Port of Tilbury-Police Constable

[Fedster + 1,307]

Retailers groups say forces no longer respond to thefts valued below £200 where no violence has been used.

Shop theft has increased significantly over the last year adding what amounts to a 7p tax on every transaction

Date - 8th July 2020
By - Police Oracle 

The crime and policing minister Kit Malthouse is writing a letter to police and crime commissioners and chief constables emphasising that the theft of goods valued up to £200 from a shop should be prosecuted as a criminal offence.

The letter follows complaints that force no longer respond to or investigate shoplifting offences where the value of goods is under £200 leaving supermarkets and convenience stores to resort to private prosecutions to pursue thefts.

The move is the result of information provided by nearly 3,500 retailers, trade associations and unions which suggested abuse towards shop staff had increased, with a "significant number" saying they did not report incidents to the police.

The Home Office has also pledged to work with the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG) on ways to support staff in reporting crimes.

Mr Malthouse said: "We are determined to drive down these crimes and crucially, ensure that shopworkers are fully supported in reporting incidents to the police."

According to law firm Fieldfisher, police forces were no longer responding to, or investigating, most thefts below £200 unless there was a threat of violence towards staff and shops were considering private prosecutions as a result of public prosecutors being under strain.

The firm said anecdotal information it had gathered indicated many stores no longer report offences to the police, and instead are issuing exclusion orders, banning people from their stores.

It added that the Association of Convenience Stores Crime Report 2019 estimates the number of incidents of shop theft has increased significantly over the last year, costing an estimated £246 million in 2019, equivalent to over £5,300 for every store in the UK, or what amounts to a 7p tax on every transaction.

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[skydiver + 1,099]

My force toyed with this approach at the peak of the cuts but decided against it as it would have given a few of our regular customers carte blanch to go shop lifting everyday without fear of any repercussions.  We did however start using a lot more restorative justice and conditional cautions which is almost the same thing in the eyes of the public.  

[Zulu 22 + 4,575]

39 minutes ago, skydiver said:

My force toyed with this approach at the peak of the cuts but decided against it as it would have given a few of our regular customers carte blanch to go shop lifting everyday without fear of any repercussions.  We did however start using a lot more restorative justice and conditional cautions which is almost the same thing in the eyes of the public.  

In theory a person should only ever be cautioned once. Sadly too many Forces see this as an easy way out of avoiding paper work and a prosecution.  It is correct that the Public see RJ and Cautions as failing the IP.

[SimonT + 1,185]

We have loads of hurdles for shoplifting now, many get screened out before they come to us, a vast amount get filed or we use restorative justice because its cheap and easy and basically meaningless. 

The criminal justice system doesn't stop shoplifting, it's slightly slows it. 

[Zulu 22 + 4,575]

 

52 minutes ago, SimonT said:

We have loads of hurdles for shoplifting now, many get screened out before they come to us, a vast amount get filed or we use restorative justice because its cheap and easy and basically meaningless. 

The criminal justice system doesn't stop shoplifting, it's slightly slows it. 

That is just one of the reasons why the Public is losing confidence in the Police.  It is becoming a shoplifters charter.

[Radman + 2,163]

Whilst tutoring a new special on foot patrol near to my station sometime ago we nipped into a local shop off of the railway to buy some dinner. Whilst in there the young lady behind the counter was telling me about a shoplifter who went into the store about half an hour previously and stole some jars of coffee alongside a few other items, the theft in total not coming to more than £30. As she told me this story, I kid you not she pointed to a person outside of the shop and exclaimed "That's the shoplifter outside now!" 

Thinking it was a good learning opportunity for the keen special we stopped the individual and searched them. Long story short we recovered some of the stolen property and after confirming who they were conducted a VA interview back at the nearby BTP Office - full admission to the offence with an apology, The suspect was a prolific offender on locals. Even after this we then obtained the witness & loss statement from the girl behind the counter. 

Job you'd think would be more or less done and dusted... 

Now... The crime was on locals so we put a package together to hand over to the local nick. When I say that we did everything we possibly could have done bar submit the file ourselves which we couldn't do as the theft wasn't on us, I mean we had done everything we could have done, even going to the lengths of writing up the entire MG5 and MG6 along with precons. 

I understood perfectly well at the time if would be viewed as "just a shoplifting" but the duty sergeant over at the local beat team would not take possession of the file, instead insisting Neighbourhood officers take the case who weren't on duty... In the end I called up the HO crime recording centre and raised a theft on them, emailing copies of the paperwork through that had been completed. About a week later a very helpful probationer cop came to the office and collected a working copy of the interview along with the original paperwork. 

Are you telling me the local cops would have let that prolific shoplifter go with no enforcement action being taken against them at all?

I still don't believe that would have happened in the above circumstances, the public perception alone in letting someone go who is a prolific thief stealing with impunity cannot be allowed to happen.

[Sierra Lima + 117]

 

I remember having 10+ shoplifting and 10+ drive off from petrol stations on my workload. I would spend entire shifts going from a store to another trying to collect CCTV and statements only to achieve very little. 

