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The Retailers Against Crime in Stevenage association was formed as a partnership between the Police and other local agencies. We have been operational since the 29th January 1999. Most of our members are retailers within the Town Centre who have banded together with the Police and local agencies to combat retail crime within the Town Centre. We amalgamated the Town Radio link and our photo-sharing scheme – run in conjunction with the local Police. This also allowed us to operate in a more professional manner. It also allowed the scheme to issue exclusion orders against our known targets and other prolific offenders.
This has expanded into a desire to make the Town Centre a safer and more pleasant place for people to visit and enjoy. To this end our members find themselves not only dealing with offences within their own premises but also with events that occur in and around the Town Centre. Not only do our members deal with criminal activity but we also find ourselves dealing with various accidents around the Town or with children who get separated from their parents.
If these sorts of events happen to you whilst you are in the town simply make your way into one of the major stores within the Town and alert the staff. They can alert the rest of the Town Centre via our radio link. This will also alert the local CCTV scheme, as they are also members of RACS.
Recently RACS was sponsored by HSBC bank and this was published in one of our local papers because our local MP Barbara Follett presented the cheque.
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