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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that shoplifting should be taken seriously by the police and public?

169 replies

ScarySpinster · 26/08/2023 12:04

I used to work in retail. The police would rarely come out for a shoplifter, even if it was £1000s of pounds.

My local village shop may have to close because of teenagers regularly shoplifting. It's just not profitable for them to stay open with the losses they have.

Looking at the bigger picture, shoplifting raids are taking place regularly in London, and all the big cities, with the people involved rarely being prosecuted.

I think that we need to take this crime much more seriously. I don't want to live in a world where there are no repercussions for bad behavior. Because where will this stop? Will burgarly and mugging start to become okay next?

OP posts:
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Rocknrollstar · 28/08/2023 09:09

Our local branch of Boots no longer stocks cosmetics because they have all been stolen. I read that shops in the West End are keeping their doors locked and you have to ring a bell.

Lazyusername · 28/08/2023 09:27

@Unexpectedlysinglemum Thanks for the reply. My business isn't a small village shop - we are right in the centre of a large city and have hundreds of people coming through; this is why I have so much awareness of how bad shoplifting is now. Most days as I pass Greggs I see people just walking in, picking up drinks and walking off. Same at the self-serve in Sainsbury's. My premises has CCTV, security tagging and every other precaution. The problem is there is no deterrent any more to just, "having a go". Just try to get out with the item and if you are stopped it's no big deal as you are then just let go. I also understand there are now many Tiktok videos giving tips and advice on stealing.

My concern also is that this is part of a whole couldn't care less attitude which is causing crime to escalate in other areas and to involve people who wouldn't normally have thought of committing crimes. Imagine you are a kid from a disadvantaged area and another kid in your street keeps coming round showing you all of the computer games, clothing etc. they have nicked. No consequences; they do it every week while you have nothing. So you tag along and begin stealing and over the following weeks some of your friends come too. Then you have an idea; why don't we all get our mates and invade JD Sports and ransack it - it will be fun. Why not? You have seen there are no consequences. You can even post videos to show off about it afterwards. This is what we have seen beginning to happen in London recently with many police officers called out to deal with it. And this is going to escalate and spread. Why wouldn't it? If the initial kids had been stopped though then none of it would have happened. The police end up having to come out to deal with a major problem which only escalated because it wasn't nipped in the bud - I question how this is saving the police work.

It's as if we have officially given up on morality in this country. As I said before, if we are bringing our kids up to think it's normal to see people just helping themselves from shops and we should all just passively stand there while it happens then we are storing up problems for the future.

crumblylancs · 28/08/2023 10:33

RhymesWithOrange · 27/08/2023 20:08

So @crumblylancs you're saying that you actually agree with me! When I talk about "the police" I'm not distinguishing between the rank and file and the leads. They are all in the same organisation to me. The outcome is the same.

I don't know how you've come to the co cousin that I agree with you, I agreed with your friend and I gave my reasons why and they certainly were not the shit you've pulled out.

anniegun · 28/08/2023 10:48

We have a government that has crippled the social justice system so trials take years to get to court. The Tories just don't care about crime despite their "tough" rhetoric

anniegun · 28/08/2023 10:50

SerendipityJane · 28/08/2023 10:46

Seems our glorious Home Secretary is a Mumsnetter.

I'll leave others to find her account - but it's here 😉.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66636347

Its bollocks. It is her government's policies and financial decisions that has stopped the police investigating crime

SerendipityJane · 28/08/2023 10:53

anniegun · 28/08/2023 10:50

Its bollocks. It is her government's policies and financial decisions that has stopped the police investigating crime

Show quote history

You may think that. But that's not what you are going to hear (obviously).

RhymesWithOrange · 28/08/2023 14:11

@crumblylancs you agree with my policeman friend. I agree with my policeman friend. The police are not spending their time on the right things. We all agree ☺️

DdraigGoch · 28/08/2023 23:51

Another thing to consider is that criminals such as burglars are much more forensically aware now. They know how the system works (or their solicitor does) and can always give cast tight alibis all the time.

Which is why the courts (and the sentencing guidelines they follow) need to impose much stiffer sentences for such crimes. So that when someone does slip up and get caught they go away for a decent amount of time, a partial reflection of the dozens of crimes that the average burglar never got caught for.

Felix125 · 29/08/2023 00:42

RhymesWithOrange
I agree - we should attend every burglary, shop theft etc. but we don't have the resources to do so - so something is going to give. If I attend a burglary, theft etc - in theory I should close that as a crime scene and await SOCO and remain whilst SOCO complete their investigation. Then obtain statements from the victims & witnesses. So that could take me the entire shift to complete this one job.

