This evening's TV report about an aggrieved store manager on Funen who 12 months ago had drones stolen for DKK 32,000 made the Minister of Justice this evening wonder about the actions of the police. http://nyheder.tv2.dk/krimi/2019-05-21-gerningsmaend-bag-tyveri-identificeret-paa-et-minut-alligevel-opgav-politiet The police have also explained that the case was “dropped by mistake” and after the Public Prosecutor has looked into the case, the police have been asked to reopen it. It took TV2 a few hours to find out the identity of the perpetrators.

yourCompany ApS offers Outsourcing of the security function for companies and in this connection we make many reports to the police every year. Our staff currently consists exclusively of former police officers who can easily assess whether a report is worthwhile or not. In many cases, we conduct our own investigation and contact perpetrators that we find ourselves.

In this connection, it should be mentioned that it would be nice to have some of the tools we have access to in the police, such as searches in the motor register, which insurance companies, debt collection companies and several other types of companies already have access to today.

Why do we contact perpetrators ourselves?

We do this to recover the stolen items or to get the perpetrator to pay for them, and we often succeed. This is really what the business world focuses on and here the police fail miserably as they only focus on the criminal case - not on getting stolen goods back or settling the claim quickly. Whether a known shoplifter gets “another conviction” is completely uninteresting to businesses. It's the reduction of financial loss that's important. Punishment is for the sake of society, not the stores.

It may be surprising that the Minister of Justice very credibly appears on TV and says that this case surprises him. Unfortunately, it does not surprise any of us who have this type of contact with the police on a daily basis. I hear the same from people who are still in the police. The truth is that the police close thousands of good cases where the perpetrator can be found relatively easily. However, it requires you to get out of your office chair and drive out into the community to the thieves, because these slobs tend not to show up when they are called in for questioning! A couple of times I have offered the police to drive out to the perpetrator and offer him a ride for questioning when the person had failed to show up 2-3 times, but the police did not think it was necessary “as they would probably solve the case” and here we are talking months after the theft. In the time the police officer spent on letters and phone calls to the perpetrator, he could have closed the case by driving out there, making an arrest and bringing the thief in for a photo, fingerprints and DNA mouth swab.

I don't have actual statistics, but my gut feeling is that my customers experience around 90% of cases being closed. We are only notified of this in very few cases, the others “trickle out” and suddenly several years have passed. Remember that the cases are made by former police officers and the “crap” cases are in many cases sorted out, we are talking about cases with modern TV surveillance, pictures of perpetrators and vehicle registration numbers. I have also experienced that the police have not downloaded video material sent to them long after the report. Sometimes I've seen police simply throw away evidence because a case has changed case handlers so many times that no one knows where important evidence has gone.

There will never be enough police!

That's why business needs to do more of this task itself. The belief that everything will be fine again is simply not realistic. It's not just shoplifting that is lagging behind, but also financial crime, burglary of homes, company cars and construction sites, bailiff cases and probably even more are also severely under-prioritized.

If business is to take greater responsibility in this area, it requires opening up some of the restrictions that make it difficult. Politicians could usefully consider steps such as:

• give certified companies access to the central vehicle register
• access to 118's unlisted numbers that the police have
• Increased access to license plate scanners and facial recognition. This is possible today, but only for 30 days in the past.
• Increased ability to video film in areas outside of your business and home
• Better options for sharing video with others
• ability to publish facial images of recognized perpetrators
• Legalize certified companies to use technical surveillance against perpetrators again

Such tools would make it possible to qualify police reports and deliver “finished” cases to the police on a larger scale. This would reduce the police workload and cases could be easily reviewed and taken to court. This saves resources for the police.

One thing is for sure. Our current system only works in the thief's favor. That's hardly the point.

Christian Pejtersen, CEO, yourCompany ApS