More than 13,000 shoplifting offences in Northumbria force area

Northumbria Police reported 13,070 shoplifting offences in 2016-17, the sixth highest out of the 43 police forces across England and Wales.
Shoplifting offences in 2016-17.Shoplifting offences in 2016-17.
Shoplifting offences in 2016-17.

Shoplifting is one of the most common crimes committed by opportunist thieves.

Retail security firm Checkpoints Systems found that Britain’s shops collectively lose £800million per year due to shoplifting.

Shoplifting offence in 2016-17.Shoplifting offence in 2016-17.
Shoplifting offence in 2016-17.
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Utilising data derived from data.police.co.uk, OnBuy.com investigated the total number of shoplifting offences that were recorded by the 43 police forces/constabularies across England and Wales in the financial year of 2016-17.

Shoplifting per the police is defined as the theft from shops or stalls.

Unsurprisingly, the top three were the large city forces; the research revealed that the Metropolitan Police had the highest number of shoplifting offences at 47,580 – the equivalent of 130 incidents a day.

It was closely followed by West Midlands Police, which had 19,741 incidences of shoplifting reported. In third, was Greater Manchester Police, with 18,002 shoplifting offences.

Shoplifting offence in 2016-17.Shoplifting offence in 2016-17.
Shoplifting offence in 2016-17.
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City of London Police had the lowest number of shoplifting cases, with only 729 reported.

Cas Paton, managing director of OnBuy.com, said: “Considering the amount of time and energy shops put into running various aspects of their daily operations, shoplifting is really an unfortunate occurrence for them.

“While it may feel unavoidable, shops can certainly take various steps to prevent shoplifters from targeting them.

“Simple steps such as better staff training to identify potential shoplifters and storing high value items more securely can go a long way when dealing with the problem of shoplifters.”