ACS has responded to the latest ONS crime statistics for England and Wales, highlighting the need for local action to tackle shop theft.
The new ONS data for police recorded crime, sourced to the Home Office, shows that there were 274,999 incidents of shop theft in the year ending March 2022, a 21% increase on the year ending March 2021.
The figures only account for the number of incidents that ended up being recorded by the police, so is likely to be just a fraction of the number of crimes actually being committed. Figures from the 2022 ACS Crime Report show that there were almost a million incidents of theft committed against convenience stores over the last year, costing an average of over £1,000 per store. More than half of those committing offences were identified as repeated offenders, and the top motivations for repeat offending were reported as addiction (1st) and an organised group of criminals (2nd).
ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “The overall increase in shop theft is likely to be partially due to many retailers being closed or partially closed during the period of Covid restrictions. Additionally, many convenience retailers were operating on reduced numbers of customers in store for safety reasons, which can make it more difficult for thieves to steal from stores. Shop theft continues to be a massive issue for convenience retailers, and is mostly driven by organised groups stealing to sell on elsewhere and those who are suffering from a drug or alcohol addiction. Retailers have told us that they do not see any evidence of the cost of living crisis driving ordinary people to steal from stores, it is still the same groups looking to cash in at the expense of hard working business owners.
“We strongly urge all Police and Crime Commissioners to prioritise dealing with shop theft in their plans for local forces, as if there is not intervention there is a strong likelihood that these so called ‘low level’ crimes will escalate to abuse, violence, robberies and burglaries as the criminals become more confident that they won’t be caught.”
The full ONS data release is available here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2022
