Industry Report Agriculture Crime Report

Executive Summary Farms in England and Wales continue to have low levels of crime prevention measures in use despite the increasing threat, and what is used is often ineffective. As such, there is a clear need to employ different decision-making models in crime prevention advice for farmers. The principal aim of this research was to explore and better understand the thoughts, feelings, and attitudes of farmers towards crime, crime prevention, the police, and insurers. Moreover, an attempt to understand how farmers make decisions about crime prevention, what factors influence those decisions, and how this compares to approaches the police are taking to tackle farm crime. Results show an impasse between how the police are tackling farm crime and prevention, and the needs of the farmers. This results in farmers believing the police treat them as second-class citizens, and so they do not engage with crime prevention despite knowing they should. Further, farmers do not report crimes to the police as they feel they will not get a response, and it is a waste of their time. This research concludes that there is much the police, insurers, and the media can do to better respond to farm crime. Moreover, this research is the first to identify key factors affecting farmer attitudes and beliefs towards farm crime, farm crime prevention, the police, and their insurers, and the psychological impact of farm crime among farmers. It is argued that the findings of this research support the use of behavioural science to improve the uptake of appropriate and effective crime prevention on-farm in light of the relative failure of traditional policy. List of Acronyms Used in the Report BS Behavioural Science CPA Crime Prevention Advisor E&W England and Wales FCP FarmCrime Prevention PCC Police and Crime Commissioner Background Farms continue to experience profoundly depressing levels of crime 1 , and the impact of farm crime reverberates far beyond the immediate rural community, affecting employment, food prices and food traceability 2 . Despite the recent efforts of police forces across E&W to address the issues faced by rural communities, the continuing reality is that crime numbers in urban areas are much higher than in rural areas 3 , and as such, this is where police resources tend to focus. The reporting of the cost of rural crime in the UK is currently carried out by annual reports of NFUMutual insurance claims data, rather than police crime data, simply because the latter does not exist on a national basis. Figure 1 shows the cost of rural crime insurance claims in the UK for the last nine years. The latest NFUMutual Rural Crime Survey puts the cost of rural crime in 2017 £44.5m 4 , and the National Rural Crime Survey 5 reports rural crime costing the UK an estimated £800m. 1 Relf, T. 2018. https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/rural-crime-costs-hit-five-year-high 2 Chalfin, A., Roman, J., Mears, D.P., Scott, M.L. 2007. The Costs of Benefits of Agricultural Crime Prevention. Urban Institute Justice Policy Center: Florida State University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice. 3 Defra. 2012. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/227013/Crime_Aug_2013.pdf 4 NFUMutual. 2018. https://www.nfumutual.co.uk/farming/rural-crime/ 5 NRCN. 2015. http://www.nationalruralcrimenetwork.net/research/internal/national-rural-crimes-survey2015/ Industry Report - FarmCrime 1