Police chiefs are resisting demands to respond to every case of shoplifting despite a record surge in thefts from stores.
Ministers want police to investigate every crime – including shoplifting below £200 – where there is a reasonable line of inquiry. They are also demanding an emergency-level response when shop staff detain a thief.
However, police chiefs argue that it is “not realistic” for officers to respond to every case of shoplifting because of the demand.
There were a record 1,000 shoplifting offences a day reported by police in the year to June 2023, a 25 per cent rise although this was a fraction of the eight million incidents reported by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), costing £1 billion.
Instead, police chiefs say they will attend where there is a crime being committed, a suspect is on the scene and the situation has, or is likely, to become heated or violent.
In an article in The Telegraph on Saturday, Katy Bourne, the police and crime commissioner who is the national lead for retail crime, said police should go further and attend any shoplifting incident where there has been violence or abuse even if the thief has left the premises.
“Even if the offender has just left, the follow-up from police is a reassurance for staff and customers,” said Ms Bourne, who is urging police chiefs to review their guidance on attending such incidents.
The approach is likely to be discussed today (Monday) in a roundtable on shoplifting at Number Ten attended by ministers, police chiefs and leading retailers.
A policing source said there were tensions between ministers and police chiefs over how far to go. “There is this disparity between an ambition to be tougher and the reality of what police can do. Police have to be tougher but police cannot go to everything,” they said.
Where there is agreement is over the need for more use of technology. The Metropolitan Police is to roll out across London a scheme where retailers can submit images of people suspected of shoplifting so they can be matched in police databases using facial recognition technology and investigated when identified.
The Met says the roll out this autumn will allow a “more effective and streamlined reporting of shoplifting where no offender has been detained or violence occurred.”
A similar “one-touch reporting” scheme has been piloted between Sussex Police and 24 Co-op stores where the force has set up a specialist shoplifting unit. The computer hotline enables retailers to file their theft reports instantaneously rather than spending 30 minutes passing on details of a theft over the phone.
The unit builds cases with evidence including CCTV footage, witnesses and forensic analysis before passing it to frontline response or neighbourhood police officers to arrest and prosecute offenders.
Chris Philp, the policing minister, is pushing for police nationally to check the images of suspected shoplifters, thieves and burglars against all police and official databases including passports using facial recognition technology.
A national data-sharing initiative targeted at organised crime gangs specialising in shoplifting will also be announced on Monday. Police forces across the UK and retailers will for the first time pool their intelligence to enable the team to map the gangs which target everything from jewellery to meat which they have been known to re-sell back to the supermarkets.
Under the codename Pegasus, 13 of the biggest retailers including Sainsbury, Tesco, Co-op and John Lewis will each pay £60,000 over two years to fund specialist police analysts to identify the shoplifting gangs drawing on police and industry intelligence.
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