In a letter to UK’s interior minister Suella Braverman, 88 UK retail leaders—among them the CEOs of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Marks & Spencer—demanded action in response to the escalating rates of retail crime.

In Britain, rising crime is likely to become a political issue in the upcoming general election in 2024.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC), a trade association, reported that its 2023 crime survey found that, compared to pre-pandemic levels, there were 867 occurrences of violence and abuse against retail workers every day in 2021/22.

Despite shops investing over 700 million pounds on crime prevention, is estimated that retail theft totaled 953 million pounds ($1.2 billion).

“The situation has clearly got worse; a separate BRC survey of members in 2023 found that levels of shoplifting in 10 major cities had risen by an average of 27%,” it said.

The letter lays out two demands for the government from the retail sector ahead of the annual conference of the ruling Conservative Party, which begins on Sunday in Manchester.

It requests that the government establish an independent crime of assaulting or abusing a retail employee, with harsher penalties for offenders. Police agencies would have to keep track of every retail crime incidence as a result.

The sector wants police forces all around the UK to give retail crime a higher priority.

“It’s time the government put their words into action,” Helen Dickinson, BRC CEO said.

The John Lewis Partnership, which owns department stores and Waitrose supermarkets, claimed earlier this month that larceny was “epidemic” in Britain and that its own “shrinkage,” primarily theft, had increased by 12 million pounds in the first half.

Similar to how apparel retailers Primark and Next claimed that rising theft had reduced their profit margins, grocer Tesco declared that an increase in store crime had prompted them to start providing body cameras to its employees. Aldi, a discount retailer, is also testing them.

(Adapted from Market Screener.com)

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