Shoplifting has hit a historic high of almost 1,200 offences a day, as the home secretary called upon the police to not view the offence as a minor crime, but to “pursue every reasonable line of inquiry.”
Shoplifting incidents last year registered by the police year reached 430,104, a rise of 37% from 2022 and the highest number since records began 20 years ago, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.
Yet, the figures also showed that the number of shoplifting offences solved fell from 5% to 10.5 %, a sharp drop from its high of 27.7% in 2016.
The home secretary James Cleverly said this rise in shoplifting and the police’s categorisation of it as a “sub-threshold crime” has a had “corrosive effect” on people’s confidence in the police.
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Cleverly added: “There is no such thing as a sub-threshold crime. Crime is crime – it’s black and white. Criminal activity should be policed,” he said. “Crimes that people see have a corrosive effect on their confidence, and a lack of confidence to be able to live your full life is really important.
“When people see videos of shops being robbed, that has a corrosive effect – so we have to deal with it, which is why we’ve made it absolutely clear they [police] will pursue every reasonable line of inquiry.”
The cabinet minister’s comments come only weeks after the government announced a “tagging” initiative to repeat shoplifting offenders, as part of its crack down on the rise in retail crime.
Under this new policy, persistent shoplifters will be given GPS tags and be banned from high street stores via exclusion zones, in a “three strikes and out” type system.
The new scheme also comes amid the government’s legislation last month, which amended the Criminal Justice Bill to make violence against shopworkers a criminal offence in England and Wales.
