Business Crime Prevention Program

The crime prevention program relaunched today here in Meridian. Lt. Rita Jack of the Meridian Police Department held a meeting this afternoon to introduce the program to businesses in the area.

The Business Alert Network, also known as B.A.N, is a program re-launched by MPD to enable businesses to be the eyes and ears for police in business crime prevention. The program kicked off today with a meeting with program coordinator LT. Rita Jack.

“We want to make sure we are serving the businesses and the public”, stated Lt. Jack. “The way to do that is by having these meetings. Our main goal for today was to get the businesses together in the same room and communicate with one another as well as communicate with law enforcement.”

Roshundia Rankin

Business owner Roshundia Rankin of five years and longtime Meridian resident believes that the B.A.N program is going to uplift the business community.

“Business owners will know each other. If you know your neighbor and you know their employees; then if you see something suspicious it’s easier for you to be able to report it”, stated Rankin. “It’s going to be easier for police to detour a criminal, so I think that’s going to help business owners feel safer and at ease.”

The program which was initially launched in 2019 was put on hold because of COVID. Lt. Jack says amongst all of the crime prevent networks, B.A.N stood out because the name itself sends a message to how they are going to approach crime.

“The word B.A.N is short for Business Alert Network. It registers better with the businesses and with the general public on how we are going to approach crime. We’re going to ban criminals, we’re going to ban hazardous situations, we’re going to band together", stated Lt. Rita Jack.

We also learned in the meeting that Meridian police and Lauderdale County Sheriff department are working towards providing a resource for the public that shows real-time criminal activity. We’ll have more on that as information becomes available.