English, Welsh Retailers Call for Crackdown as Shoplifting Leaps 30%

Shoplifting surged by 30% in England and Wales over the last year, a government agency reported Wednesday (July 24).

Leaders of a retail trade union and a convenience store trade association attributed the increase in part to insufficient police presence and a too-high threshold for prosecuting shoplifters.

There were 443,995 shoplifting offenses reported during the year ended in March, up from 342,428 in the previous year, the Office for National Statistics said in a Wednesday press release.

“Notably, shoplifting has continued to see increases and remains at its highest level in 20 years,” the agency said in the release.

The release added that another recent survey found that 26% of locations in the wholesale and retail sector experienced customer theft during the previous 12 months, up from 20% about 10 years earlier.

A leader of the retail trade union Usdaw attributed the rise in shoplifting in part to a threshold for prosecuting shoplifters and a lower-than-desired police presence.

“We look forward to Labour delivering a much-needed protection of shop workers’ law; ending the indefensible £200 threshold for prosecuting shoplifters, which has effectively become an open invitation to retail criminals; and funding more uniformed officers patrolling shopping areas along with town center banning orders for repeat offenders,” Paddy Lillis, general secretary of Usdaw, said in a Wednesday press release.

Usdaw said in the release that it is “deeply concerned” by the Office for National Statistics’ findings. The group added that its own survey of retail staff found that 18% suffered a violent attack in 2023, up from 8% in 2022, and that 60% of these incidents were triggered by shoplifting or armed robbery.

The Association of Convenience Stores said that the rise in shoplifting has been driven by organized gangs.

“They are often stealing to order, targeting higher value items to sell on to normal people who are struggling with the cost of living,” James Lowman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores, said in a Wednesday press release. “These thieves are stealing on a regular basis without fear of apprehension, so it’s essential that every police force in the country takes theft seriously, not least because challenging thieves is one of the biggest triggers for abuse of shopworkers.”

In the United States, the National Retail Federation said in September that retailers are seeing “unprecedented levels of theft” and that shrink cost retailers $112.1 billion in 2022.