{"id":626312,"date":"2026-09-16T10:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/626312\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T10:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:08:13","slug":"shoplifting-has-become-totally-normalised-the-crime-blighting-communities-across-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/626312\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Shoplifting has become totally normalised&#8217;: The crime blighting communities across England"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The scale of shoplifting in Englandpublished at 09:03 BST<\/p>\n<p>09:03 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1l98ssq-Contributor etflsgg2\">Ema Sabljak<br \/>England Data Unit<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A sign in a shop window that says 'Stop! Don't shoplift'. In the background a woman can be seen at a counter, with shelves of good behind her\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/a0e8379e-abd7-40c7-8cc4-c7d668a9fc8d.jpg.webp\"  width=\"5026\" height=\"2827\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, EPA<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While the number of shoplifting offences recorded in England and Wales in 2025-26 has dropped slightly compared to the previous year, it is still significantly above pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There were 502,011 offences recorded in 2025-26. That&#8217;s a little lower than the record-breaking total of 525,741 in 2024-25, but still up 50% on the 334,976 recorded a decade previously in 2015-16.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Policing minister Sarah Jones told the BBC we have \u201cturned that corner\u201d on shoplifting &#8211; but acknowledged that &#8220;we all know there is a lot further that we need to go, and a lot more we need to do&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tom Holder, spokesperson for the British Retail Consortium, said its surveys suggested these incidents were a fraction of what retailers were facing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;As we see more action from the police, we see the reporting go back up,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">How does this compare with other UK nations? <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In Northern Ireland, shoplifting dropped 4% from 8,586 offences in 2024-25 to 8,243 in the most recent financial year. Meanwhile, it rose by 19% in Scotland during the same period to 53,369.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scale of shoplifting in Englandpublished at 09:03 BST 09:03 BST Ema SabljakEngland Data Unit Image source, EPA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80],"class_list":["post-626312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}