Professor Emmeline Taylor creates plan for Co-op to curb theft and violence towards supermarket workers

Unchecked crime is reaching record levels, finds the new report Stealing with Impunity, which was commissioned by the supermarket Co-op and written by criminology expert Professor Emmeline Taylor at City, University of London.

Stealing with impunity

In her report, she sets out a ten-point plan focused on turning the tide on prolific to address the alarming increase in crime, violence, intimidation and abuse that continues to beset the retail sector, blight communities and wreak physical and mental harm on store workers.

She illustrates how retail crime spreads and grows when left unchecked and is all too often dismissed as a petty and victimless crime despite its far-reaching societal impacts.

Key findings from the report include:

• Co-op reports record levels of crime in 2023 with over 330,000 incidents of shoplifting, abuse, violence and antisocial behaviour (a 44 percent year-on-year increase) as many communities continue to be blighted by persistent retail crime
• Co-op undercover guards detained 3,361 criminals in 2023, but two-in-five criminals detained by trained security guards still walked away with police failing to attend.

Professor Taylor’s plan aims to foster an ongoing and collaborative approach between the retail industry, the police, and the government to tackle what she describes as a “tsunami of shop theft.”

One of her key recommendations is to make attacking a shopworker a stand-alone offence, and the Co-op is urging all MPs to back the amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill and not turn their back on shopworkers.

Retail crime not only impacts on a business’s ability to operate safely and profitably but as my report demonstrates it also causes serious harm to shop workers, both physically and mentally, and to communities that are blighted by persistent offending.

The police in England and Wales have lost grip on the scale and severity of acquisitive crime, and, in turn, retailers have lost confidence in them and the wider criminal justice system.

By taking decisive action to tackle high-volume, high-impact retail crime, the police and retail industry can work together to create safer communities in which to live, work and shop.

We are seeing far too many prolific offenders persistently steal large volumes of products, in our shops every day, and, if they are stealing to fund addictions, the situation often becomes volatile and dangerous.

Crime is an occupation for some - it is not petty crime, and it is not victimless.

It is imperative MPs don’t turn their backs on shopworkers, and vote through the amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to give my colleagues the protection they deserve.