>#Supermarkets will pay police to scan shoplifters’ faces
>__Project Pegasus to help identify where gangs are hitting hardest__
>Matt Dathan, Home Affairs Editor
>Sunday September 10 2023, 8.15pm BST, The Times
>Ten of Britain’s biggest retailers have agreed to fund a new police operation to crack down on shoplifting as part of government efforts to ensure all forces show zero tolerance.
>In return police forces will run each CCTV image of shoplifting offences provided by retailers through the Police National Database, which includes facial recognition technology.
>The new partnership — named Project Pegasus — has been described as a game-changer by police chiefs because it will give them a national picture of where shoplifting gangs are operating and the shops they are targeting.
>Shoplifting offences have soared by a quarter this year, according to the Office for National Statistics, but police have been accused of failing to take the crime seriously. In the 12 months to March, the police recorded 339,206 cases of shoplifting despite the British Retail Consortium estimating there were eight million incidents, which it says costs retailers nearly £1 billion a year.
>Only 48,218 incidents of shoplifting reported by the police were charged, 14 per cent, while 183,450 investigations, or 54 per cent, were closed with no suspect being identified.
>Ministers met police chiefs and representatives from leading supermarkets and retailers on Thursday to hammer out plans to target shoplifters.
>The huge spike in shoplifting has been driven by organised crime groups who deploy individuals to steal higher value items from supermarkets such as steaks and bottles of alcohol en masse that they sell direct to market owners, pubs, corner shops and through other means.
>The new police project will be set up to identify and target the organised crime gangs. Pegasus will receive £600,000 from ten supermarkets and retailers including John Lewis, Co-op, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Next.
>Chris Philp, the policing minister, has tasked police leaders with drwing up a target list of prolific shoplifters to create a national shoplifting database that can be circulated to retailers and police forces across the country.
>He has also asked police forces to dedicate a proportion of officers that are funded by the government’s new antisocial behaviour hotspot policing initiative to patrol areas that report high levels of shoplifting.
>Philip has asked police to report back within six to eight weeks with a “zero-tolerance plan to target shoplifting”, arguing that shoplifting creates a sense of lawlessness.
>__‘Start local and you can cut crime’__
>Katy Bourne, the police and crime commissioner for Sussex who is the national lead for business and retail crime, has estimated that 20 per cent of offenders account for 80 per cent of shoplifting offences in her county.
>A partnership with the Co-op supermarket chain in Sussex has targeted prolific shoplifters by allowing staff to report thefts at the touch of a button. This has reduced the time it takes to report an offence from 30 minutes to two minutes on average and has led to an increase in the number of reports being submitted to police.
>“If you make a concerted effort to tackle prolific offenders at a local level, you can have a big impact on reducing crime overall,” Bourne said.
>__The three types of shoplifter__
>At Thursday’s meeting at the Home Office, which was also attended by Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for small businesses, police laid out three cohorts who shoplift. There are the opportunists, who are often younger and less predictable or prolific; adult offenders who are driven by an addiction to drugs, alcohol or gambling and tend to be prolific; and individuals who are working for organised gangs, which pose the biggest threat to retailers as they target the highest value and biggest volume of goods.
>“All those at the meeting recognised that it’s the organised criminality that is really hitting them hard and that’s the bit they really want police to deal with. Pegasus will enable this to happen,” Bourne said.
>“It’ll be a game changer for policing because for the first time ever, policing will get a complete picture across the country of where these gangs are hitting different areas and they’ll have that data and intelligence to be able to put that out to local police forces to go after those gangs.”
>Philp said this approach was vital to ensure Britain does not fall victim to the type of shoplifting epidemic that hit San Francisco after it downgraded the theft of property worth less than $950 (£760) from a felony charge to a misdemeanor, the latter incurring shorter prison sentences and smaller fines than the former. Policing of shoplifting plummeted.
>Since that change in 2014, many retailers have left San Francisco because the proliferation of shoplifting made it financially unviable. Philp told the meeting on Thursday: “I categorically do not want this happening in the UK.”
>The Co-op has recorded a 35 per cent increase in shoplifting in the first six months of this year and a 36 per cent rise in assaults on staff.
>Paul Gerrard, Co-op’s campaigns and public affairs director, who also attended Thursday’s meeting, said: “I think Pegasus is a very good thing, we are very supportive of it financially and in terms of what it’s trying to achieve and in particular we think it will give us police action on the back of the intelligence it creates.
>“I’ve been personally very impressed with Philp. There’s a level of energy, determination and honesty to get something done that I don’t think we’ve seen for the last few years.”
