The Bradford based crime reduction partnership called City Centre Beat (CCB) have improved the way they tackle low level crime and anti-social behaviour, thanks to replacing their existing solution with the crime intelligence software called SentrySIS.
Popular with other crime partnerships across Yorkshire, The Midlands and The North East of England, SentrySIS is becoming the ‘go-to’ crime intelligence platform helping the police, local businesses and national retailers stay two steps ahead of local criminals.
(From left, Steve Baker; PCSO Fiaz Khan, Mirko Maric, deputy chairman of CCB and customer service manager at the Kirkgate Centre, and Dave Downes with the new SentrySIS crime management software)
The system has been adopted by CCB as part of a wider consortium of stakeholders, which includes retailers in Kirkgate and The Broadway shopping centres, Forster Square retail park, West Yorkshire Metro, West Yorkshire Police, Bradford Council, Bradford Business Improvement District (BID), the University of Bradford and Bradford College.
CCB members can gain access to crime intelligence via a dedicated smartphone app and cloud-based web portal. The software means that security guards, loss prevention personnel and shop assistants can now search the SentrySIS database of known offenders to prevent them from entering a store before a crime has even had chance to take place.
City Centre Beat’s joint crime manager Steve Baker said: “We’re now better equipped than ever before to help our business members fight low-level crime and anti-social behaviour all year round but it’s great to have this in place in the run-up to Christmas, which is usually one of our busiest periods.”
Over the last few years, the SentrySIS system has been a great success through its use by the Leeds crime partnership called Business Against Crime in Leeds (BACIL). Now that City Centre Beat has implemented the same SentrySIS platform, both cities and other neighbouring crime partnerships using SentrySIS can share crime data and intelligence on travelling offenders between themselves in a secure and GDPR compliant way.
Dave Downes, deputy general manager at The Broadway Shopping Centre and Bradford BID board member, said: “It provides instantaneous sharing of criminal profiles, photographs and details of who and what to look out for.”
“Members can add incidents and alerts about criminal behaviour and we can pass that information straight on to the police. The system also allows us to share intelligence on travelling criminals with other crime reduction partnerships in the region.”
The software houses an array of crime intelligence ranging from known and unknown subjects of interest through to vehicles which have been associated with crime and criminal activity within the area. City Centre Beat users can also be informed about historical crime incidents that have occurred in the city centre and further afield.
Chris Nriapia from SentrySIS commented and said “This is not only great news for Bradford businesses but for the region as a whole. The ability to link up Bradford with other towns and cities using our software now makes Yorkshire a safer place for visitors, city centre shoppers and retail staff who unfortunately have to deal with these incidents on a daily basis.”
The SentrySIS crime management software also includes a dedicated suite of cloud-based solutions for police constabularies and local authorities allowing them to manage crime and crime processes in a much more modern and efficient way.
Chris Nriapia commented further and said “The police in the North East have been seeing the benefits of our ‘police-specific’ applications since 2016 where efficiency savings for the police have resulted to an overall improved service to the public. Thanks to City Centre Beat in Bradford and our other SentrySIS crime partnership users across Yorkshire, we hope to see what opportunities arise with West Yorkshire Police in the near future”.
City Centre Beat members can access SentrySIS via its smartphone app which is available to download for free on Apple and Android devices.
For more information on joining City Centre Beat, please contact Steve Baker or Steve Longbottom at www.citycentrebeat.co.uk or on 01274 722 443.
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Notes to Editors
City Centre Beat is Bradford’s business crime reduction partnerships and was formed in 2016.
SentrySIS is a Leeds based software provider of crime management software for Business Crime Reduction Partnerships, Business Improvement Districts, National Retailers and Police Constabularies.
Image: Courtesy of Telegraph & Argus