Shoplifting is now at record levels. Here’s how it went from a crime punishable by death to police ‘turning a blind eye.’

Wherever you are on the political spectrum, shoplifting has come to symbolise today’s “broken Britain”. On the left, it is an inevitable product of the cost of living crisis and poverty, fuelled in part by growing levels of drug and alcohol addiction. On the right, it is a damning symptom of ineffectual policing and the general decline in respect for authority and property.

Nigel Farage’s announcement that he was standing in the 2024 general election included the claim that in modern Britain: “You can go shoplifting and nick up to 200 quid’s worth of kit before anyone is even going to prosecute you.” While police chiefs have denied this claim, shoplifting was identified by most parties as a key issue for voters and businesses alike, with then-policing minister Chris Philp calling it “a blight on our high streets and communities”.

Annual shoplifting offences in England and Wales went up 30% in 2024 to a record of almost 444,000 cases logged by police. The British Retail Consortium’s 2024 crime survey estimated that shoplifting now costs retailers almost £1.8 billion – a huge rise on the previous year’s total.

Yet a new analysis by The Times appeared to confirm Farage’s critique, concluding that “police officers have almost entirely ceased punishing shoplifters, despite the number of offences soaring to record levels”. In response, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, promised to “end the shameful neglect” of shoplifting by police. In its first king’s speech, the new government announced legislation to tackle low-level shoplifting, including a new offence of assaulting a shopworker.

Will it make a difference? My research into the history of shoplifting shows there are many reasons driving the inexorable rise of this fascinating, complicated crime. and extortionate profiteering. So who deserves our sympathy: the robbers or the robbed?

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