Following the recent success of the North East Retail Crime Partnership (NERCP) and SentrySIS roll out across the North East of England, supermarket giant Morrisons has now committed to a long term agreement with SentrySIS for all its retail stores in County Durham to report crime online directly to the police.
The SentrySIS Digital Justice system saw a 21 per cent increase in prosecution rates for shoplifting within the Darlington area within just 6 months usage. This led to the immediate roll out of the system across the wider area. The agreement between a North East police constabulary (that cannot be named for legal reasons), SentrySIS, the NERCP and Morrisons is the first step in extending the system to other national retailers across the North East.
SentrySIS allows businesses to report shoplifting offences directly to the police electronically, saving the police and retail staff huge amounts of time and money which in turn increases all stakeholder efficiencies. The software is locally managed by the NERCP, who gather intelligence from across the region and share data securely via SenrtySIS with its wider retail membership.
This retail-focused software product within SentrySIS makes up part of a wider suite of cloud based process management and efficiency saving tools specifically for UK police constabularies. The wider police suite is already being used fully by one police constabulary within a North East area with great success.
Retailers can easily upload CCTV footage and complete a 'CPS approved' digital witness statement within 15 minutes direct which is transfered securely direct to the police. This eliminates the need for a police officer to travel to the store to conduct an initial investigation and retrieve the CCTV footage, which takes an average of two-and-a-half hours for each offence.
Security & retail staff also save significant amounts of valuable time as they too do not need to waste time by having to complete a witness statement with a police officer and manually copy CCTV video to DVD in a specific readable format.
By using this ground breaking 'easy to use' software, time is freed up for retail staff who can continue to prevent and deter further offending on the shop floor rather than completing paperwork in the back office. Police officers can now speed up the investigation process as they have CCTV evidence and a completed MG11 witness statements much earlier in the process, meaning a prosecution is now more likely and dealt with much quicker.
Since the trial was launched with Darlington’s 80 Shopwatch stores in 2017, the SentrySIS retailer software is estimated to have saved the police 922 hours (as of 1st March 2018 with 30% adoption across the police force area).
The SentrySIS Operational Lead Officer at the police force currently using SentrySIS commented and said: “Even we have been surprised at just how successful the software has been and how much time it saves our police constabulary. Once upon a time we would hand over mugshots to Shopwatch volunteers on paper and ask them to look out for them. Now SentrySIS allows us to update retailers with images of suspects in real time.”
The officer continued and said “SentrySIS is much better: it gives the police an extra set of eyes and ears by allowing us to share intelligence with the retailers on who is wanted and who is active – all through the SentrySIS smartphone app or desktop software”.
After a successful trial at its its two Darlington stores, Morrisons has now agreed to expand the programme to its supermarkets in Consett, Chester-le-Street, Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle, saving an minimum of 500 hours of officer time each year.
Police welcome other retailers from across the North East to enquire about joining the scheme and supporting its expansion throughout 2018 by contacting the operational crime management partner, the NERCP.
The SentrySIS Strategic Lead Officer at the police force currently using SentrySIS added and said: “We are working with a number of national retailers to get this system in place with a view we can expand across the police force area”.
Sarah Bird, Head of Business Crime at the NERCP commented on the news and said "This is great news that Morrisons have commited to this initiative and share our region-wide vision on tackling retail crime. We look forward to developing closer strategic relationships with them, the police and other retailer members across the North East".
For more information on how retailers can benefit from the SentrySIS software, please visit www.sentrysis.com or visit the NERCP website here
Photo: Phil Bradshaw (Morrisons), meeting police personnel in the area.