Are shoplifters pretty much allowed to do as they please now?

[Easipeelerie]

In the last year, I’ve come across shoplifters frequently. I’ve mainly seen them operating in clothes shops and supermarkets. I was in a big clothes shop the other day and it was quiet so some staff were just chatting. Meanwhile, I was watching a woman with a system where she had a plastic bag hanging on a hook nearby and a big shoulderbag. She was filling the plastic bag with belts, I presume so that if she was challenged, she could say it wasn’t her bag. She then decanted to her shoulder bag and sped off. I told security the next day as they weren’t there that day - a shop in a big shopping centre with multiple entrances and no security on any of them.

The issue seems to me that often security are just not there. If they’re on a break or off for the day, there’s no one to replace them. When I’ve told security and shop staff what I’ve seen, they tell me they’re not allowed to challenge them. It makes me anxious shopping as I’m aware of what the shoplifters are doing whilst no one else around seems to know or care.

Do shops nowadays just build loss from shoplifting into their business plans?

Yes they pretty much can. I saw a piece on the news about the owner of a garden centre who had tracked down the people selling stolen Jellycat toys from his shop. He gave the police the CCTV of the woman putting them under her pushchair, the car registration and her husband’s Vinted account where they were being sold. Basically handed all the evidence on a plate and nothing was done.

You can’t blame retail assistants for not wanting to get involved though, I wouldn’t risk my life either.

Captainredbeard are you really saying this is Labour’s fault? Shoplifting (and overflowing jails) has been a problem for longer than the last election.

This is nothing new. I worked in an off license and a clothes shop back in the mid 90s, shoplifting was happening all the time. I was young and expected by the shop owners to challenge the shoplifters, I never did. If the shop owner was too scared to challenge them there was no way I was.

We were at the Worcester Christmas markets a couple of weeks back. A guy came out of next with a few coats over his shoulder and sped off on his bike. It was so blatant!
I was in sainsburys recently and the guy next to me on the self serve tills was looking a bit shifty, shuffling things around. Staff member clocked him, came over and pointed out that he hadn’t scanned XYZ, then stood over him while he completed the transaction! Ha.

I saw on the news that the law changed in 2014 so that if the value of goods is under £200 it's a summary offence, so the police de-prioritised it. As a result shoos have to deal with the theives themselves. However, thd current Labour government wants to repeal that law. Good.

The only solution is to have everything only for purchase online. Yes I know that is not fair on those who can't use it, but maybe that's the way it's going. Huge fulfilment centres instead of shops and supermarkets.

As a backup an old fashioned queue up, place order at the desk, pay, then wait at collection point, and go home. Which is like click and collect I suppose.

No more browsing. But it's heading that way anyway I think. I can't remember the last time I was in a physical supermarket or clothes/shoe shop. I can't be bothered with crowds and queues and items out of stock etc. Then parking, or trying to, and all that jazz.

You’re not alone OP. It’s a symptom of something going very wrong.
Why do I have to pay a large fine from my taxed income for going 24MPH in a 20MPH at 2AM but other people can just make life a misery for people around them and never suffer consequences?
People are fed up.

Get rid of self scan. That will cut down a certain amount. People brazenly helping themselves and walking out? The exit has to be controlled. But all this will aggravate the regular shopper.

Our local M and S food shop is frequented by several shoplifters. When we first saw this happen, years back, DH grabbed one to stop him leaving with a bag full of meat and champagne. The manager yelled at DH to let him go, even though another customer had also intervened to hold the person. The manager explained they’re not allowed to touch them and must just watch on, particularly as the police won’t atttend.
I believe they’re now privately prosecuting shoplifters, as the police won’t do anything for good values less than around £750.

No one will touch them. I have been in a shop where I was queuing to be served, and a woman passed everyone in the queue with a basket of goods and just walked out. So brazen!
I have also been in a cafe where someone came in, took their time picking a sandwich, and just walked out with it.
They don't even run anymore because they know no one will do anything.

Saying that, some places in my town centre will lock all the doors if a shop lifter has been noticed. My DP once got trapped in Greggs for that reason. I also know someone who got stuck in Iceland.

@Longhotsummers The extra kick in the teeth for the taxpayer when it comes to private prosecutions is that they can claim the costs of bringing the prosecution back from the government, and often it can come to several thousand pounds for your average shoplifter taking fifty quids worth of steak and wine.

There you go. Control the ingress/egress like expensive shops do with those staff that follow you around. But Tesco etc can't do that. Someone I work with mentioned that Pilgrims Choice cheddar cheese is kept in security boxes in his local Asda.
Oddly though, water companies are pumping millions of litres of untreated waste into the rivers, seas and lakes and getting away with that. Some crimes are bigger than others

My local Iceland has steaks in huge security boxes. It looks ridiculous, but is also really sad.

