Strike Force Piccadilly: a public-private partnership to stop ATM ram raids

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of Strike Force Piccadilly, a New South Wales Police initiative to address an upsurge in ram raids targeting automatic teller machines (ATMs). Also, the aim is to understand the apparent success of the project in terms of a public-private partnership, involving primarily police and the retail and banking sectors.

Design/methodology/approach – The New South Wales Police provided data showing the numbers of attempts and successful ATM ram raids on a monthly basis from August 2005 to April 2008. The preventive interventions are set against these data in a time series format. The paper is limited to within-group data, with consideration of displacement effects by reference to recorded crime data and police intelligence. Interviews about the project process are also conducted with three key participants: the police manager leading the project (public sector), the security manager of a major retail shopping centre chain (private sector) and the commercial security operations manager of a major bank (private sector).

Findings – The increase in ATM ram raids is halted, and the number is reduced from 69 in the 12 months before the intervention to 19 in the final 12 months of the post-intervention period – a 72 per cent reduction. For the same periods, successful raids are reduced from 30 down to two – a 93 per cent reduction. The research indicates that the main influences on the decrease are: the creation of a police priority alarm response system and the installation of situational prevention measures, including special bollards. The larger context for success is the partnership formed between police and industry. The interventions are developed through consultation, co-operative research and commitment from all parties.

Originality/value – The paper demonstrates the potential significant crime prevention benefits of public-private partnerships, especially when they are well organised and include research and information sharing. Additionally, the findings challenge the often pessimistic literature about police response times by demonstrating how rapid response can be highly effective in certain circumstances.