"Loss prevention officers" would tell me how they let known thieves into the shop unchallenged, let them conceal stuff unchallenged and then let them walk out unchallenged. They would then call the cops and promise us that the cctv would be ready. When I arrived they would then ask me to come back the day after because they didn't have time to do the statement it was a busy day. The day after I would be told to come back on Monday because "Gary is the only one who knows how to use the Cctv". On the Monday I would speak to Gary who would say he didn't know about it. Etc. 

When I got convictions the sentences if they were any were pathetic. 

So I don't miss shopliftings, I can concentrate on more important things. I'll happily go to "detained" shoplifters though. 

If we start doing it again we should have the guts to say "unless he/she is detained or being followed don't call us untill you've downloaded the footage (and checked that it works) and filled the proforma statement".

[Reasonable Man + 1,231]

So it’s anecdotal evidence that forces are not responding. No confirmation from any force that they have such a policy. 

Moans about ‘the system’ doesn’t help. Well ‘the system’ is the sum of the people working in it. Cops are the ultimate street level bureaucrats and it is individual cops who are making the decisions to ‘do a quick RJ’ or give the 6th caution for shop lifting. 

Part of my job was to scrutinise cases dealt with out of court and shoplifting is a very common one. Some of the excuses given by cops as to why they did not charge a prolific criminal with this low hanging fruit crime were amazing. 

One that sticks in mind was a report of a guy nicking a bottle of wine from a garage. The officer got the CCTV and sat on it for a few weeks. Meanwhile every week the garage reported the same shoplifter nicking another bottle of wine. A lone middle aged female on the till, so I’m not criticising her for not rugby tackling a 6’ alcoholic and sitting on him until help arrived. 

The crimes all get passed on to the original OIC who eventually puts some stills on briefing and the thief is quickly identified. A string of convictions, including several for shoplifting. Interspersed with some cautions and wholly inappropriate Community Resolutions. The OIC gets him in and interviews him for 6 thefts within 4 weeks. The result? Another ‘quick RJ’ (he meant Community Resolution) with the offender agreeing pay the garage for the wine he had stolen. 

The officer’s justification was, ‘Well the garage got their money and the courts probably wouldn’t have done much anyway.’ 

[Zulu 22 + 4,575]

I do wonder what happened to that officer and what were his supervising officers doing?  I also wonder what the officers annual appraisal said?

[Radman + 2,163]

39 minutes ago, Reasonable Man said:

So it’s anecdotal evidence that forces are not responding. No confirmation from any force that they have such a policy. 

Moans about ‘the system’ doesn’t help. Well ‘the system’ is the sum of the people working in it. Cops are the ultimate street level bureaucrats and it is individual cops who are making the decisions to ‘do a quick RJ’ or give the 6th caution for shop lifting. 

Part of my job was to scrutinise cases dealt with out of court and shoplifting is a very common one. Some of the excuses given by cops as to why they did not charge a prolific criminal with this low hanging fruit crime were amazing. 

One that sticks in mind was a report of a guy nicking a bottle of wine from a garage. The officer got the CCTV and sat on it for a few weeks. Meanwhile every week the garage reported the same shoplifter nicking another bottle of wine. A lone middle aged female on the till, so I’m not criticising her for not rugby tackling a 6’ alcoholic and sitting on him until help arrived. 

The crimes all get passed on to the original OIC who eventually puts some stills on briefing and the thief is quickly identified. A string of convictions, including several for shoplifting. Interspersed with some cautions and wholly inappropriate Community Resolutions. The OIC gets him in and interviews him for 6 thefts within 4 weeks. The result? Another ‘quick RJ’ (he meant Community Resolution) with the offender agreeing pay the garage for the wine he had stolen. 

The officer’s justification was, ‘Well the garage got their money and the courts probably wouldn’t have done much anyway.’ 

I think Comm Res finalisations are largely a joke. BTP write off all byelaw and low level railway offences now more or less with a Comm Res outcome, how this gets justified when you've got prolific offenders committing offences I don't know but the cynic in me believes it is a means of effectively telling cops "Not to bother." 

When I first joined if someone had been given a caution before they'd be going to court for even a byelaw breach but again as a cop I was encouraged 11 years ago to exercise my discretion, so only people who really merited getting reported for a low level offence got reported (which was often reflected in my statement.) 

The courts used to hand out quite impressive punishments for specific railway offences, fines into the hundreds of pounds when their comparative public order offence would simply net £50 if that... The last time I know of someone going to court for byelaw offence was where he was that much of an idiot I was forced to arrest him for the Byelaw and Obstruct Police, the review team in London ALMOST not bothering to authorise charges for the original byelaw breach until I reminded them, he was again convicted at court (after representing himself) and slapped silly with fines.

I get it the jobs are low level but these low level offences can and do keep people civil and are there for a reason, I look at the lawlessness very openly taking place within my city and wonder if we'd be seeing half the levels of violent crime we have seen if the drunken & aggressive beggars were prosecuted, if the people caught smoking spice in public were prosecuted, if the prolific shoplifters were prosecuted etc. 

I really do believe in Broken Windows theory, my experience over the last 11 years has just reinforced that mindset. 

Edited July 9, 2020 by Radman