UK shoplifting on the rise and more brazen, new survey says | Global News Avenue

A industry institution told Broadcasting Corporation that retail crimes are “out of control”, and the stealing people are increasingly theft of theft because they are not worried about any consequences.

In some cases, the criminals are publicly cleaning up the shelves of customers and store staff-sometimes called “Kamikaze” the strategy of stealing the store.

In the 12 months of September last year, the theft of clients reported by British retailers increased by 3.7 million to 20.4 million, and the cost of retailers was 20 billion pounds.

These numbers were published in the annual crime survey of the British Retail Alliance (BRC) on Thursday. The company represented more than 200 major retailers.

According to BRC, the violence and abuse of shoppers have also increased by 50 %, with an average of more than 2,000 such incidents per day.

It said that its survey was based on retailers representing more than 1.1 million employees and a market turnover of more than 19.4 billion pounds.

The separate number released by the National Bureau of Statistics (ONS) showed that during the same period, the crimes of theft reported by police in England and Wales increased by 23 % to more than 492,000.

This is the highest number since the current recording practice since 2003.

However, Tom Holder, a BRC spokesman, said that the degree of the problem was “underestimated by ONS” because it only captured the crime reported by the police.

“If their statistical data is true, there are only about one and a half incidents every year. If you ask any shop owner, they will tell you that they are lucky, if there is no one day to enter the store.”

In a “Camikaz” incident at a telephone shop in Oxford Street last month, two people took a few minutes to kick a phone rack in front of customers and store staff.

It is believed that the phone rack contains virtual mobile phones, and then can be sold online to unwilling customers, and deceives them think they are buying real things.

Metropolitan police said that the police responded to the incident and searched the area. Although they were captured in the video, they still couldn’t find the suspect. A survey has been conducted since then.

BRC CEO Helen Dickinson said that store theft is usually driven by organized gangs and many produced criminals.

She said the criminals became more and more bold because “they don’t think there must be any consequences.”

“In many parts of the country, this is outrageous and cannot be controlled.”

Social media are full of videos of the stolen store, and sometimes they seem to have not intervened in front of shopping workers and security personnel.

Ms. Dkinson said that shop staff are generally recommended not to intervene because they are risky by attacks.

Andrew Goodacre, CEO of the British Independence Retailer Association, said he was “not surprised” by these numbers.

“This is the harsh reality that this is just the tip of the iceberg. We have been encouraging our members to report these incidents, but many people just don’t have to worry about reporting because they have not responded in history.

“Therefore, there is still a huge gap between crime and the crime report to the police.”

Store owner Amit Puntambekar said that he was beaten on his face by a young woman. He suspected that he stole Vapes worth 75 pounds from his Cambridge County Store earlier this year.

He believes that the number of violence has deteriorated in the past three years and has caused him to resign, which has been in his family for nearly 40 years.

He said, “I don’t want to die at work.” “When your employee is threatened by the hammer, when someone threatens to kill people living near the store and the police do not take seriously, what is the meaning?”

Mr. Puntambekar believes that criminals know that the law is softly stolen by the store, so the suspect is in a clear view.

Cambridge Police said that after the incident, a 17 -year -old girl was accused of a general attack and theft of a shop and would be in court on February 5.

Facilities Management Company Mitie provided 10,000 security personnel to the British retail industry. It said that 10 % of them were injured within 2024 responsibilities.

According to Jason Towse, the security director of the security, the thieves in the store became more and more fearless, because police resources became more focused on “high -profile” crimes.

He said: “Why do people use this ‘kamikaze’ method to scare and scare the employees.” “They also know that the police’s response is not the past.”

The security personnel have not had more power than other citizens to arrest the stealiers. But Mr. Towse said that they accepted how the best identification and response to the problem. They can also act as visible deterrence and share data and evidence with the police.

We asked the employee policies of 10 major retailers to deal with the stolen or aggressive theft of shopping operators.

Some people say that the safety of employees and customers is the top priority, and added that they have invested in safety measures including CCTV, wearing their own cameras, and security guards.

According to data from the Retail Research Center, the average annual cost of stealing the store is £ 133.

In 2023, the government launched a plan to formulate guidelines for solving this problem for the police, including priority to consider places to participate in violence or arrest criminals.

PEGASUS project-information sharing partnership between retailers and police-also set up criminals focusing on solving the stolen gangs and producing gangs.

In response to the BRC survey, Diana Johnson, the Minister of the Interior, said that the rise of store crimes was “completely unacceptable.”

She also repeated the government commitment to propose new specific crimes against retail workers, which has been called by the retail industry since 2020.

BRC said that this will help clarify the size of the problem and allow the collection of statistics.

Helen Dickinson said that the latest level of theft should be used as a “wake -up call” for the government and police.

She said: “The fear of consequences does not exist. I think this is why we need to see more resources and more police concentration.”

Jason Towse said that there are more jobs to do, but they think that the entire industry is taking steps to start bringing results.

“In the end, the thieves in the store began to see the level of consequences more than what we see today … This will indeed change the trend.”