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?

I work in retail (large food and clothes chain) We aren’t allowed to do anything. We aren’t allowed to touch them, touch their bags or even ask them if they are stealing. We have groups of people come in with big bags and make eye contact whilst filling them up and then just walking out.
I earn minimum wage so I am not going to risk being attacked to stop someone taking some socks and biscuits even if I was told to.

Rife where i am. People just walk in and take anything and staff are powerless. I saw a lady yelling at people for stealing from Greggs. I worried for her safety. She's not paid enough to care. My taxi driver said he's offered stolen sandwiches at his window for pennies.

What reason does the store give for not wanting you to get involved?

They say it’s store policy. I guess to stop them attacking us. My manager foolishly confronted someone a while ago, they tried to attack her and the security from another shop were nearby they came and restrained them but nothing happened. I saw them walking around the city centre looking shifty when I was walking into work a couple days later. So no consequences for the shoplifting or violence.

sainsburys a few weeks ago 5 big blokes took loads of bottles off the shelves tried to get out the side door couldnt ,so they went out through the cafe
cops didnt give a toss

Seems to me that this whole self scan is the gift to the thief. Obviously small stores are different but having to through a proper checkout must reduce theft. Booths have done it but in my local supermarket they have installed self scan that doesn't have any weight plate on. Put the basket down, move each item onto the flat surface after scanning. But if I only scan 3 out of 10 items and pay, nothing except staff vigilance will catch me afaik. No security on the door.

I saw a video on Twitter that I'm guessing was from the USA. It was a small-ish convenience store, I gather it was family owned and run.

A thief had a huge old-style plastic dustbin (no idea if he'd taken it in with him or taken it from another part of the shop) and he was merrily filling it with cigarettes - just sweeping his arm across the shelf so that they all fell into the bin - and brazenly tried to walk out with it.

One of the workers grabbed a large broom handle and started repeatedly beating the man hard, whilst another worker held the man down. The thief looked like he was in a lot of pain and probably left very injured indeed.

I am no fan of violence whatsoever, but I can well understand how, if you repeatedly see people stealing and effectively taking food out your family's mouths and threatening the roof over your heads, you may feel no other alternative. I don't know whether their police/legal policies in the USA are as unbothered as ours are by theft, and pretty much leave the victims to either repeatedly suffer heavy loss or otherwise take the law into their own hands?

Each individual theft might be low value in isolation, but it will obviously quickly mount up to thousands of pounds over a short space of time.

So one arm of government (the police) believes the goods to be so low-ticket on an individual transaction basis that they aren't worth helping the company to protect at all; I wonder if another arm of government (HMRC) feels the same about a share of the combined millions of pounds profit that all of these individual low-ticket sales bring in and are similarly unbothered about raking in any tax from the company...?

Absolutely shocking.

It just pushes the prices up. Yes it fucking annoys me. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Anyone stealing is struggling in some way. It's a crime. And the chances of you getting caught aren't zero. Particularly if your stealing moet. It's actually a very high risk way to try and make ends meet. Usually only done by people living quite shit lives.. even these big gangs. It's an awful way to live.
Would you honestly steal alcohol? I'm not talking out of morality here but just on a logical basis.. forgetting about your sense of right and wrong here.. would it make logical sense to you? Do you think it would pay off? Because there's no way in Hell I'd take that risk. And I'm not wealthy.. I've just got too much to lose. Self respect, my job, my kids, if I ended up doing jail time. For what?
It may look easy to you but it's no way to live and the people doing it are all at the edge of society for one reason or another.. so I only feel pity for them. It's not something that ends well.

What happens tho is that they now have footage of those men doing that and can identify them.
They may have seemingly gotten away with that in your eyes.. but they are probably likely barred from this store now. And how many times can you do that in your local area? You will become known to police and you will get arrested. It will effect your job prospects and the rest of your life.
It may seem like people are getting away with this easily when you see it happening but I guarantee to you these types of choices will negatively effect these people's lives long term.
So for the store it's not worth chasing after goods under 250 quid but in life it's not really worth the consequences stealing goods worth less than thousands of pounds.. because the risk isn't worth the money you are saving unless your life was absolutely shite abd you were living in poverty before hand and had no real prospects or ambition anyway

I agree that a lot of thieves are desperate and/or in dire circumstances in some way; but a lot are just downright greedy.

Yes, it is technically a crime, but if you can get away with it with almost certain impunity - to the extent that the police have made it public that they don't actually want to know if it's below the value of a full trolley containing a week's shopping - it's not really a crime in any meaningful sense of the word.

Back in the day, it used to be illegal to record a programme from the TV and keep the recording for more than 30 days - it was a crime - but nobody would ever, ever enforce that law at all. Do you think people took any notice whatsoever of that law and abode by it? Shoplifting seems to be pretty much in the same league nowadays, as long as you don't get very, very greedy during one visit.

We need to get away from the idea that it's only poor, underprivileged people stealing from huge, billion-pound companies like Tesco in some David & Goliath scenario (even though most small family-owned stores are also very frequently targeted).

