This week we published our Annual Retail Crime Survey, the latest in a series dating back around two decades. Once again, it showed violence, abuse and theft spiralling upwards.
Violence and abuse rose over 50% in the past year and 340% since 2020, at which time there were around 455 incidents per day. We are now at over 2,000 incidents every single day, which is the highest rate ever recorded in our crime survey. Most seriously, 70 incidents per day involved a weapon, more than double the previous year.
The financial impact of retail crime must also not be ignored. The total cost of retail crime including crime prevention now sits at £4.2 billion, of which £2.2 billion is a direct result of customer theft.
There were over 20 million incidents of theft last year - 55,000 incidents per day - which compares to 16 million the previous year. We’ve noticed that theft and violence have become increasingly interlinked, with confronting thieves a major trigger of violence and abuse. Alongside this, our members have reported that organised crime has been on the rise for some time, with retailers telling us that we are seeing the same gangs systematically targeting multiple stores up and down the country.
As incidents rise, retailers have spent a record £1.8 billion on crime prevention measures in just one year, up from £1.2bn in last year’s survey. The £4.2 billion cost of crime adds to manifold pressures retailers already face, limiting funds that could be used to bring down prices or invest in the shopping experience for customers.
Retailers cannot prevent crime alone. For years, there has been a need for greater police action. Last year saw important progress, with the publication of the Retail Crime Action Plan and the collaboration on Project Pegasus. We should hopefully begin to see the impact of these initiatives in our findings next year. .
At the same time we need retailers to better at reporting incidents and need the police to respond to and handle reported incidents appropriately. There is much further to go to achieve this outcome.
The new Labour Government has shown they understand the seriousness of the problem and were a long-standing supporter of the industry’s campaigning efforts when in Opposition. They have pledged to tackle the scourge of retail crime and, with their support, we should soon see the introduction of a standalone offence for assaulting a retail worker, a huge step forward in our campaign to protect people in retail. We look forward to seeing the details of the Standalone Offence in the Policing and Crime Bill and hope that it will apply to all working in customer facing roles in the industry, including delivery drivers, who are also subject to violent confrontations in their day to day.
The Government has also promised more community police officers, announcing today that they will be investing £200million in community policing.
Now we have to make sure that all this progress leads to tangible results and we start seeing the number of incidents falling.
Let’s see what next year’s figures reveal, but if all parties continue to work together in this great spirit of partnership. I am hopeful that we can start to reverse this terrible upwards trend.
