime prevention measures are effective at reducing levels of crime.