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Shoplifting reports to police rose 13 per cent in England and Wales in the year to June, according to the latest official figures, although analysts said the rate of increase in thefts from retailers appeared to be slowing.
The figures also showed a 14 per cent year-on-year increase in incidents of fraud, driven by a 19 per cent rise in bank and credit account fraud, much of which was fully reimbursed by banks.
Policing minister Sarah Jones hailed figures showing a decline in the most serious violent crimes, such as murder, as evidence that the government was making “real progress” in protecting vulnerable young people.
However, she acknowledged that levels of shop theft and street crime were “utterly unacceptable”.
The figures published on Thursday combine results from the crime survey of England and Wales — regarded as the most reliable gauge of crime levels — and crimes recorded by police, which vary sharply according to victims’ tendency to report offences and police recording practices.
The crime survey suggested there were 9.3mn crimes committed in England and Wales in the year to June, compared with 9.2mn the previous year.
There have been big increases in reports of shoplifting since the pandemic, attributed to factors including organised crime and reductions in the numbers of staff on shop floors.
The chief executive of frozen food retailer Iceland, Richard Walker, earlier this month called shoplifting a “low-level war” that was costing the company £20mn annually.
But Billy Gazard, a statistician at the Office for National Statistics, pointed out that the figures for the year to June were marginally lower than those for the year to March.
“While shoplifting continues to rise year on year, there are signs the rate of increase in reporting of these offences is slowing,” Gazard said.
The shoplifting figures are particularly vulnerable to changes in local police recording practices and retailers’ confidence that reporting offences is worthwhile. Year-on-year figures for Northamptonshire Police, which has set up a dedicated unit to make it easier for retailers to report shoplifting, showed a 46 per cent year-on-year increase in the offence, the highest for any force.
The increase in fraud offences came from the crime survey, gathered from interviews with members of the public about their experience of crime. They suggested there were around 4.1mn fraud offences in the year, around 44 per cent of all crimes captured in the survey.
However, only 3mn of the fraud offences resulted in a loss, according to the survey, while respondents said that, in 2.2mn cases, the loss was fully reimbursed.
Both the crime survey and police recorded crime figures reflected the continued, 30-year decline in violent crime that has been experienced across much of the developed world.
The number of homicides — murders and manslaughters — recorded by police forces declined by 6 per cent to 518, to the lowest level since the start of comparable figures in March 2003.
The crime survey recorded 1.13mn incidents of violence with or without injury. While that represented a 1 per cent increase on the figure for the previous year, the ONS said it was not large enough to be statistically significant.
However, police-recorded levels of theft from the person — mugging — were up 5 per cent year-on-year.
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