To recoup their losses through theft, the stores have little option but to increase the amount that everybody else has to pay (the massive chains so that they still get their huge profits; the little ones so that they can survive) - ALL of their honest customers, not just the wealthier ones - so in effect, the thieves are indeed stealing from single mothers on benefits and pensioners on the breadline, by forcing them to pay more for their basics.

I was reading an article today about people who have been burgled tracking down their own stuff on Gumtree and eBay. One guy found the stuff gave all the details to the police and they still weren't interested! £40,000 worth of tech and computer kit from his business!
They weren't that bad in all cases though and some people were arrested. It's shocking frankly.

At what point do police who blatantly show not the slightest interest in doing the absolute basic parts of the job of policing get sacked?

Ironically, if you knew information about a different crime - one that they do choose to care about - that could lead them to a prosecution and didn't inform the police, I wonder how well it would go for you if the police later found that out?

If the police are just as scared of confronting potentially nasty criminals as the general public are - and only bother pursuing otherwise-decent people committing minor crimes like driving a bit over the limit on a trunk road in the middle of the night or 'thought crimes', there really is no point whatsoever in our having the police anymore at all.

Over the years something has changed, seems it's not taken as seriously as it used to be, maybe litigation/the fear of assault or reduced policing levels.

In the 1990's I had a Saturday job at a (now gone) department store. It was definitely taken seriously, although the CCTV cameras were fake there was a security guard and as part of our training we had to watch a video about shoplifters and how to deal with them, and look out for them and be aware.

It never happened, that I saw when I worked there anyway, but the managers would often be on the lookout for theives too. We were meant stop them if they walked out having not paid for something, back in those days.

We probably get 10 items stolen a day that I know of, I find the empty hangers. Food that’s stolen doesn’t leave any evidence so I would guess more is stolen. I am one of 40 staff so if we all find that much a day it’s a HUGE problem.
I guess the following is a bizarre thing to say when I know how bad shoplifting is but I don’t blame people for buying cheap stolen food and clothes. If you can buy high quality food and clothes for a couple quid when you know it’s almost not considered a crime by the shops or police why wouldn’t you? Everyone I know is skint despite working hard.

It comes down to self-respect, I think. And also to having a long-term view.

You have choices in life: do you take the short-term 'easy' option and nick stuff. Or do you work hard in a low-paying job and eventually establish yourself and get promoted?

And I wouldn't agree that 'Anyone stealing is struggling in some way'. Not so long ago near us, someone went to the trouble of scoping out a farmer's stock and working out where the best beef cattle were. He then organised some helpers, a truck and trailer (or possibly a livestock lorry), and someone to buy and slaughter these cattle (and sell the beef on, entirely by-passing all the livestock passport stuff, hygiene checks etc). They cut the chain into the field, loaded up the 16 best cattle and were gone in the night.

Anyone who can organise a heist like that has imagination, good contacts, local influence and a great ability to plan. And also access to either credit or cash. In other words, that person could make a living honestly. He has just chosen not to, because it's easy money.

And, with approx zero police in rural areas, his chance of getting nicked is about zero. The farmer has a good idea who was involved, but no proof...

It looks like it has got out of hand , although plenty of local police forces are cracking down on this as best they can. Unfortunately the police and justice system cannot cope with low level crime (thanks Tories). I suspect shops will take more aggressive measures and there will be lots of moaning on Mumsnet about bag checks etc.

I was in a Sainsburys where a guy ran in, took loads of stuff and bolted out. I looked at the security guy and he just shrugged his shoulders.

This is such nonsense. The Tories defunded the entire criminal justice system. Then we added to the police workloads by making them the go-to for any mental health issue. Then we added a whole raft of initiatives from anti-terror to domestic violence to historical sex crimes. Then we wonder why it is ineffective at dealing with petty crime. Blame the politicians not the police who are generally doing their best

I did specifically blame the politicians in my earlier post.

Just because they know it won't go anywhere because others in the chain don't care, that's no reason for then not to take any interest in doing their part.

The police are overwhelmed, as pp said with added workload and reduced resources. In circumstances like that, they have to prioritise. Turning up three days after the event means they're unlikely to catch the suspect however if you've got a limited number of officers, already dealing with issues, with other jobs behind those already waiting, what do they walk away from to deal with a shoplifter more promptly? A drunk driver? A domestic violence incident? An RTC? The suicidal person they're talking down from a bridge? Do they stop investigating a suspicious death or a murder?

It's not really a case most of the time that they can't be bothered to do their bit, they physically can't be there because they're dealing with other stuff that's higher priority. And that's before you get to the effect being so overwhelmed has on the human being dealing with it.

I don't doubt that the police are under-funded and overwhelmed. It's just that their (or their big bosses') priorities very frequently seem to be completely at odds with what the general public would want from the police.

If they don't have the resources to care about 'mundane' shoplifting or burglary, how come they always seem to be there in controversial and/or trivial cases centred around what somebody allegedly said or did that somebody else didn't like? Or anything involving protecting the King and politicians from dissent, where there is no threat of violence or actual danger whatsoever?

Why does it bother you so much? I mean most adults know right from wrong, legal from illegal but we don’t need to don our superhero capes and stop it all. Leave the ones who are willing to risk their freedom to it.

...and just merrily accept higher prices across the board for us, to pay for all the stuff that these people don't see the need to pay anything for?