For everyone who is part of team “If you see someone shoplifting, no you didn’t”, these two paragraphs are pretty key.
>At Thursday’s meeting at the Home Office, which was also attended by Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for small businesses, police laid out three cohorts who shoplift. There are the opportunists, who are often younger and less predictable or prolific; adult offenders who are driven by an addiction to drugs, alcohol or gambling and tend to be prolific; and individuals who are working for organised gangs, which pose the biggest threat to retailers as they target the highest value and biggest volume of goods.
>“All those at the meeting recognised that it’s the organised criminality that is really hitting them hard and that’s the bit they really want police to deal with. Pegasus will enable this to happen,” Bourne said.
Police genuinely do not give a fuck about people who steal to feed their family. That level of crime is so low down in the priority list, I would be shocked to discover that there has been even a single prosecution for it in the last year.
The shoplifters that police care about, are the ones who are violent, or prolific. The ones who come in and nick a rucksack full of Sirloin Steak or the ones that will clear out the cheese shelf. These people aren’t stealing to feed a family. They’re either stealing to fuel their drug addiction, or they’re stealing items to order for organised groups. As an example, I recently dealt with two prolific individuals who would go to the local Holland and Barrett 3/4 times a day, and clear out all of the most expensive supplements and posh honey. They nicked about £3/4k in stock every time. Those are the people that police want to deal with, and who this project is aimed at.
Tldr – Facial recognition to catch Dave who nicks thousands of pounds at a time, not Susan who doesn’t pay for her banana’s so she can feed the kids.
Can’t we just do it ourselves at the self checkout?
Potatos
*bloop*
Milk
*bloop*
Face
*bloop*
Peas
*bloop*
Hang on a minute. Why there is no outrage about this, that corporation can buy police time?
That is straightforward corruption.
Are we entering the world when you get burgled you could pay the police to try harder to find the perpetrators?
I absolutely do not trust cops with my data, they’ve demonstrated an obvious lack of ability to look after it recently.
And they still won’t come look at your security footage after a break in, or bother investigating your stolen items with trackers that you can see in someone’s garden, but they’ll use facial rec to stop co-op losing a few quid? Bunch of cunts.
6 comments
>#Supermarkets will pay police to scan shoplifters’ faces
>__Project Pegasus to help identify where gangs are hitting hardest__
>Matt Dathan, Home Affairs Editor
>Sunday September 10 2023, 8.15pm BST, The Times
>Ten of Britain’s biggest retailers have agreed to fund a new police operation to crack down on shoplifting as part of government efforts to ensure all forces show zero tolerance.
>In return police forces will run each CCTV image of shoplifting offences provided by retailers through the Police National Database, which includes facial recognition technology.
>The new partnership — named Project Pegasus — has been described as a game-changer by police chiefs because it will give them a national picture of where shoplifting gangs are operating and the shops they are targeting.
>Shoplifting offences have soared by a quarter this year, according to the Office for National Statistics, but police have been accused of failing to take the crime seriously. In the 12 months to March, the police recorded 339,206 cases of shoplifting despite the British Retail Consortium estimating there were eight million incidents, which it says costs retailers nearly £1 billion a year.
>Only 48,218 incidents of shoplifting reported by the police were charged, 14 per cent, while 183,450 investigations, or 54 per cent, were closed with no suspect being identified.
>Ministers met police chiefs and representatives from leading supermarkets and retailers on Thursday to hammer out plans to target shoplifters.
>The huge spike in shoplifting has been driven by organised crime groups who deploy individuals to steal higher value items from supermarkets such as steaks and bottles of alcohol en masse that they sell direct to market owners, pubs, corner shops and through other means.
>The new police project will be set up to identify and target the organised crime gangs. Pegasus will receive £600,000 from ten supermarkets and retailers including John Lewis, Co-op, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Next.
>Chris Philp, the policing minister, has tasked police leaders with drwing up a target list of prolific shoplifters to create a national shoplifting database that can be circulated to retailers and police forces across the country.
>He has also asked police forces to dedicate a proportion of officers that are funded by the government’s new antisocial behaviour hotspot policing initiative to patrol areas that report high levels of shoplifting.
>Philip has asked police to report back within six to eight weeks with a “zero-tolerance plan to target shoplifting”, arguing that shoplifting creates a sense of lawlessness.
>__‘Start local and you can cut crime’__
>Katy Bourne, the police and crime commissioner for Sussex who is the national lead for business and retail crime, has estimated that 20 per cent of offenders account for 80 per cent of shoplifting offences in her county.
