Retailers are demanding urgent action from the Home Secretary over rising levels of retail crime, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) reports.
According to the trade association, 88 retail leaders have signed a letter to Suella Braverman making two demands of the government.
The retail industry firstly wants the government to create a standalone offence of assaulting or abusing a retail worker, with tougher sentences for offenders.
Secondly, they called for greater prioritisation of retail crime by police across the UK, after police data for one major retailer showed they failed to respond to 73% of serious retail crimes that were reported.
Furthermore, 44% of retailers in the BRC’s annual crime survey rated the police response as “poor” or “very poor”.
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The letter follows the 2023 BRC Crime Survey revealing incidents of violence and abuse towards retail staff had nearly doubled on pre-pandemic levels to 867 incidents per day in 2021/22.
Meanwhile, it put the scale of retail theft at £953m, despite more than £700m being spent by retailers on crime prevention.
As a result, this meant the total cost of retail crime stood at £1.76bn for the 12-month period to April.
A separate BRC survey of members this year found shoplifting rates across 10 major cities had jumped by an average of 27%.
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “We need to see a standalone offence for assaulting or abusing a retail worker – as exists in Scotland.
“We need government to stand with the millions of retail workers who kept us safe and fed during the pandemic – and support them, as those workers supported us.”
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