The growing frontline threat of Retail Theft & Abuse
The 2022 Crime Report of the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) shows that, in the past year, 89% of store staff working alone faced abuse in their job, with 35,000 incidents of violence and over 16,000 incidents including the use of a weapon, of which 9% resulted in injury. In addition, as the economic situation and cost of living crisis continues to worsen, many experts predict a rise in retail crime, such as shoplifting, will hit the industry hard.
Watchful Eye Security ltd provide fully trained and licensed security operatives to retail outlets of all sizes.
As UK economic forecasters warn of millions falling into food and fuel poverty, with surging inflation expected to hit 10%, the new chief of Britain’s national police watchdog and HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary says: “I think whenever you see an increase in the cost of living or whenever you see more people dropping into poverty, you’ll invariably see a rise in crime.”
In a critical period of a cost-of-living crisis, he explains, “I certainly fully support police officers using their discretion – and they need to use discretion more often”. But he insists he was not “giving carte blanche for people to go out shoplifting”. He further points out: “There are always individual cases where you can use your discretion that don’t necessarily result in a prosecution but can be dealt with in the best way possible.”
Shoplifting – A crime that correlates to crisis?
According to Retail Times, post-lockdown crimewaves were recorded with a significant resumption in shoplifting: “As stores reopened in June 2020, shoplifting incidents began to rise, culminating in the highest growth in July 2020, where a 27% increase was noted.”
As targets for crime, however, the retail corporates should be reminded that their annual losses (over £5 billion) due to ‘shrinkage’ are unsurprisingly attributable to the development of ‘smart’ self-scanning, checkout-free systems. Are these significantly different to the wayside ‘honesty box’ where produce is offered for sale on an unattended stall?
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