‘Everything seems to be pushed onto the businesses’: stakeholder perceptions of the policing of business crime in Staffordshire, United Kingdom

This article concerns the perceptions and policing of business crime in the Staffordshire Police area in England in 2019–2020. Based on collaborative mixed methods’ work analysis of business crime in Staffordshire, it considers the framing of official discourse, and how it is applied and understood in police practice. Using 74 qualitative interviews with small business owners and access to police data, the research team considered how business crime was framed by officials and stakeholders. Noting there is something of a disconnect between officials and stakeholders the paper suggests that this reveals the conceptual and practical limitations of policing business crime as a form of commercial victimisation. This is due, the paper argues, to the conceptual ambiguity of the contemporary official police discourse of business crime which, in praxis is ill-defined and largely restricted to a more obvious form of retail crime. It suggests that greater consideration and conceptual refinement of the varied nature of business and enterprise is necessary if authorities truly wish to recognise the varied ways in which commercial activity and victimisation intersect. Recognising these intersections should enable police and the CJS to provide more effective responses to stakeholders and the wide range of businesses that face varied and multifaceted victimisation.