Criminology expert publishes the Stealing with Impunity report, which reveals severity of retail crime and outlines an action plan for improvement.
By City Press Office (City Press Office), Published
Unchecked crime is reaching record levels, finds the new report Stealing with Impunity, which was commissioned by the supermarket Co-op and written by criminology expert Professor Emmeline Taylor at City, University of London.
Stealing with impunity
In her report, she sets out a ten-point plan focused on turning the tide on prolific to address the alarming increase in crime, violence, intimidation and abuse that continues to beset the retail sector, blight communities and wreak physical and mental harm on store workers.
She illustrates how retail crime spreads and grows when left unchecked and is all too often dismissed as a petty and victimless crime despite its far-reaching societal impacts.
Key findings from the report include:
- Co-op reports record levels of crime in 2023 with over 330,000 incidents of shoplifting, abuse, violence and antisocial behaviour (a 44 percent year-on-year increase) as many communities continue to be blighted by persistent retail crime
- Co-op undercover guards detained 3,361 criminals in 2023, but two-in-five criminals detained by trained security guards still walked away with police failing to attend.
Professor Taylor’s plan aims to foster an ongoing and collaborative approach between the retail industry, the police, and the government to tackle what she describes as a “tsunami of shop theft.”
One of her key recommendations is to make attacking a shopworker a stand-alone offence, and the Co-op is urging all MPs to back the amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill and not turn their back on shopworkers.
Professor Taylor said:
Matt Hood, Managing Director of Co-op Food, said:
Researching retail crime and working with industry
Professor Taylor’s report for the Co-op brought together many strands of her research that she has been developing for years.
She found a steep rise in violence and verbal abuse towards shop workers, which doubled during the first few months of the pandemic.
Building on this, in 2023, she advised retailers collect data on trends to be shared with the police, invest in equipment like wireless headphone so staff can alert each other of suspicious situations, and partnering with law enforcement.
She was appointed Advisor to the Strategic Coordinating Board for Business Crime and co-hosted the Business Crime Reduction Partnerships conference, bringing together government, police and industry bodies to discuss crime prevention measures.
Retail theft has also changed with the proliferation of self check-outs in supermarkets, and Professor Taylor coined the term Swipers – which refers to middle-class shoplifters that steal goods by misusing self check-out in supermarkets. This group of people were more likely to not consider their theft as a crime and weren’t afraid to pretend they had made a mistake if caught.
She is the host of the podcast The Retail Crime, which saw her interview people working in the police, as well as shoplifters, to better understand the phenomenon.