Shoplifting offences surge by a third

The Office for National Statistics has reported  that a total of 402,482 shoplifting offences were recorded by police in England and Wales in 2023, up by 33% of the previous year. This is the first time that more than 400,000 incidents have been reported.

The British Retail Consortium estimate that shoplifting is costing retailers a combined £1b per annum. But the true scale of the problem is likely to be far worse since many incidents are not reported. The BRC estimates that there were 8 million such incidents in 2022.