Fine Mess

If the definition of a crime is an activity that reliably attracts a state sanction then shoplifting is coming close to being a legitimate form of business. ­Analysis by this newspaper, published today, shows that, despite soaring levels of theft from shops, the chances of being handed a fixed penalty or suffering more severe forms of punishment have plunged over the past decade. Police, it ­appears, have simply given up the fight against an activity that for too long has been regarded as not worth the bother when compared with more serious offences. This abject surrender to criminality, much of which is far from trivial, involving as it sometimes does organised gangs and threats to shopowners and workers, is corrosive of public confidence in policing and the rule of law.
The collapse in the issuance of fixed penalties for offenders caught red-handed is quite staggering. Data published by the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and police forces shows that their use has all but ceased. In the year to March, a mere 431 shoplifters were handed fixed penalties, which can be used for thefts involving goods valued at £100 or less. This is a 98 per cent drop in a decade. More than 19,000 fixed penalties were issued ten years ago. Last year, the majority of the country’s police forces did not issue a single one. Not a single one. How can that be in an area covered by even a ­moderately competent force?
Certainly, the precipitous fall in the use of spot fines has nothing to do with the adoption of more draconian sanctions. The situation is hardly better when it comes to more serious forms of punishment. Cautions, the next rung on the ­sanctions ladder fell from just above 16,000 in 2014 to just above 2,000 last year, an 87 per cent decrease.
• Labour: “Shameful neglect” of shoplifting must end
Even in the most serious cases, the ones that reach the courts, the decline in convictions is remarkable. There were 72,000 convictions in 2014; last year the figure was 29,000. In total, only 442,000 offences were actually recorded last year, a drop in the ocean against the millions of incidents said by retailers to be taking place. And even with this small sample, more than half resulted in no suspect identified.
Chief constables will doubtless point to the ­evisceration of police numbers in the decade of austerity. Those cuts forced upon them brutal choices in allocating resources, prioritising more serious crimes. Shoplifting, with its connotations of petty, opportunistic offending, appears to have been a casualty of this exercise in cloth-cutting.
The reality is, however, that shoplifting is far from trivial in its consequences. For small shopowners who must man their premises alone at night there is nothing trivial about the fear of criminals stalking the aisles. Increasingly, these thieves ­operate in gangs and to order, selecting targets for their vulnerability and high-value stock. The ­British Retail Consortium, which represents ­bigger outlets, puts the cost to members last year at £1.8 billion, from 16.7 million incidents. The cost in stress to retail staff can only be guessed at.
The “broken windows” theory of criminality posits that allowing petty crime, like vandalism, to flourish eventually results in a general breakdown in law and order. Shoplifting is a euphemism masking a spiralling epidemic of criminality taking place in the heart of communities, crippling business and spreading fear. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, must treat it as a first-order, not second-order, priority.