Poverty Britain: Poverty epidemic in shoplifting

Everything is still going according to the rules at the discount store in Catford, South London. It’s around nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning, and only one customer is standing in the aisles of the store, examining a can of chickpeas. But the clerk behind the cash register estimates that the first theft won’t be long in coming.

»They come every day. They’re usually groups of several people who act as if they don’t know each other,” says the man in his early 20s, who doesn’t want to give his name. Shampoo and shaving gel are popular stolen items, as is milk formula. The discount store has no security staff, so there is usually no one in the way of the thieves. The employee reports about a customer who had a knife with him: “I called my boss, but by the time he came the guy had long since left with the stolen stuff.” Of course he didn’t try to stop him.

You can hear stories like this in many places these days. The number of shopliftings has increased dramatically in the past year. Sharon White, chairman of the John Lewis department store chain, recently said it had become a veritable “epidemic.” In the twelve months to March 2023, statistics show, the number of shopliftings in England and Wales increased by 24 percent – and since then, according to industry representatives, “shoplifting” has become even more common. The supermarket chain Co-op reported in June that there had never been as many thefts and cases of aggression towards employees as in the first half of 2023. In total, the group lost £33 million as a result.

A few days ago, the bosses of 88 retailers wrote a letter to the government calling for tougher penalties for shoplifters. The signatories include the bosses of the fashion retailer Primark and the drugstore chain Superdrug. The letter also states that there should be a separate criminal offense for assaults against shop staff.

How unscrupulous the perpetrators sometimes act is documented on surveillance cameras. In one case, a group of around two dozen young people in the Midlands region are seen trying to storm a shop as security guards try to hold the sliding door shut by hand. A Co-op spokesman speaks of “organized looting.”

Emmeline Taylor, professor of criminology at London City University, confirmed to The Economist magazine that gangs are partly responsible for the wave of thefts.. Sometimes the perpetrators of criminal gangs receive a “shopping list” with the products they want. Alcohol, baby products and meat are popular.

But experts point out another cause: growing poverty. The high energy costs and the rapidly increasing prices for everyday products – food Inflation climbed to 19 percent in the spring – have plunged many households into serious financial problems.

In August, poverty campaign Buttle UK warned that Britain’s poorest families had seen their living standards collapse over the past year. It is based on a survey among employees of numerous social foundations that help disadvantaged people. “We are not only talking about great hardship here, but also about life-changing and life-shortening deep poverty,” wrote Buttle UK.

This plight is partly responsible for the thefts, says Laurence Guinness, chairman of the child poverty foundation Childhood Trust, in the magazine “Big Issue”. “I spoke to many children, some as young as seven, who stole food because they were hungry,” says Guinness. “A young man of 15 told me he was stealing baby food for his little sister.”

The Tower Hamlets local authority came to the same conclusion. In the east London borough where half of children live in poverty, the authors of a report on food poverty found a sharp rise in shoplifting in the spring. In particular, customers steal baby products – the most stolen item is paracetamol for children. The authors note: “Desperation has led to an increase in shoplifting.”

Many retailers have installed more surveillance cameras or hired security guards. Some stores place safety labels on certain products, such as meat or cheese. The supermarket chains Waitrose and John Lewis have also started offering free coffee and tea to uniformed police officers – this is intended to encourage law enforcement officers to stop by more often and deter potential shoplifters.

In the cheap discounter in Catford, however, the company decided not to hire either a security guard or more staff, says the cashier. So he prepares for another day of thefts.