Shoplifting offences in England and Wales hit new record high of nearly 500,000 crimes last year
Shoplifting offences in England and Wales hit new record high of nearly 500,000 crimes last year
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Police recorded the equivalent of 1,350 shoplifting offences every day in year to September 2024, new Office for National Statistics figures show. Shoplifting has surged to a new record high with nearly half a million offences recorded last year, new figures show – as retailers warned that crime in shops is “spiralling out of control”.
With such offences already hitting their highest level last year since records began in the year to March 2003, new Office for National Statistics data showed shoplifting crimes have continued to increase in England and Wales. There were 492,914 shoplifting offences recorded by police in the year to September, which was up 23 per cent from 402,482 in the previous 12 months prior and is equivalent to 1,350 such crimes every day.
The alarming figures came as a separate survey by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) found that incidents including racial and sexual abuse, physical assault and threats with weapons have reached three times the level they were in 2020, when there were 455 incidents a day.
Over the last year, there were 70 incidents a day which involved a weapon - more than double the previous year, the BRC said. Some 61 per cent of respondents described the police response to incidents as "poor" or "very poor", although 3 per cent described it as "excellent" - the first time in five years that any retailers have rated it as such.