Which things don't we attend in the mean time - DV's, breach of non-mols, breach of DVPO/DVPN, missing people, mental health, sudden deaths, RTA's, cannabis farms, drug dealing etc....?

We have more jobs on our queue than officers to attend them. Our shift has about 25 cops on it on a good day - but the job queue runs at about 100+. Then you have the new jobs coming in all the time.

So your thefts from garden sheds where an old lawn mower has been taken or a theft of sweets from a corner shop will not have an officer attend - we just don't have the resources to do so.

Even burglaries, if we talk to the victim on the phone and from what they are describing we can assess if SOCO are needed and if there is any solvabilty factors.

manontroppo ·
The police shouldn’t be dealing with the mental health scenarios that @Felix125 is describing. And they certainly shouldn’t be dealing with them just because no one else will.

Who is going to attend them though - someone standing on a bridge threatening to jump?

And the missing children who just run off again when they are returned to their care home?

Northernsouloldies · 29/08/2023 00:51

It's concerning on how much anti social behaviour is derived from tik tok, yet the same platform isn't available in China.

Felix125 · 29/08/2023 00:54

SerendipityJane
Seems our glorious Home Secretary is a Mumsnetter.

And she also appears to have no clue about reality

shitt · 29/08/2023 00:58

Nah, I can’t get worked up over this and I used to work in retail. I literally witnessed people stealing and using me as a mug, and the police refusing to attend. I still don’t think shoplifting is a priority when police don’t even attend for crimes against the person. In fact, I think I’d be annoyed if the same police force that’s too busy to investigate violent offences suddenly had time to investigate teenagers stealing small value items from a shop.

shitt · 29/08/2023 01:02

Also the shop in your example is partially to blame for this problem. Firstly shrinkage should be built into every business model, you can’t 100% stop shoplifting. Shoplifting shouldn’t come as a surprise in costing. Secondly, why haven’t they put changes in place to deter shoplifters such as security tags, security cabinets, CCTV, placing high risk items behind the till or in a lockable container, not repurchasing high risk items, banning people etc? If the same people keep stealing the same items, the shop has to change its business model. That’s not the public’s responsibility.

Northernsouloldies · 29/08/2023 01:03

A gang of masked up teen thugs steaming a shop is an act of violence and not the same as a kid sneaking a Mars bar into a pocket.

jcyclops · 29/08/2023 01:16

I saw an interesting opinion article that blaming police and/or government is aiming at the wrong target. Shops should carry most of the blame. Allowing crimes to take place then maybe catching and prosecuting criminals is nowhere near as good as preventing the crime in the first place.

Would you leave your car keys in the car with the doors unlocked or on a hook outside your front door and expect your car not to be stolen? No - you try and protect what is yours. Shops, however, give everyone free access to their goods and don't try and prevent them being stolen. Surely it is not beyond them to change and tighten up their operations to reduce or prevent theft, without returning to the historic method of everything behind a counter, although Argos, Screwfix and others have retained this procedure and I bet their losses to theft are very low. The one thing introduced in recent years that practically eliminates theft is online shopping.

At some petrol stations you have to insert a credit/debit card at the pump BEFORE it will dispense fuel. Hotels operate in the same way, as do many companies where you hire something such as a car. As well as ensuring payment it is also a way to get a customer's ID.

RhymesWithOrange · 29/08/2023 06:54

@Felix125 those procedures you describe sound massively outdated and inefficient. Which, talking to my friends in the police, is part of the problem. But if the problem is so bad I can't get my head around the fact that teams of police were sent to arrest / give words of advice to people like Kate Scottow, Caroline Farrow, Graham Linehan, Sarah Philimore, Posie Parker, Marion Millar, Harry Miller, the sticker lady from Wales who's name escapes me and dozens of others who are saying pretty mild (criminally speaking) on the internet. That, along with the police's rainbow paraphernalia, the support for pride, the LBGTQIA++++ police SM accounts, all signals that the police are spending too much time on virtue signalling and not enough time on stopping crime.

Yes, like all public services the police are under pressure, underfunded and in need of investment but as a comparison, I'm equally in despair of the NHS spending time on removing gendered language in maternity services instead of working out how to bring treatment waiting lists down. It's the wrong focus at the wrong time.

SerendipityJane · 29/08/2023 07:25

Felix125 · 29/08/2023 00:54

SerendipityJane
Seems our glorious Home Secretary is a Mumsnetter.

And she also appears to have no clue about reality

The two are most certainly not mutually exclusive.

FindingMeno · 29/08/2023 07:33

Quite honestly I find it hard to get worked up about shoplifting from big chain stores with our appalling conviction rate for rape.