Yes I was browsing the Christmas section at Sainsbury's quite near the front door. A bloke walked in and picked up 4 boxed spirits and walked straight out the door with them in his arms. A few staff members near by didn't notice. I mentioned it to one of them but she wasn't interested. It just felt like it happens all the time and they are so over it.

Same shop tonight saw a women remove packaging from an item and shove it in her bag.

My friends son worked in the budgens in my home town

He caught so many shoplifters-the value of what he stopped from walking out of the door was in the tens of thousands of pounds

He caught that many,the police told him to stop as
A-they where going to refuse to come out anymore
B-he was making their figures look bad
C-there was no point as the shop wasn't going to lose profits as they'd just put the prices up

He quit there and then-the shop was gone within the year

I was looking for something on ebay earlier and saw a seller had listed the perfume I was after. Selling three of them for 29.99 with free postage. I know they were on sale in the shop for 9.99 each. How can those not be shoplifted as the seller is making a loss? I know the store that sells them doesn't give a staff discount. If it's that easy to sell nicked stuff on then that is surely why they do it?

I wonder how the police actually justify their belief that theft under £200 is no longer a prosecutable crime? Has it been properly removed from the legal statute books?

Are they telling us that, were one of us to march into the local police station, pick up an item worth less than £200 from their desk and walk out with it, in full view, they would purposefully ignore it and merrily treat it as though no crime had been committed?

After all, they get a very large budget from the government to run the place, so nobody has really lost out at all... right?

Sounds like the two policeman in Early Doors but sadly it seems to be the way now.

prisons are overflowing… there is no proper punishment!

I think they should get there stuff back they stole via benefit cuts or taking their property/assests!

The more people get away with it, the more shoplifters you get and the bigger our bill.

Labour are repealing the £200 rule for nicked goods.

Professional shoplifters are the biggest trouble - junkies, crooks, drunks and gangs. Great types to hang out with at the shops.

Where I work there is an operation going on which is monitoring theft using silent alarms & cameras so the thieves don't know they have been seen. Shop staff don't intervene directly but data including facial images are being monitored, run through facial recognition systems etc. This data is shared between retailers and police to identify & crackdown on prolific offenders.

It might look as though nothing is being done but businesses are spending money on technology behind the scenes.

The only way I can see this succeeding is for the shops to prevent known thieves from entering the store in the first place.

They could take the view that, yes, you will get away with it unchallenged the first time - but you will no longer be allowed back in that store ever again. Maybe if they end up having to travel further and further away from home to get food - even to pay for it, having 'found out' what their remaining options are - that might concentrate their minds.

I can see stores having to have some kind of high-tech facial recognition system - so anybody whose image has been uploaded from their CCTV, having been seen shoplifting, will be physically locked out, without a human having to risk their safety; and anybody who isn't a match on their database would be allowed in as normal - one person at a time, on a turnstile or similar.

It's not good at all for personal privacy and civil liberties - or an especially nice way to run our society - but we may end up with no alternative.

But what would stop them from buying a very cheap item and scanning their receipt for that to exit the store with the paid-for onion - along with the bottles of champagne hidden in their coat or bag that were never scanned in the first place?

And what about people who aren't buying (or seeking to steal) anything - maybe they only wanted one thing and it's out of stock? Are they forced to buy something in order to be allowed to leave the shop?!

Sounds like a good ideas; using modern technology to tackle an old problem.
Is this in UK?

But if the police aren't interested, and staff in stores quite understandably can't and won't risk their safety by challenging or tackling them, how do the thieves ever reach their come-uppance?

I doubt they care who knows that they're criminals, as long as nobody ever stops them from continuing to do it or punishes them.

Only 5 mins ago on mumsnet I was reading a thread about someone getting angry over how intense security in various stores they had tried to shop in had been!

This..... For every person annoyed/concerned/offended about shop lifting happening and there being nothing done, there's another who will take huge issue with something being done, shout loudly about shit customer service because of it and complain.
A while ago there was a thread about someone confronted for shoplifting by a member of staff, and the item was found in the bag, yet a lot of posters felt the staff member was wrong to confront the shoplifter and shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have embarrassed the person in front of other shoppers, shouldn't have put them through the humiliation etc etc.

As well as that, there's the risk to the person doing the confronting, are you willing to risk being hurt (anything from pushed passed to stabbed) for confronting someone shop lifting? Especially when it's now considered a minor crime and police response isn't priority and punishment is minimal? And where you could end up getting done yourself if you end up in a physical altercation with them?

The same risks exist when you ban someone and they try to come in as well, so you can ban them but if they come in anyway, it's not like they're expecting to be served so you can refuse to do so, they're coming in to steal and stopping them would likely need to be physical - which poses the same risks.

Shop staff aren't trained in tackling those kinds of situations, and therefore shouldn't be expected to do so, and if you want them to be then that'll come with increased training and wages - which will increase the prices anyway.