Shoplifting has risen to the highest level on record amid complaints the crime has been effectively ‘decriminalised’, new data revealed today.
A total of 430,104 offences were recorded by police in the year to December 2023, up by more than a third (37%) from 315,040 in the previous 12 months.
The figure is the highest since current records began in the year to March 2003, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Retail bosses have accused ministers of allowing shoplifting to become effectively decriminalised, with many police forces failing to attend the majority of reports and failing to gather any evidence when they do.
Under 40 per cent of shoplifting reports were attended by the Met between April 2022 and April 2023, recent figures revealed.
A total of 430,104 offences were recorded by police in the year to December 2023. The figure is the highest since current records began in the year to March 2003
This is the moment two shoplifters brazenly steal products from a Boots store just yards from a police station – as helpless staff watch on
The pair can be seen chucking products from the shelves into big black sports bags at the store on Station Road, Chingford
Separate data suggests a similar – and often worse – situation in the rest of the country, with forces sending out and officer for just one in five calls related to shoplifting.
Only six forces responded to the Freedom of Information request by the Telegraph.
Police recorded crime data for England and Wales shows offences involving theft from the person stood at 125,563 in 2023, up nearly a fifth from 106,606 in 2022, and is the highest level since 2004 (137,154).
The figures also show the number of offences involving theft from the person stood at 125,563 in 2023, up 18% from 106,606 in 2022 and is the highest level since 2004 (137,154).
The number of robberies recorded rose by 13% last year to 81,094, up from 71,983 in 2022 – although this is still 26% lower than the year ending March 2003 (110,271).
Meanwhile, crimes involving knives or sharp instruments stood at 49,489 in 2023, up 7% from 46,153 in 2022, but 3% lower than the pre-pandemic total of 51,206 offences in the year ending March 2020. Gun crime was up 9%.
But this set of figures does not include offences recorded by Greater Manchester Police and Devon & Cornwall Police, due to problems recording data.
Commenting on the latest crime figures, Nick Stripe of the Office for National Statistics said: ‘In the past 12 months, police recorded crime shows notable increases in robbery, theft from the person and shoplifting.
‘The latter has risen by more than 100,000 offences, while the police have been dealing with the highest levels of theft from the person offences recorded in two decades.
‘While levels of headline crime measured by the Crime Survey for England and Wales remain relatively stable, there are variations when looking at individual crime types.
‘The survey indicates that incidents of fraud and criminal damage are both decreasing, but computer misuse has been on the rise.’
Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, said: ‘These shocking figures show the scale of Conservative failure on law and order with another steep increase in knife crime and robbery, and record high shoplifting where organised criminals are just getting away with it. The Tories are badly failing to get a grip on the changing patterns of crime.
‘Despite repeated warnings from retailers, communities, and from Labour that action was needed to tackle soaring shoplifting and abuse affecting our town centres, these figures show that shoplifting has surged by further 37 per cent in the last 12 months alone to its highest ever recorded level, with ruinous consequences for our town centres and high streets.’
This security-protected bar of Dairy Milk Wholenut was seen at a Co-op in Codsall in Staffordshire
A Tesco branch in Theydon Bois, Essex, has slapped security tags on shopping baskets
The epidemic of shoplifting has seen shops resort to desperate measures to protect stock, with shoppers left stunned this week after spotting a £2 chocolate bar locked inside a security box in a Co-op supermarket in Codsall, Staffordshire.
Meanwhile, one Tesco branch in Theydon Bois, Essex, has even begun putting security tags on shopping baskets due to a rise in the number of people helping themselves to ‘five-finger discounts’.
Another Tesco in Bristol has started checking customers on CCTV before letting them into the store in a ‘nightclub-style door policy’.
The branch in Southville has also moved their shopping baskets away from the doors to stop thieves piling them up with shopping and running out.
It leaves the automatic doors shut until customers are viewed on camera to see if they are suspected or well-known thieves.
Staff say the policy is in operation between 6am and 9am and in the late evenings when no security guards are on duty.
Separate figures that emerged earlier this month show convenience store thefts have soared to 5.6million from 1.1million in just one year.
Figures from the Association of Convenience Stores also revealed that there were 76,000 acts of violence in small shops last year, up from 41,000.
Meanwhile, the British Retail Consortium said thefts cost retailers £1.8billion in 2022-23, up from £953million the previous year.
Richard Inglis, who runs a chain of Co-op stores in Hampshire, said police had told him they would not investigate shoplifting offences unless the theft is over £200, there is clear CCTV and the criminal’s full name is known.
Mr Inglis said: ‘It used to be a police officer would have come down, taken a statement and CCTV. But as they have cut back on resources we have to do our own statements now and upload the CCTV to a system and those cases are then reviewed.
‘The burden of proof we have to provide now is so extreme.
‘I have been told by the police that the value of the stock has to be over £200 and if I don’t know their name and don’t have a clear shot of their face on CCTV then it won’t get to court.
Shocking video filmed at a Greggs in Archway, north London shows a shoplifter walking out holding three sandwiches and two bottles of orange juice
‘If not they will take it as a report but would mark it up as no further action, then it just becomes a statistic but nothing is going to be done. They basically told me it’s not the right use of resources.
‘Most of the police we deal with want to do more but they know it’s a waste of their time if it just gets filed further up the line or if it gets to court and the court don’t do anything.
‘They’ve decriminalised these things and that has caused it to increase, there’s no deterrent.’
Last year a senior Co-op executive revealed specially trained security staff were regularly catching shoplifters only to have to let them go because police were ignoring 80 per cent of cases.
Paul Gerrard said the chain had invested in undercover security guards who perform citizen’s arrests on thieves.
Shoplifting grandmother Rachel McKee, 51, tried to frame a village postmaster and his wife as gun-runners and child abusers after she was banned from their store
The thief made 11 false reports of child abuse to social services, which led to the couple’s daughter being taken out of class and questioned
But Mr Gerrard – who used to work in law enforcement – admitted that in the majority of cases they had to be let go because officers never turn up.
‘These are highly trained expert guards – often ex-police and ex-forces – who work undercover in stores where there’s a particular problem,’ he told MailOnline.
‘They will intervene and make a citizen’s arrest and detain the individual. But even in those cases when we’ve detained an offender and called for police assistance the police don’t attend in 80 per cent of cases.’
Earlier this year the store revealed an improvement in the police response but said forces were still failing to attend in 40 per cent of cases when a suspect had been detained.
- Do you have photo or video evidence of shoplifting? Email rory.tingle@mailonline.co.uk