SerendipityJane · 29/08/2023 07:38

I saw an interesting opinion article that blaming police and/or government is aiming at the wrong target. Shops should carry most of the blame. Allowing crimes to take place then maybe catching and prosecuting criminals is nowhere near as good as preventing the crime in the first place.

So victims need to take their share of the blame ?

Righty ho.

TodayInahurry · 29/08/2023 08:07

In London there have been films on twitter of teenagers rampaging around looting shops. Shops will not be prepared to take losses and will close stores, this is happening in the US already. There will be areas with no food shops, staff will lose their jobs and people will be forced to travel to get goods.

Our local small village shop which struggles at the best of times now has a CCTV because of teenagers shoplifting. It will be very sad for us if it shuts as we use it every day to try to stop it closing

manontroppo · 29/08/2023 09:10

Felix125 · 29/08/2023 00:42

RhymesWithOrange
I agree - we should attend every burglary, shop theft etc. but we don't have the resources to do so - so something is going to give. If I attend a burglary, theft etc - in theory I should close that as a crime scene and await SOCO and remain whilst SOCO complete their investigation. Then obtain statements from the victims & witnesses. So that could take me the entire shift to complete this one job.

Which things don't we attend in the mean time - DV's, breach of non-mols, breach of DVPO/DVPN, missing people, mental health, sudden deaths, RTA's, cannabis farms, drug dealing etc....?

We have more jobs on our queue than officers to attend them. Our shift has about 25 cops on it on a good day - but the job queue runs at about 100+. Then you have the new jobs coming in all the time.

So your thefts from garden sheds where an old lawn mower has been taken or a theft of sweets from a corner shop will not have an officer attend - we just don't have the resources to do so.

Even burglaries, if we talk to the victim on the phone and from what they are describing we can assess if SOCO are needed and if there is any solvabilty factors.

manontroppo ·
The police shouldn’t be dealing with the mental health scenarios that @Felix125 is describing. And they certainly shouldn’t be dealing with them just because no one else will.

Who is going to attend them though - someone standing on a bridge threatening to jump?

And the missing children who just run off again when they are returned to their care home?

Frankly I don’t think the police should be doing either of those things and I would far rather they were dealing with the kinds of “low level” crimes detailed on this thread. Both of the cases you mention are social work issues - why should the police be repeatedly called out for a missing child? They aren’t solving the issue and there’s nothing to stop other people looking.

Also, why do you need a full SOCO work up for shoplifting that’s been captured repeatedly on CCTV?

There was a thread on here recently where people were suggesting more efficient ways of doing things (such as handing things over to back office staff) and a police officer was insisting that it was completely impossible to do things any other way. That went a long way to explaining people’s dissatisfaction with local policing….

RhymesWithOrange · 29/08/2023 09:50

Yes, and PCSOs were supposed to deal with minor stuff and support police officers. Surely they could deal with shoplifting?

LadyMuckingabout · 29/08/2023 15:54

There are some bizarre and unfortunate views on here. Saying the shops are to blame?! By that logic women are responsible for any attack on them as they shouldn’t have been out after dark, tempting men who can’t help themselves.

I guess one problem is that many people and particularly kids simply do not care about breaking the law. And when there is little regard for authority and scant chance of being caught or punished then it becomes a free for all.

Poverty as an excuse is crap. No one is stealing basic foodstuffs. It’s attitude. I always wonder if thieves are bothered if someone robs them…

Felix125 · 29/08/2023 18:32

manontroppo
But someone is going to have to attend the person standing on the bridge threatening to jump. Someone is going to have to close the roads. Someone is going to have to close the bridge. Social services can't/won't do this.

Missing children are often medium to high risk - as they are vulnerable to exploitation or sexual crime or becoming involved in other crime etc. Social services don't have any powers to search for them (searching houses etc). And each occasion has to be risk assessed which takes about an hour of form completing to do. So every time you return them and they go missing 15 minutes later - you have to start again.

SOCO for shoplifting - if you're going to deal with the theft properly you need to consider this. Even if it has been captured on CCTV, all the suspect has to say in interview is 'that's not me' or 'no reply'. You will then have to prove they were in the shop.

Handing things to the back office staff - If you're the OIC, its down to you to investigate the crime and put the case file together. The back office staff will not know the ins & outs of the case to put such an investigation or case file together. Even if you tried to do it, the OIC would have to document everything in a 'handover' to the back office staff - so the OIC may as well complete the file. For example - redacting all the BWV - the back office staff will not know what needs to be redacted out or not as they have not been part of the enquiries.

Also - we don't have back office staff set aside to help police like this. You may have someone on you're shift who is office bound (injured, pregnant etc) but you can't rely on this happening all the time.