Shop thefts in Bradford city centre have almost halved in the last six months, thanks in large part to the use of the SentrySIS crime intelligence platform and the city’s Business Crime Reduction Partnership’s strengthened partnership with Bradford BID.
The digital tool has been central to a multi-agency effort to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour while supporting local businesses and improving safety for workers, shoppers, and visitors.
According to official figures, reported shop theft offences in Bradford city centre dropped from 77 offences to just 40 in the space of six months, a reduction widely credited to the improved coordination and intelligence sharing enabled by City Centre Beat, Bradford BID, SentrySIS and other local partners.
The Bradford’s City Centre Beat (CCB) partnership, which leads the initiative, uses SentrySIS as a secure platform to circulate intelligence briefings, share offender alerts in real-time, and streamline communication between businesses, police, and the city’s CCTV network.
As part of this digital approach, CCB also operates a secure digital radio system, but it’s the real-time features of the SentrySIS app that have made the significant difference. Businesses receive instant updates on known offenders and quickly flag new incidents across the city.
Recently, police said they were seeing "improvements daily" in reduced anti-social behaviour activity in the area. This followed reports of serious issues around Rawson Square, near the former Wilko store, where businesses raised concerns about drug use, defecation, and other disruptive activities. The rapid alerting capabilities of SentrySIS and the long-standing radio network have helped frontline teams respond more effectively to these problems.
How SentrySIS Supports Business Crime Partnerships
SentrySIS is a UK-based digital platform purpose-built for crime intelligence and offender management. It’s used by police forces, BCRPs, private security firms, and national retailers across the UK.
For business crime partnerships like CCB, SentrySIS provides:
- A Secure Crime Management System: That enables day to day crime management to occur.
- Secure Offender Database: Enables partnerships to log and manage profiles of prolific offenders, including images, behavioural patterns and exclusion zones.
- Real-Time Alerts & Notifications: Businesses receive push notifications about known offenders entering the area, enabling immediate action or preventative measures.
- Incident Reporting & Case File Management: Retailers and security teams can digitally log incidents (e.g., shoplifting, anti-social behaviour, etc) which are then shared with police and other partners.
- GDPR-Compliant Intelligence Sharing: SentrySIS ensures all data handling complies with UK GDPR, with controlled access permissions, audit logs, and role-based access control.
- Mobile and Desktop Access: Users can access the system on the go via the SentrySIS app or from a web portal, improving flexibility and responsiveness.
- Mapping and Location Tools: Offender movements and incident hotspots can be tracked geographically to inform policing and patrol priorities.
- National Connectivity: SentrySIS enables cross-regional sharing of offender intelligence between towns and cities, supporting efforts to identify travelling offenders and organised retail crime networks.
Success stories include deployments across Durham, Hampshire, Devon & Cornwall Police along with partnerships such as Retailers Against Crime in Scotland and UKPAC across the South coast.
The partnership’s approach in Bradford has also been nationally recognised by the National Association of Business Crime Partnerships (NABCP) through its National Standards Accreditation for 2025, which highlights "excellence in management practices, partnership working and data handling, particularly in relation to GDPR compliance and intelligence sharing."
Steve Baker, Crime Manager of CCB, said: “We are proud to have received the 2025 National Standards Accreditation. It demonstrates to our members that their data is handled with the utmost care and security in our shared mission to tackle business crime. Our strong partnerships ensure our members feel supported in protecting their staff and customers.”
CCB works closely with Bradford BID, the Neighbourhood Policing Team, Bradford Council, and major retail hubs including The Broadway, Kirkgate Centre, and Forster Square Retail Park. The unified use of SentrySIS across these groups has improved visibility of offenders and enabled faster preventative action.
Jonny Noble, Chief Executive of Bradford BID, said: "We’re excited to be trialling body-worn cameras, especially for smaller independent businesses, to further deter theft, reassure staff, and collect vital evidence.” He added that collaboration through tools like SentrySIS has helped “Bradford out perform the national trend in retail crime”, which continue to rise in other parts of the country.
Inspector Justin Adams, of the Bradford City Neighbourhood Policing Team, welcomed the accreditation: “We work closely with partners in the city centre to tackle anti-social behaviour, business and retail crime and will continue to work to make the city a safe and vibrant place to live and work.”
Sophie Jordan, Manager of the National Association of Business Crime Partnerships, said: "Congratulations to Bradford City Centre Beat BCRP on successfully achieving the BCRP National Standards Accreditation." The assessor noted clear and consistent communication, including regular briefings for local business staff, and effective collaboration with partners.
As Bradford continues to build momentum in reducing crime, the SentrySIS platform remains a key enabler allowing business communities to work smarter, faster, and more collaboratively than ever before.
If you are a local organisation based in the Bradford region and want to join City Centre Beat, visit www.citycentrebeat.co.uk/contact or if you are a crime partnership and want more information how SentrySIS can help your fight in retail crime, click on sentrysis.com.