FOR too long, shop theft was overlooked or ignored because police were focused on what they deemed to be more harmful crimes.
Consequently, our high streets became tempting targets for emboldened shoplifters who knew they would probably not be challenged.
That’s why I set up the Safer Sussex Business Partnership in 2020 with police and the retail sector to see what was going wrong.
Retailers were not reporting incidents because it took too long and their experience was that police weren’t interested anyway. Police told me retailers weren’t providing the right evidence for them to investigate and data protection fears prevented the sharing of offenders’ identities.
We needed to make it easier to share information at a local level but it became clear we also needed to build a national picture of the organised retail crime gangs (OCGs).
I had the simple idea of asking our biggest retailers to form a partnership with police to help fund a new dedicated retail intelligence crime team. The Pegasus Partnership of 15 of the UK’s biggest retailers provided £1 million through the existing national OPAL police unit and, six months later, their intelligence packages on retail OCGs were helping local forces disrupt their harmful cross-border activities.
Since the launch of the OPAL unit, hundreds of previously unknown offenders have been identified. Dozens of OCGs and vehicles have been mapped and foreign national offenders deported. This is what can be achieved if you don’t accept the status quo, but it also shows that police cannot address all crime issues alone. The Government have adopted and backed the OPAL concept and promised £5 million to sustain the OPAL team for the next four years to scale up the operation.
I’ve met many shoplifters and a large number of them are driven by drugs and alcohol. Some of them worked on their own, but most of them needed willing outlets for stolen goods, so we also need to tackle the reseller market.
There must be real consequences for everyone involved in handling stolen goods, and we need a societal shift to regard shoplifting as real crime, not a bit of harmless help-yourself.
For too many career criminals and the perpetrators of serious violent crimes, shop theft is the gateway crime that they got away with and how they improved their skills.
The Sentencing Council’s website describes shoplifting goods under £200 as ‘low value’. For the average store, hit several times a week often by the same offender, that “low level” £200 offence soon becomes several thousands and wipes out any profit margin.
It seems to me that the pendulum of individual rights has swung, almost irrevocably, towards the offender. Last year, a North Wales police officer warned a Wrexham store owner against describing prolific thieves as ‘scumbags’. Why are police forces more worried about upsetting career criminals than catching them?
Successive Parliaments have contributed to a criminal justice system that treats the greedy and feckless with kid gloves instead of enforcement and meaningful sanctions. But, if the prisons are full, what do we do with shoplifters?
I lost patience waiting for this Government to make their manifesto promises a reality so, in the Autumn of 2025 in Sussex, we introduced the UK’s first electronic tags for persistent shoplifters, after Criminal Behaviour Orders were granted against two offenders.
This ground-breaking initiative is led by my office in partnership with Sussex Police, HMCTS, the CPS and Probation services.
Operation STOP (Shop Theft Offender Pilot) – is currently being trialled in East Sussex using the established Buddi GPS Tags. Convicted offenders will have to wear them for 12 months and adhere to exclusion zones in towns and city centres.
The early evidence shows that tagged offenders are really changing their behaviours and not reoffending. The STOP pilot will also provide tailored wrap-around rehabilitation and real-time monitoring. We have calculated £3,000 savings in police resources for two tagged offenders, responding to thefts the associated investigations and prosecutions. Looking at the wider picture, over £17,000 in savings have been made across police and Criminal Justice System resources and the cost of the stolen goods.
We are now looking to expand the STOP pilot across other parts of Sussex. We are working with the courts to see how more tags can be issued and with police and industry to see how the tags will be monitored.
Businesses are very supportive and shop workers welcome the respite from repeat offenders. Will it work? I am confident it will and, alongside the rollout of Live Facial Recognition technology, it sends a clear signal that Sussex is not a soft touch for shoplifters.
