Shops are becoming quite scary

[ithinkilikethislittlelife]

I am starting to become quite nervous in shops, primarily shops that sell food stuffs. Just yesterday I saw two men go through a fire door in my local supermarket that takes them straight into the car park armed with baskets of stolen items. The one basket had steak/meats and the other looked like it was all bottles of vodka. The poor staff trying to wrestle the baskets back and stop the two men from leaving was quite upsetting to witness. This was yesterday. Saturday in my local co op a chap was loitering by the alcohol section while I was shopping. Getting into our car outside I noticed him sprinting past us clutching bottles of alcohol. Me and dh see it all the time now. It’s an epidemic. And it usually seems to be men. And I’m not having it that they are stealing milk for babies or bread for their children. I always see them take alcohol. I don’t know what the answer is but yesterday I was frightened for the staff member who intervened as the one chap raised a bottle of alcohol at her and she then backed off but I totally understood her rage at trying to stop the thieves taking from her place of work. I don’t want my children to witness these thieving people and I don’t want to feel anxious just trying to go about my day and buy food!

This is not to do with the cost of living. It’s the lack of investment and the police force, courts and jail which means this type of crime is not seen as worth pursuing and punishing vigorously. See many other forms of theft and anti social behaviour. There is no real fear of retribution.

My local M&S is just grab and go now

people walk in, grab to bottles of wine, and walk out again

security apparently has no right to stop them or touch them ?

police are no longer around (are there so much fewer now, or are they all sitting at desks doing spreadsheets or something? )

Are you serious? OP is talking about, mainly, men stealing alcohol. When did free booze become a basic human right?

It’s not moronic for failure to adhere to basic rules of society to attract punishment.

We should not reward or condone theft when there are plenty of people working hard to generate very low disposable income. Now that IS ‘moronic’ .

Theft is theft irrespective of who is the victim.

Absolutely zero tolerance here for these disgusting specimens.

Oh Please ! Booze isn't a cost of living essential. It's a high value supermarket stock item to be sold for cash or drunk outdoors fuelling alcohol induced uninhibited leering at or harassment of passing young women/girls.

Round here it's gangs and call me racist but....they're predominantly not home grown criminals. I often spend an afternoon working in a coffee shop the fonrt windows of which look right across/in to a Tesco extra. I've seen way too many grab and dash thefts with staff being threatened with being hit by stolen goods, one time was a chunky looking stick and the worst was a machete.

I used to live in a rough area.

The people I know who do this steal alcohol or meat because they are drug addicts (and alcohol dependent). They have spent their money on drugs and need alcohol to go with it, or to tide them over when the drugs are done. The meat is for something to eat as when they are on the drugs they typically have no appetite and when they are on a come down, they are hungry but their fridge is bare.

I knew women who'd do it. They would steal steak or a joint of meat and cook that up with whatever bits they had left.

I know there are also people who steal to order as people will buy high value items such as alcohol and meat off them at cheaper prices. One woman I knew offered to steal bras from M and S.

They were ratty, wirey late 30s looking men. They looked so angry at being confronted.

They won"t be able to beat free vodka though.

whatever you do, try to conceal your fear and anxiety from your kids. You are obviously quite sensitive, but you don’t want your fear and anxiety to make your children feel the same.

I don’t feel any fear or anxiety going to the shops, but if I did, I would hopefully see that the actual risk of anything happening to me is very very low - and consequently be able to conceal my anxieties from my kids

We need to massively up fund the police to get 5x the amount of officers. Invest in more police stations with good custody suites. Deport any foreigner/overseas domiciled individual to free up from in Jails. Invest more money in jails. Zero tolerance on petty crime.

We need stricter discipline at schools. Instil respect for police. We need to stop left leaning education.

Our small sainsburys often gets cleared out of items, the other day the local druggies filled 2 huge back packs with the sun tan lotion, hundreds of bottles..and the toothpaste and brushes...sold on at car boot sales or corner shops i believe.

The answer is to implement the rule of law.

As David Frum put it in a different context: if liberals won’t protect borders, fascists will.

I was in a Tesco express in central Manchester and a group came in and attempted to empty a whole area. It was frightening and I only wanted to grab some chocolate to take to my hotel room.

Security staff did intervene but it looked frightening

Not sure about the rules on security, I have in the past witnessed two big African male security workers pinning a woman face down on the concrete a good distance from the shop where she had allegedly been shoplifting, saw another security person (again an African guy) basically fighting with a kid of about 14 who had tried to lift a bar of chocolate or something, the guy was dragging him down the aisle more or less by the throat, it got so bad that a workman buying sandwiches intervened and said stop or he would get involved because that is a child that you are roughing up, the workman looked like he could handle himself and the security guy let the teenager go. I have seen staff from my local Sainsburys chasing shoplifters through the car-park, both groups running full speed with even a couple of young guys leaving their checkouts to give chase, absolute madness.

What's left leaning education?

God, how awful. They sound much more like serious organised criminals than lone shoplifters.

Sounds like it really shook you. 😢💐

The cost of living is irrelevant to what OP is describing.

This is Organized Retail Crime (ORC) the goods stolen are often sold on via blackmarket wholesalers who supply shops across Europe & worldwide.

The organized crime leaders will be making large sums of money & there will often be other crimes involved - human trafficking & child exploitation.

To be fair, I am easily shook but I do generally feel that society is getting more angry and aggressive in general. Just my opinion obviously.

It’s organised crime that feeds into the drug cartels in my city. Groups of no doubt violent men who fill trolleys with spirits and just walk out past security.

I was in a branch of Itsu recently when I became aware of couple of teenage boys loitering nearby me as I was choosing a sushi box. They suddenly grabbed a load of food off the shelves and just sauntered out. In broad daylight. The woman behind the til ran out but they were gone before she should reach them. I was shocken by how brazen they were. I dont remember ever seeing anything like that only a few years ago. Clearly that's not cost of living. Nobody starving and on the breadline is being forced into overpriced sushi shops in central London. It's like shoplifting has been decriminalized.

I've worked in retail on and off since 1996 including as a loss prevention officer.

I remember cash grabs being very common in late 90's & 00s where someone would jump over a counter or checkout & rob the cash in a till or rob a shop often with a weapon at cashing up time. This was actually far more frightening to be a victim of than the current organized shoplifting. Cash grabs are virtually unheard of now (as theres little cash to rob)

Retail crime like any other crime is ever evolving. There is a lot going on behind the scenes at all the major UK shop brands and a lot of joint working & intelligence sharing.

There's fewer staff on the shop floor which has changed how thieves operate which makes it more obvious (and can't deny frightening) to the public but reassured there is a lot of work going on mainly technology & intelligence driven.

And yet you see threads on here about perfectly innocent women being tailed round shops by security guards - often young women with a baby, and women of colour.

Easiest solution is internet delivery, even they are wearing body cameras now though.