Shoplifting has soared to a record high with almost half a million offences recorded last year, new figures have revealed.
A total of 469,788 offences were logged by forces in the year to June 2024, up 29 per cent on the 365,173 recorded in the previous 12 months.
The figure is the highest since current records began in the year to March 2003, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Shoplifting levels had already reached a 20-year high earlier this year, with the latest figures showing the number of offences recorded has now risen even higher.
Shopkeepers in east London told The Independent this summer that the problem was so bad, that they’ve all but given up on calculating the cost of the stock they’ve lost.
Responding to the latest figures, retailers said the scourge cost the sector £1.8 billion last year as thieves become “bolder, more aggressive, and are more frequently armed with weapons”.
Last month the Co-op revealed it had taken a £40 million hit from shoplifting in the first six months of the financial year amid an “epidemic” of crime.
Managing director of Co-op Food Matt Hood said: “As these new figures show, we are seeing far too many prolific offenders persistently steal large volumes of products, in UK shops every day, and, if they are stealing to fund addictions, the situation often becomes volatile and dangerous.
“Crime is an occupation for some - it is not petty crime, and it is not victimless.”
The figures also show the number of offences involving theft from a person stood at 139,368 in the 12 months to June, up 20 per cent from 116,312 a year earlier.
The data published on Thursday comes in the wake of major retailers raising concerns about the rising cost of theft and as the government pledged to tackle low-level shoplifting and make assaulting a shop worker a specific criminal offence.
The move to create a separate offence follows a long-running campaign from business owners and Conservative backbencher Matt Vickers amid rising violence against retail workers.
Graham Wynn, assistant director of regulatory affairs at the British Retail Consortium, said: “The figures published by the ONS reflect the scale of the issue which retailers face on a day-to-day basis.
“Shoplifting remains at its highest level in 20 years and cost retailers £1.8 billion last year. The thieves committing these crimes are becoming bolder, more aggressive, and are more frequently armed with weapons.
“The new government must ensure that the standalone offence for assaulting a retail worker passes into law as soon as possible to protect retail workers and to send a clear message that this behaviour will not be tolerated. This will also give police the data they need to allocate resources to tackle this epidemic we are currently facing.”
Minister for crime, policing and fire, Dame Diana Johnson said: “Today’s statistics show the scale of the challenge we have inherited in our mission to make streets safer.
“Too many town centres have been decimated by record levels of shoplifting, and communities have been left shaken by rising levels of knife crime, snatch theft and robbery. This cannot continue.
“This government will restore neighbourhood policing across the country, put thousands more dedicated officers out on our streets and scrap the £200 shoplifting threshold, bringing an end to the effective impunity for thieves who steal low value goods.”
