They are so concerned that the credit crunch will result in a rapid surge in shoplifting that they are adapting conventional retail crime prevention methods in such a way.
The British Retail Consortium’s Retail Crime Survey 2008 published today (Monday) says retailers are concerned that the economic slowdown will wipe out falls in retail crime achieved over the last year.
The BRC welcomes the crime reductions revealed in its survey but warns that the Government needs to take steps to ensure those good results are not swept away as economic conditions worsen.
The BRC recommends:
– Ending the “misuse of Penalty notices for Disorder which are frequently issued in circumstances outside the guidelines”.
– Sentencing that takes into account all costs, including repairs, trade lost and employee time, not just the value of the goods stolen
– Raising the knowledge and understanding of local police officers to deal with fraud and the growth of online crime.
– Continuing to move away from nationally set targets that “largely ignored business crime” and towards local setting of crime priorities.
The survey shows numbers of customer thefts down 26 per cent in the year to April but it still recorded a third of a million shoplifting offences. Employee theft fell 56 per cent in the year to April.
Retailers believe the reductions were a result of economic stability during that period, improved policing and their own spending on crime prevention.
In the report Director General Stephen Robertson says: “The credit crunch threatens to bring an abrupt end to this trend. Recent reports have focused on a surge in shoplifting and fuel thefts.
“Retailers are preparing for a rapid rise in offences and are adapting crime prevention methods, for example, placing electronic security tags on expensive cuts of meat.”
Using modelling from the last recession, a leaked Home Office document warned of a significant rise in theft, burglary and violence as a result of the economic downturn.
Robertson said the falls in retail crime were not enough.
“With the economic slowdown worsening, retailers deserve Government and police support in their battle to stop the human and financial costs rising again.”
The survey showed shoplifting is the most costly crime for shops, accounting for 64 per cent of all crime losses. It was well above burglary at 16 per cent, robberies (8 per cent) and employee theft (8 per cent).
For the first time the BRC has collected data on internet fraud. Of those retailers who sell online, 85 per cent had experienced internet fraud in the year to April and 64 per cent said internet fraud had increased. Retailers are concerned the Government and police do not have adequate mechanisms to deal with the increase in e-crime.
The BRC says retail crime statistics are consistently higher than official recorded figures, “indicating retailers continue to believe it is often not worth reporting crime to the police”.
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