Shoplifting and street theft surge in England and Wales

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Shoplifting has risen to its highest level in 20 years in England and Wales, up 30 per cent year on year, alongside a rising spate of street theft, according to official data.

There was no significant change across many forms of crime in the year up to March 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday. However, the agency highlighted a 40 per cent increase in theft from the person, including bag snatching and mobile phone theft not involving the threat or use of violence.

There was also a 30 per cent rise in police-recorded shoplifting offences from 342,428, in the year to March 2023, to 443,995, in the 12 months to March this year.

The annual crime survey of England and Wales showed a leap in computer misuse, driven by a 42 per cent rise in “unauthorised access to personal information” alongside a 10 per cent fall in fraud, in part because of reductions in bank and credit account fraud.

The figures point to the scale of the challenge for police forces confronting a high volume of acquisitive theft at a time when priority crimes involving violence and the threat of it remain constant.  

A recruitment drive initiated by the previous Conservative government has restored police staffing to pre-austerity levels.

However, police budgets have only recently begun to recover from the 20 per cent real-terms cut they took in the aftermath of the global financial crisis between 2011 and 2015.

Professor Emmeline Taylor, a criminologist at City University, London, and an expert in acquisitive crime, said the recorded shoplifting figures were a “drop in the ocean” compared with the rates reported by retailers.

The British Retail Consortium, the industry group, found in its most recent report published in February that customer theft had doubled to 16.7mn incidents in 2023, up from 8mn in 2022, across the UK.

It also recorded a huge surge in violence and abuse directed at retailers, at 1,300 incidents a day, up from 867 in 2022.

Less than 3 per cent of shoplifting offences were reported to police, Taylor said. This was either because shopkeepers did not have sufficient evidence, because they had lost confidence in the police, or they feared reprisal, she added.

“Acquisitive crimes have been left to fester because the police simply haven’t had the resources to follow up,” she said, adding: “I think offenders believe they can operate with relative impunity.”