More action needed to tackle shoplifting, say independent retailers

The statistics reveal that reported incidents of shoplifting increased by 20 per cent to 530,643 offences last year – the highest figure since current police recording practices began.

The Fed’s national president Hetal Patel said: “The figures are alarming enough, but in reality, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many more incidents go unreported, due to a lack of confidence in the response from police and inadequate punishment from the courts when shoplifters do actually appear in court.

“Our recent survey of Fed members found that 72 per cent of respondents had experienced shoplifting, break-ins and damage to their property and that they and their staff had been physically or verbally threatened.”

Last month, policing minister Dame Diana Johnson pledged that the Government would take retail crime seriously, announcing extra police patrols and local action, including stronger prevention and enforcement action by police and councils as part of the Safer Streets summer blitz.

Mr Patel said: “While we welcome this crackdown, it must not end up being just a temporary measure. We need stronger and continuous action to curb the escalating scourge of shoplifting and abuse directed at our members and their businesses.

“Shop theft is often seen as a victimless crime, but this is not the case. It takes a heavy toll mentally, physically and financially on shop owners, their families and their employees. At the same time, the financial costs of retail crime will eventually impact on customers through inflated prices.”

He added: “The Government appears to be making the right noises on tackling retail crime, but we continue to demand the introduction of more effective measures, such as making grants for better security systems available to smaller retailers.

“We want stable businesses to provide for ourselves and our loved ones, and we want to be safe from harm when we go to work.”

Data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) for the year ending March 2025 showed crime against individuals and households has generally decreased over the past ten years with some notable exceptions, such as sexual assault. However, there have been increases across some crime types in the latest reporting period.

There were around 9.4 million incidents of headline crime, including theft, robbery, criminal damage, fraud, computer misuse and violence with or without injury – a seven per cent increase compared with the year ending March 2024 (8.8 million incidents).

The latest rise in CSEW headline crime was because of a 31 per cent increase in fraud (to around 4.2 million incidents) – this is the highest estimated number of incidents since fraud was first collected on the CSEW in the year ending March 2017

Computer misuse decreased by 32 per cent (to around 692,000 incidents) compared with last year’s survey, largely because of a 36 per cent fall in incidents of unauthorised access to personal information.

There have been general increases in police recorded sexual offences over the past decade, largely because of improvements in police recording practices. There was an 11 per cent increase in the year ending March 2025 (to 209,556 offences), compared with the previous year (188,627 offences).

Around a third (71,667 offences) of all sexual offences recorded by the police were rape offences. This was a six per cent increase, compared with the previous (67,818 offences).

There was a small decrease in the proportion of police recorded sexual offences that had taken place over a year before the crime was recorded (20 per cent), compared with the previous year (21 per cent).

Experiences of domestic abuse, sexual assault, stalking and harassment are presented separately as prevalence estimates (the proportion of all people who were victims in the previous 12 months) in our statistics. Data from the YE March 2025 CSEW showed no statistically significant change in these estimates compared with the YE March 2024 survey. In YE March 2025:

The number of homicides decreased by six per cent (to 535 offences) compared with 567 offences in 2024 – the lowest since the year ending March 2014 (533 offences)

Offences involving knives or sharp instruments decreased by one per cent (to 53,047 offences) compared with the year ending March 2024 (53,685 offences); with some police forces seeing increases and some seeing decreases

Offences involving firearms decreased by 21 per cent (to 5,103 offences) compared with the previous year (6,449 offences), largely because of a 30 per cent fall (to 1,907 offences) in imitation firearms, such as replica weapons and BB guns.