There were almost half a million shoplifting offences in England and Wales in the 12 months to September 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Crime Survey for England and Wales. There were 492,914 recorded shoplifting offences in the latest survey, compared to 402,220 in the previous year.
As with previous ONS crime outputs, this yet again shows its highest ever recorded figures since current recording practices began in 2003.
Data from the Association of Convenience Stores’ Voice of Local Shops Survey, which tracks levels of theft in the convenience sector, has shown that theft has been increasing every quarter since mid-2021, reaching new record highs toward the end of 2023 and then breaking that record in the first half of 2024. The ACS Crime Report estimates that convenience retailers have recorded over 5.6million incidents of theft over the last year.
ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “These figures continue to be shocking, but still represent a fraction of what is happening to retailers on a daily basis. Retailers and their colleagues are being attacked for challenging thieves that are then lost in the system because of a lack of police resources.
“Everyone involved in tackling shop theft needs to play their part to reverse this trend: retailers reporting crime every time, the police investigating every offence and identifying prolific repeat offenders, and the courts system applying effective penalties that aim to break the cycle of re-offending. We look forward to the introduction of the Crime and Policing Bill which has the opportunity to reset attitudes to shop theft and retail crime.”
Later this year, it is expected that the Crime and Policing Bill will be introduced, making it a separate offence to assault a shopworker in England and Wales, as is already the case in Scotland. ACS has been calling for a complete reset on the perception of retail crime and especially shop theft, with an ambition to send a clear message that this is a crime that will be investigated by local forces.
