Shoplifting offences at 20-year high

There were 469,788 shoplifting offences recorded by the police in year ending June 2024, a 29 per cent increase on the 365,173 offences in the previous year.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said this highest figure since current police recording practices began for the year ending March 2003 and was predominantly the reason for a three per cent rise in overall theft offences (up to 1.8 million).

Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, Dame Diana Johnson,  said the statistics show the “scale of the challenge to make streets safer”.

“Too many town centres have been decimated by record levels of shoplifting, and communities have been left shaken by rising levels of knife crime, snatch theft and robbery. This cannot continue,” she said.

“This government will restore neighbourhood policing across the country, put thousands more dedicated officers out on our streets and scrap the £200 shoplifting threshold, bringing an end to the effective impunity for thieves who steal low value goods.”

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who chaired her first National Policing Board meeting this week, says the Government will legislate to create a standalone offence for assault a retail worker, and will repeal Section 176 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to make it clear all shoplifting is illegal and to remove the perception that those committing shop theft will escape punishment.

While shoplifting continues to be at a record high, the Home Office says the volume of charges for the offence have increased significantly (by 56 per cent) showing that police are taking this crime more seriously and increasing enforcement activity. But it says more needs to be done.

The Home Office said: “We will reinvigorate collaboration between police and the retail sector by establishing a Retail Crime Forum, to help turbo charge initiatives like Pegasus and identify what more needs to be done to protect communities.”

Latest estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) show while most crime types did not show a statistically significant change, there were notable increases in robbery, violence with injury and consumer and retail fraud.

Robbery returned to levels last seen before the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, rising to an estimated 139,000 incidents, compared with 60,000 incidents in year ending June 2023, although the ONS said police recorded crime was its “preferred source for robbery”. These figures showed robbery increased by six per cent (to 81,931 offences) in comparison with the year ending June 2023 (77,106 offences)

Violence with injury also returned to pre-pandemic levels and increased to an estimated 562,000 incidents from around 376,000 offences in the previous 12 months.

Consumer and retail fraud increased by 19 per cent, reaching approximately 963,000 incidents.

The number of homicides decreased slightly (562 offences) compared with the hear ending June 2023 (578 offences).

Offences involving knives or sharp instruments (excluding Greater Manchester Police) increased by four per cent (to 50,973 offences) compared with 49,187  in the previous year.). This was two per cent lower than the year ending March 2020 (51,982 offences)

Offences involving firearms fell by five per cent to 5,996 compared with 6,327 offences in the year ending June 2023.