‘Tackling retail crime must be a priority for the next Labour government’

Last week, the Shadow Home Secretary unveiled plans to establish a new ‘charging commission‘ in order to tackle the rapidly rising number of unsolved crimes across the country. The new commission will be chaired by former victim’s commissioner Dame Vera Baird and will bring together experts to develop proposals on how to end the collapse in charging rates.

Shocking statistics show more than 2.4 million cases were dropped in the year ending March 2023 due to lack of evidence – revealing the scale of unprosecuted crimes. One area in which this is particularly apparent is in retail crime, including violence against shopworkers and shoplifting.

The Co-op Group has recently released data that shows retail crime, shoplifting and anti-social behaviour is at its highest level ever – including a 35% increase over the last year alone. These shocking statistics show the risks facing shopworkers across the UK and jeopardise the future presence of the day-to-day retailers we all rely on. Under the next Labour government, action on retail crime must become a priority, with a fresh approach to building partnerships with retailers, which puts the safety of workers and the reduction of crime at its heart.

Retail crime is a rising issue that many police forces have ignored

Retail crime has been a rising issue for a number of years – with incidents being particularly driven by persistent and repeat offenders. These offenders often use their criminal activities such as shoplifting to fuel wider criminal activities, including drug dealing and prostitution. The rate of retail crime offending by persistent and repeat offenders means there are now almost 1,000 incidents of retail crime every day in Co-op stores across the country. Usdaw trade union has long campaigned on this issue and shown the significant impact on workers who are victims of violence or threat. 

Yet many police forces have ignored the rising rates of retail crime, with freedom of information requests revealing that an average of 71% of serious retail crime is not responded to by police, with this rising to 90% in some regions. As set out by the Shadow Home Secretary, a new approach under a future Labour government is essential to ensuring criminals no longer have a free pass to consistently offend. Under Labour’s new plans, police forces will be supported to attain better evidence and build high quality partnerships to deliver results on crime reduction.

The Co-op Group’s approach serves as a blueprint for Labour

The Co-operative Party supports Labour’s new approach to partnership building on crime and has recently set out how new partnerships can be developed with retailers to tackle crime. In our recent report, Rebuilding Policing and Criminal Justice, we demonstrate how the Co-op Group has been developing partnerships with police forces across the country to successfully collect data and target persistent and repeat offenders.

By working closely with police forces in Nottinghamshire and Sussex, the Co-op Group has been able to pass data onto police officers who have then been able to make arrests and prosecute offenders. The new partnerships help to reduce crime in stores whilst saving police forces time through the use of data and a better targeted approach – signalling a future strategy that could be adopted by an incoming Labour government. 

Police forces must begin building partnerships with retailers

The rate of increase in retail crime should be a serious concern for us all – jeopardising the ability of high street retailers to deliver the goods and services we all rely on. The Co-operative Party believes developing partnerships that successfully target persistent and repeat offenders is fundamental to tackling this issue going forward and all police authorities must step up to the challenge of building these partnerships.

Labour’s new plans for a charging commission are an important step in the right direction, but police authorities must begin building co-operation with partners as soon as possible to ensure the future of our high street retailers.