Shops are also thought to be spending around one point eight million pounds annually, installing anti-crime measures. Furthermore, the British Retail Consortium is now demanding more police resources allocated to tackle increasing levels of theft.
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00:00In regards to the shoplifting epidemic in the UK, the retail trade union, USTOW, reportedly said two-thirds of the retail workers who responded to its annual survey said that incidents of violence, threats and verbal abuse they had suffered were triggered by theft or armed robbery.
00:17When discussing shoplifting levels being the highest ever recorded, Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson said the Labour government will not tolerate the criminality blighting communities.
00:28She said that's why the government plans to put almost 3,000 more police officers in neighbourhood rules this year.
00:36She said that under this leadership, crimes will receive the attention they deserve.
00:40The British Retail Consortium's chief executive has previously theorised that shoplifting is driven by organised gangs and prolific offenders who are stealing to order.
00:50Helen Dickinson went on to say that offenders are becoming more daring because they don't see that there's necessarily any consequences.
00:59In Labour's crime and policing bill, the government have promised to introduce stronger measures to tackle low-level shoplifting.
01:07It's also set to become a separate offence to assault a shop worker.
01:11James Lohman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores, said the gangs that are committing the majority of these crimes against retailers are typically organised, stealing to fund other criminal activity or drug and alcohol habits.
01:26He went on to say that these thieves are stealing on a regular basis without fear of apprehension, so it's essential that every police force in the country takes theft seriously,
01:36not least because challenging thieves is one of the biggest triggers for abuse of shop workers.
01:42Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has also said that stronger laws on knife crime, shoplifting and assaults on shop workers will help to keep communities across the nation safe.
01:53Overall, police reportedly recorded a total of 6.64 million crimes in England and Wales in 2024.
02:00This figure was down by 1% on the year before.
02:03Fraud accounted for 4.1 million incidents in the survey, with theft accounting for 2.93 million.
02:11A spokesperson for the Office for National Statistics said that the increase in crime recorded by the survey in the recent period has been driven by fraud and theft.
02:21They added that, notably, there has been a significant increase in theft from the person, with mobile phones the most common item stolen.