Six in 10 shoplifters reoffend within 12 months of being convicted, official figures have revealed.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) data revealed that nearly 80,000 shoplifters were caught again within a year of their conviction over the five years to March 2022, the latest year for which figures are available.
This represented 60 per cent of just under 140,000 shoplifters caught over that period who went on to commit further crimes despite their original conviction, according to the figures.
The data expose the scale of repeat offending by shoplifters and will fuel demands for ministers to take a tougher approach to prolific criminals who are not deterred even if they are jailed.
Shoplifting hit a record high in the year to June, with 469,788 offences reported to police, up nearly 29 per cent on the previous year’s total of 365,173 and double the rate in 2020 during the pandemic, according to the Office for National Statistics.
That equates to more than 9,000 offences a week, or 1,290 a day and more than two a minute based on average UK store opening times of about 10 hours a day.
‘Stealing with impunity’
Sir John Hayes, a former home office minister who obtained the figures through parliamentary questions, said shoplifting was reaching “epidemic proportions” because of the perception that offenders could steal with impunity.
“In previous years, shoplifting was done with a degree of subterfuge. Now I am told people bring holdalls into shops and trolleys to take stuff away,” he said.
“It’s changed its nature. So the only way of dealing with that is to get tougher so we no longer let them get away with it. They should be stopped, arrested and charged. That is not routine these days.
“And then when they are convicted, they should receive exemplary sentences. Clearly, the deterrent at the moment is not sufficient to stop people doing this again and again.”
He backed proposals, set out by backbench Tories as an amendment to last year’s Criminal Justice Bill, which fell at the election. These would have required a mandatory two-year jail sentence for any criminals once they hit 45 convictions for crimes.
A second “five strikes and out” amendment would require immediate jail sentences to be the starting point for any criminal who committed a fifth successive offence.
It followed research by the think tank Policy Exchange, which found that more than half of all criminals with at least 45 previous convictions are spared jail.
So-called hyper-prolific offenders were found guilty of almost 10,000 offences last year, but 47 per cent received an immediate custodial sentence, with some receiving no substantive punishment at all.
MoJ research showed that shoplifters were more likely than any other type of offender to reoffend after being convicted. Shoplifting offences have hit their highest level since records began in March 2003.
Retailers warn that the crisis adds at least 6p to every store transaction by customers. The British Retail Consortium calculates losses at £1.8 billion stolen each year, with a further £700 million spent on extra security.
The police-recorded figures are a fraction of the total amount stolen as most shops only report to police when they catch an offender in the act, or have CCTV or other evidence.
One in six (17.7 per cent) of the thefts resulted in a shoplifter being caught and charged, up on the previous year’s 15.5 per cent, but down on the 29.8 per cent in 2016 when the Home Office started publishing such data.