>A partnership with the Co-op supermarket chain in Sussex has targeted prolific shoplifters by allowing staff to report thefts at the touch of a button. This has reduced the time it takes to report an offence from 30 minutes to two minutes on average and has led to an increase in the number of reports being submitted to police.
>“If you make a concerted effort to tackle prolific offenders at a local level, you can have a big impact on reducing crime overall,” Bourne said.
>__The three types of shoplifter__
>At Thursday’s meeting at the Home Office, which was also attended by Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for small businesses, police laid out three cohorts who shoplift. There are the opportunists, who are often younger and less predictable or prolific; adult offenders who are driven by an addiction to drugs, alcohol or gambling and tend to be prolific; and individuals who are working for organised gangs, which pose the biggest threat to retailers as they target the highest value and biggest volume of goods.
>“All those at the meeting recognised that it’s the organised criminality that is really hitting them hard and that’s the bit they really want police to deal with. Pegasus will enable this to happen,” Bourne said.
>“It’ll be a game changer for policing because for the first time ever, policing will get a complete picture across the country of where these gangs are hitting different areas and they’ll have that data and intelligence to be able to put that out to local police forces to go after those gangs.”
>Philp said this approach was vital to ensure Britain does not fall victim to the type of shoplifting epidemic that hit San Francisco after it downgraded the theft of property worth less than $950 (£760) from a felony charge to a misdemeanor, the latter incurring shorter prison sentences and smaller fines than the former. Policing of shoplifting plummeted.
>Since that change in 2014, many retailers have left San Francisco because the proliferation of shoplifting made it financially unviable. Philp told the meeting on Thursday: “I categorically do not want this happening in the UK.”
>The Co-op has recorded a 35 per cent increase in shoplifting in the first six months of this year and a 36 per cent rise in assaults on staff.
>Paul Gerrard, Co-op’s campaigns and public affairs director, who also attended Thursday’s meeting, said: “I think Pegasus is a very good thing, we are very supportive of it financially and in terms of what it’s trying to achieve and in particular we think it will give us police action on the back of the intelligence it creates.
>“I’ve been personally very impressed with Philp. There’s a level of energy, determination and honesty to get something done that I don’t think we’ve seen for the last few years.”
For everyone who is part of team “If you see someone shoplifting, no you didn’t”, these two paragraphs are pretty key.
>At Thursday’s meeting at the Home Office, which was also attended by Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for small businesses, police laid out three cohorts who shoplift. There are the opportunists, who are often younger and less predictable or prolific; adult offenders who are driven by an addiction to drugs, alcohol or gambling and tend to be prolific; and individuals who are working for organised gangs, which pose the biggest threat to retailers as they target the highest value and biggest volume of goods.
>“All those at the meeting recognised that it’s the organised criminality that is really hitting them hard and that’s the bit they really want police to deal with. Pegasus will enable this to happen,” Bourne said.
Police genuinely do not give a fuck about people who steal to feed their family. That level of crime is so low down in the priority list, I would be shocked to discover that there has been even a single prosecution for it in the last year.
The shoplifters that police care about, are the ones who are violent, or prolific. The ones who come in and nick a rucksack full of Sirloin Steak or the ones that will clear out the cheese shelf. These people aren’t stealing to feed a family. They’re either stealing to fuel their drug addiction, or they’re stealing items to order for organised groups. As an example, I recently dealt with two prolific individuals who would go to the local Holland and Barrett 3/4 times a day, and clear out all of the most expensive supplements and posh honey. They nicked about £3/4k in stock every time. Those are the people that police want to deal with, and who this project is aimed at.
Tldr – Facial recognition to catch Dave who nicks thousands of pounds at a time, not Susan who doesn’t pay for her banana’s so she can feed the kids.
Can’t we just do it ourselves at the self checkout?
Potatos
*bloop*
Milk
*bloop*
Face
*bloop*
Peas
*bloop*
Hang on a minute. Why there is no outrage about this, that corporation can buy police time?
That is straightforward corruption.
Are we entering the world when you get burgled you could pay the police to try harder to find the perpetrators?
Jesus.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-met-police-using-facial-recognition-surveillance
I absolutely do not trust cops with my data, they’ve demonstrated an obvious lack of ability to look after it recently.
And they still won’t come look at your security footage after a break in, or bother investigating your stolen items with trackers that you can see in someone’s garden, but they’ll use facial rec to stop co-op losing a few quid? Bunch of cunts.