M&S boss says police no longer interested in tackling shop-lifting

34 comments

1. Police are no longer capable of tackling most crimes.

   If I’m honest shoplifting is the lowest thing on my list of what police are doing wrong right now.

2. Haven’t been for a decade, unless they’re stealing 1000’s they don’t care.

   Plenty of well known shoplifters in every town,should be something similar to the ASBO to keep them out of target areas.

3. Saying they’re no longer interested implies there they were once interested. The police haven’t cared about shoplifting for a long time.

4. What’s the point when the punishment for shoplifting is so pathetic

5. If I remember correctly…. We don’t need police officers anymore because the “the nature of crime has changed”.

   Basically no one shoplifts anymore or commits crimes in person… All crimes are digital innit.

6. Can’t wait for all the redditors to start talking about how shoplifting is moral and good, and then turn around and cry when prices go up / food deserts happen.

7. In a high proportion of instances, tackling shoplifting means tackling drug and alcohol addiction and dependency.

   Even when police catch and convict prolific shoplifters (and they get custodial sentences) if the factors that drive their shoplifting arent addressed they come out of prison, and get right back to it.

8. It’s almost like cutting police budgets means less policing. Outrageous!

9. We can just about deal with the majority of serious violent crime. If you want nonviolent offences with no direct risk to people investigated, then you’ll have to fund it.

10. My force had 3,920 officers in 2012 and now has 3848 so slightly less officers.

    Population growth means we simply don’t have the same number of officers per capita than we did then. Along with many of these being new officers lacking the same experience.

    No wonder crime is up.

11. They literally write off shoplifters as a cost of doing business

12. Hey, heres an idea. Encourage the rich to stop hiding their money in offshore accounts and pay the correct tax and then you can request the government invest said extra tax into a proper and full police force capable of actually policing.

    Maybe then, you’l find police actually care and turn up to petty crimes because they have the resources and man power to answer your cries.

    Oh wait, you dont want to do that, you want your cake and to eat it.

13. From a Police Perspective.

    People generally have no comprehension of the amount of time that goes into a basic shoplifting crime. From collecting the CCTV, formatting it, taking statements, identifying the person, writing the crime report and then the case and lodging all the productions for court. I could be well into 2/3 hours work for one shoplifting.

    The regular thieves will be out doing a dozen shops a day, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day with how short on resources the Police are now. The general public are fucking clueless on how short handed we are. My area has 250k people in it, we’re lucky to start a shift and have 6-8 people to respond to everything.

    And even once you put the case into court they’ll get a suspended sentence and be back out stealing that same day.

    Until we introduce incremental sentences it won’t be solved. Even something basic like everyone gets 10 offences where normal sentencing guidelines apply and the focus is on rehabilitation. For your 11th offence you get 2 years minimum. For your 12th, 5 years, 13th 10 years etc..

    There are plenty of regulars with 2/300 convictions who are still getting suspended sentences or 1-3 months inside and back out. Fix the sentencing and crime will drop.

14. “Tory doners want the public to fund public services” 😂

15. M&S themselves also don’t seem to be particularly interested in tackling shop lifting. Where other stores have implemented various measures to prevent theft, M&S are making it extremely easy for self check out thieves

16. They’ll probably end up rolling out the facial recognition cameras that only open the doors if you’re not on a list.

17. The same happens in liberal cities in America. Then the companies leave said liberal city.

18. It’s just part of a general lawlessness that has grown up that is especially bad in some areas and is just normalised. A lot of those shoplifting will overlap with other sorts of low criminality, petty theft, phone snatching, fighting, are involved with drugs and alcohol addiction, anti social behaviour and generally being a yob by harassing people in the street, on transport, intimidating their neighbours, racing around on bikes, vandalism, etc. All the sorts of stuff the police shrug about and even those that end up with dozens of arrests never seem to face any lasting consequence or change in their behaviour.

19. Shops are going to become enquiry stores like Argos or they’ll require you to sign in to the store via an app with a registered name, address and credit card – or both.

    They’ll hear complaints from elderly people about not having smartphones or not understanding why they can’t pay with cash or being treated like criminals and there will be a few posts on /r/compface but they’ll write that off as a cost of doing business.

20. I can’t summon much sympathy when every time I go in they seem to have replaced another till with self service checkouts.

21. Neutral, they should be focussing on interpersonal crimes, where someone actually gets hurt.

22. The rise of shopifting is a superb indicator of something that is deeply wrong with the country. Shoplifting just doesn’t become ‘fashionable’, it’s borne out of a legitimate need to feed yourself and loved ones. Oh M&S and pals haven’t met their profit targets this year, boo fucking hoo.

23. Good for them, they must have seen all these reddit comments saying it’s actually totally ok to shoplift and decided to do the right thing!!

24. One of my neighbours is the manager at the local Co-op. The only reason they report shoplifting is for the insurance claim on any valuable stock that happens to go missing.

    And they are told to never tackle them. Risking getting stabbed because people are stealing cans of coke or everyday essentials like washing up powder is not worth it.

25. It’s not shoplifting, it is 99.5% of all crime.

    The police are predominantly a facade to encourage people to be obedient when they may otherwise not, they don’t actually function to achieve a great deal otherwise.

26. I find it hard to feel sympathy for companies who decided to double or triple their prices on groceries citing the pandemic and supply chain issues.

    Did they cut prices back after the pandemic was over? No, of course not.

    Greedy fucks can go soak their heads.

27. They’re too busy dealing with county lines drug dealing and knife crime to deal with petty theft and burglary. 

    Maybe we should spend more money on the police force, that might help. 

28. Punishment is so soft that no one cares. Shoplifters should have thief branded on their forehead so everyone knows to watch them

29. There is absolutely no point because the courts won’t or possibly can’t send them to prison. There’s nothing they can do.

30. Company cuts security guard numbers and expects the police to fill those gaps for free. Maybe, just maybe the companies should employ people to protect the stuff they want to protect.

31. They didn’t even bother turning g up when I reported someone getting beaten up. It was only when I mentioned knives on the second call did they actually send someone down.

32. Yup! With resources being endlessly diverted elsewhere (rightly or wrongly) it’s never going to be tackled. The obvious answer is more boots on the ground but that also involves more of the supporting back end staff to facilitate the work the frontline officers do. However people get upset when they hear about the size of the admin staff etc or even the number of desk jobs available to officers. That’s all before you even get to the issue of utterly how unattractive the pay and conditions of the job are.

33. Police don’t care about many things.

    Personally, I’ve had things stolen from my property, my car smashed into, I’ve had a vehicle stolen, I’ve been hit and run as a pedestrian. Did the police care? did they do anything besides give me a crime number? Nope.

    They are agents for wealthy people.

34. Be scared bosses, we’re coming for you and your goods!