A dramatic surge in shoplifting is forcing UK retailers to drastically overhaul their security strategies, with personnel numbers rising, technology deployments expanding, and even some controversial measures being explored, Bloomberg reports.
Between September 2022 and August 2023, British stores lost a record-breaking £2 billion ($2.5 billion) to theft, nearly double the amount stolen in the previous year, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC). The spike in losses has been accompanied by a significant increase in violent and abusive incidents, with more than 1,300 reported shoplifting incidents per day, a sharp rise from 870 the previous year.
The escalating problem isn’t unique to the UK. Post-pandemic price hikes have fueled a demand for discounted goods, with stolen products finding a market in the US, Europe, and Asia. However, retailers in Britain attribute the severity of the crisis to the impacts of high inflation combined with what they perceive as a lenient approach to low-value theft, which they say has emboldened criminals and reduced police response times.
Now, retailers are fighting back. Major grocers like Tesco are investing heavily, equipping staff with body cameras and other tools. The industry’s total spending on crime prevention reached £1.2 billion in the last year, up from £720 million in 2022, the BRC reports. Notably, Iceland plans to break ground as the first major UK supermarket to trial facial recognition technology in 2025, a move that could spark debate about privacy and civil liberties.
While some shoplifting is driven by economic necessity, organized gangs are increasingly prevalent. These groups steal goods in bulk for resale at discounted prices. To combat this, retailers and police have intensified collaboration through a program called Project Pegasus, allowing the sharing of information and CCTV images of repeat offenders. One supermarket even pinpointed a single individual responsible for a string of thefts across 80 stores.
Private security firms, like Mitie Plc, are also playing a crucial role. They share intelligence with police, helping to catch prolific shoplifters. “We don’t want police spending weeks and months doing work that we could have already done,” said John Unsworth, Mitie’s director of crime and intelligence. This collaborative effort has yielded results. In 2022, information from Mitie led to the jailing of a gang that had stolen around £50,000 worth of goods.
These efforts come as UK law changes to reclassify thefts of less than £200 as crimes and make assault of a shop worker a standalone offense, punishable by six months in jail. Since the launch of a specialist national police unit in May, 93 gang members responsible for more than £4 million in losses have already been arrested.
Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman, who heads the unit, emphasized the significant harm caused by organized shoplifting. “It does a huge amount of harm, in terms of not only the volume but the cost to the public, because clearly the prices go up,” she stated.
The Co-op Group has boosted its security personnel budget by 50% in the past two years. Security guards act as deterrents, gather information, and can perform citizen’s arrests, although most retailers prioritize the safety of staff and customers, advising against direct confrontations.
Verbal de-escalation is a key part of security training. One undercover guard at B&Q, a home improvement chain, explained that a simple “hello” can signal awareness of a potential shoplifter. However, the job is becoming more challenging as shoplifters become more hostile.
A sales assistant at Poundland shared that he’s been taunted by shoplifters confident that police won’t respond in time, and he has also been physically assaulted. Iceland CEO Richard Walker believes that security guards should be given greater powers. l Action Plan, with officers now attending 66% of callouts to Co-op stores where a suspected thief has been detained. However, many argue for a more holistic approach.
