British stores are losing millions of pounds and their staff is being put at risk due to a rise in shoplifting. Dame Sharon White, the chair of one of the country’s most iconic retailers, John Lewis, described this criminality as a “crisis that’s hiding in plain sight,” linking it to increasing living costs.
Dame Sharon told the BBC that shoplifting in her stores has gone up by 26% over the past year. National figures also show that retailers lost a record £950 million in theft in the 12 months before March 2023, up from £663 million the previous year.
Reports have pointed to rising living costs pushing more people towards shoplifting, moving the trend away from the previous dominance of repeat offenders. But confidence among individuals that such an offence is unlikely to result in serious repercussions is also a key factor.
Government figures show that while offences are on the up, prosecutions are dropping, and fast. Many of those who shoplift are now, according to The Week, likely to be handed a ‘police caution’ rather than face prosecution, which holds nowhere near the same weight.
Gangs and individual thieves have become “much bolder,” Dame Sharon said, adding that
I have lost count of the number of times I have visited John Lewis or Waitrose branches in England and been told that the police simply don’t have the time or resource to respond to a shoplifting incident.
[It’s] a licence to shoplift, which is not a victimless crime.
Tory MP James Sunderland, quoted in The Times, agreed that criminals “appear to be operating with impunity,” often putting staff at significant risk. Though his party has done nothing to undo the removal of police patrols which are known to deter such criminality.
