Scrutable

Recently there has been a lot of coverage of an increase in shoplifting since the end of the pandemic. I suspect that there really has been an increase in shoplifting, but I am getting somewhat irked by the statistics used in the discussion, and worried by some of the proposed actions to deal with it. The BBC, as in this article, often tells us that shoplifting incidences recorded by the police have increased from about 350,000 in the last (financial) year before the pandemic to about 530,000 in the financial year 2024-25. A bit of numerical common sense would suggest that all this proves is that most shoplifting doesn't get recorded. There are around 300,000 retail businesses in the UK. So recorded offences run at about 1-2 offences per business per year. Even if you allow for the fact that "retail business" might be a broader category than "shop", a brief chat with your nearest convenience shop owner would convince you that this is far too small to be credible figure for the amount of shoplifting that actually happens.

To its credit, the article does quote a representative of the Association of Convenience Stores saying that its members reported more than 6.2 million incidents in the most recent year (presumably to the ACS rather than the police) but this figure gets given much less prominence, despite being more credible. The article also mentions an estimated cost for shoplifting of 2.2bn per year, which would work out at about £4,000 per incident if there were really only 530,000 incidents. That seems high, even when you allow for the fact that the cost may include factors such as security guard wages as well as the value of the items stolen.

Police recorded crime is generally a bad measure of criminal activity because of low reporting rates. Obviously, if the fraction of crimes reported to the police remained constant, then they might be useful measures of trends, but there is no reason to think that it is constant. This means that rises in recorded crimes can potentially be good news stories, because they may result from the police getting better at recording offences, or victims feeling more confident about reporting them. I doubt that this is what is happening with shoplifting, but there are other offences for which it is a more plausible explanation.

A more worrying consequence of current thinking about shoplifting (not directly related to the misuse of statistics) is the proposal, in the Crime and Policing Bill to change the law so that low-value shoplifting will no longer be deemed a "summary" offence. A summary offence is one triable only in the Magistrates Court. If an offence is not summary then it is either "indictable" (triable only in the Crown Court) or "either way" (triable in either court). The effect of the change to the law will therefore be to push all or some of the vast number of low-value shoplifting offences into the Crown Court. There is already a crisis in the Crown Court, with serious offences such as rape taking many years to reach trial. Channelling so many extra offences into the Crown Court system is not going to help (the recent Leveson review did suggest creating a court intermediate between Magistrates and Crown but, even if Leveson's suggestions are acted on it will take years for them to be implemented). The supposed motive for removing the "summary-only" rule is that it would encourage the police to take shoplifting more serious. That's quite possibly a sensible motive, but the change to the law is still a potentially disastrous way of achieving it.

I can’t understand how, when shop assistants have been replaced by self-service checkouts in all supermarkets except Lidl and maybe Aldi, there has been a rise in shoplifting.

Grumble wrote: Sat Jul 26, 2025 5:58 pm I can’t understand how, when shop assistants have been replaced by self-service checkouts in all supermarkets except Lidl and maybe Aldi, there has been a rise in shoplifting.

Lidl does have self-service checkouts. At least the one I go to in Mirfield does.

Grumble wrote: Sat Jul 26, 2025 5:58 pm I can’t understand how, when shop assistants have been replaced by self-service checkouts in all supermarkets except Lidl and maybe Aldi, there has been a rise in shoplifting.

And the self-service grocery store, ie goods on open shelves the customer can pick themselves, itself an innovation in 1916* also raises the risk of shoplifting. Each innovation is a question of the commercial advantage of the retail method vs the theft risk. So you can say that shops have accepted cost savings and commercial advantage knowingly recognising that there will be more theft. I'm always a bit surprised at shops which don't have any cashiers close to the door, where potential thieves would recognise a higher risk of being spotted on the way out.

In poorer countries, and for more valuable items, self-service is less common. You don't have self-service in jewellery stores for valuable items, just cheaper accessories. Valuable mobile phones are kept in locked cabinets in phone stores. It's a balance over the cost of labour, the risk of people coming in who might be desperate enough to steal, and the increases sales from the ability of customers to examine goods and get out fast. It's not just customers who steal, also shop assistants may steal or collaborate with customers to steal. For example, the annoying 2-stage method of paying that used to exist in Foyles bookshop is a method to try and reduce shop assistants stealing. Under that method, you have to take your book to an assistant to get an invoice, then take the invoice to a cashier who stamps the invoice, then return to the assistant to get your book. You still see this method in lower labour cost countries, especially in pharmacies and the like, where the shop assistants are sufficiently badly paid that the owner is concerned about them stealing. Mrs Foyle notoriously treated her shop assistants very badly, which would explain why this method persisted long after it had died in most of Britain.

*The first self-service grocery store is generally said to be Piggly Wiggly, a supermarket chain still operating under that name, would you believe, in the US Mid West and Southern regions. They introduced the model in 1916.

I have several friends who were exploited by Mrs Foyle as shop assistants, the stories they tell of the shenanigans that some of the staff got up to were rather alarming. The two stage purchase thing was rather useless if the two people were collaborating.

The massive increase in the price of everyday goods, relative to wages and benefits income, is probably a significant factor.

bjn wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 12:21 pm I have several friends who were exploited by Mrs Foyle as shop assistants, the stories they tell of the shenanigans that some of the staff got up to were rather alarming. The two stage purchase thing was rather useless if the two people were collaborating.

It might be different these days with more sophisticated IT systems and fewer cash transactions - but back when I worked in supermarkets and restaurants losses of stock and cash to staff seemed to outstrip losses to customers.

In restaurants there was a nice term for some of this - "shrinkage". And it was quantified in retail not wholesale prices - so if waiters guzzled a bottle of Chianti the loss would be recorded as the menu price of the bottle that was not sold, rather than the whole price.