September 7, 2023 - 7:00am
San Francisco’s shoplifting epidemic is shocking to behold. But we shouldn’t imagine that the same couldn’t happen here. In fact, we’re well on our way. According to the British Retail Consortium, theft from stores across 10 UK cities is up by 26%. More, “incidents of violence and abuse against retail employees have almost doubled on pre-pandemic levels.”
On Tuesday, Asda Chairman Stuart Rose told LBC that “theft is a big issue. It has become decriminalised. It has become minimised. It’s actually just not seen as a crime anymore.”
In the absence of an adequate response from the authorities, retailers are beginning to take defensive measures. For instance, home furnishings company Dunelm is now locking up duvets and pillow cases in cabinets; Waitrose is offering free coffees to police officers to increase their visibility; and Tesco plans to equip staff with body cameras.
The “progressive” response to this phenomenon isn’t quite as deranged as it is in in the US. Nevertheless, British liberals have responded as expected. A piece in the Observer is typical. You’ll never guess, but apparently it’s all the Tories’ fault: “Starving your population and then ‘cracking down’ on it for nicking baby formula or a can of soup can start to make a government look rather unreasonable.”
But as the writer ought to know, the issue here isn’t the desperate young mum hiding a few groceries in the pram. Nor is it the schoolboy pilfering the occasional bag of sweets. Rather, the real problem is blatant, organised and sometimes violent theft of higher value items. Criminals who never previously thought they could get away with it increasingly now do — thus presenting a material threat to retail as we know it.
But instead of addressing the issue head-on, the writer blames the victim: “Once goods were kept behind counters, but since the birth of large supermarkets they have been laid out near the door, ready for the taking.” How terribly irresponsible of them! On the other hand, perhaps the open display of goods isn’t just a convenience for customers, but instead the hallmark of a high trust society.
In fact, modern shops are a minor miracle of civilisation: public spaces, stacked high with products from all over the world, that passing strangers may freely inspect and handle, but which aren’t looted by anyone who feels like it.
Surely, that’s something worth defending. But if you’d prefer to abandon retailers to their fate, then don’t moan when they do what it takes to survive. Some will close, of course, and others will move their operations online. Those who stay open will guard themselves and their stock behind plexiglass and electronic tags. And then there’s the hi-tech solution: the fully automated and completely cashless store, in which customers have to be authenticated to even get in.
Remember that retail facilities like this already exist. One day, when they become the norm, we’ll remember what shops used to be like. Then, we’ll ask why no one stood up for them.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
peterfranklin_
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeSpot on. When societies stop doing the things which made them free and prosperous, sooner or later they will stop being free and prosperous.
In many places it is borderline looting. We always hear about mum that cannot pay for formula. That’s probably 0.01% of billions stolen. Mrs is in the retail, they have gangs coming daily, going for high value items 100s of £ in one go and they cannot do much about it. These are professionals thieves and police will not even show up. Leading job role in London is Loss Prevention Officer. You know who covers the cost of all losses and additional measures for security? Those idiots that actually pay for their shopping, through higher prices, and sometimes people in retail by losing their jobs.
Reading the comments under the Observer piece, one is reminded just how stupid the supposed educated “liberal” class are.
In their mind: every shoplifter is just trying to save a starving baby, every person on the dole is desperate for a job, every criminal is the product of an exploitative capitalist society, everyone on sickness benefits is actually sick. The idea that people can be just inherently greedy, lazy, selfish and corrupt is ridiculed as unsophisticated, ignorant, bunkum.
It seems that the more a person is notionally intelligent, the better they are at coming up with ideas and arguments that enable them to continue to believe demonstrably false and stupid things.
Not long ago I saw a video of two girls from the ‘hood sitting in the stairwell of some grubby apartment building. They were wearing fake hair, nails and lashes, and were clearly very high. The bigger of the two said “I have a message for you white people, so y’all listen up: PAY me, motherf******. PAY me!!!!”
She didn’t seem keen on getting a job. Don’t know if there was a starving baby involved.
That’s because they know very well they themselves won’t have to bear the consequences of their “liberal” views.
They would be most vociferously complaining about it if this happened in their nice upper class neighbourhoods.
So what would you do? Fill the prisons up further?
No, releases the prisoners and settle them in localities with large numbers of Guardian readers and Labour voting BBC employees.
Then wait for them to demand that the prisons be filled up.
Good idea Samir.!
Nice.
One thing is for sure, no one is ever going to nick a copy of the Observer (or Guardian)
But you are going too far the other way. Of course people can be greedy, lazy selfish etc. But if you think that is the whole explanation you have some problems.
1 You end up just with moral indignation, and calls for longer prison sentences which does nothing.
2. You have to explain why it is in more equal & economically prosperous societies shop lifting is much lower. Is it just a coincidence that shop lifting has increased with the cost of living crisis?
Of course it is those with bad upbringings etc who tend to shop lift. But what do you do? Rage at humanities moral corruption or try to create a society where you know crime will be lower?
Tough on crime tough on the causes of crime!
you say this:
“You end up just with moral indignation, and calls for longer prison sentences which does nothing.”
but relaxing the criminal justice and turn a blind eye to theft and robbery also does nothing. It incentivise it as we clearly see in US cities and now here at home where you can literally steal £300 of goods knowing nothing will happen to you.
Are you ok with gangs of looters literally wrecking havoc in the high street?
do you think that certain demographics are entitled to do more crime than other demographics? if so, why?
This topic makes me especially angry. A member of my own family, a teenage girl, had to leave her job as a shop assistant (her first ever job) because it became too dangerous for her. She was verbally abused and threatened daily, not by hard-up single mums or near-starving pensioners but by organised criminal gangs who would come into the shop with holdalls and literally sweep high value items (meat, alcohol) off the shelves. The police did nothing and management were hopeless. Those journalists who depict this a consequence of poverty know nothing; this is organised, sometimes violent crime and the perpetrators think nothing of threatening to beat teenage girls up. I think my post would be censored if I wrote what I really think of them.
If this was a result of poverty, you would find more such incidents in India or Vietnam, not in Britain where you get free Medicare, schooling, welfare support, housing…
It’s just an awful culture based on entitlement, and lack of fear of any punishment, built in from childhood in Western countries.
Not really. It’s a society where those in power don’t give a toss about what happens in poor areas. Interesting that it is societies that idealise the ‘small state’ (US and UK) that seem to get the worse crime.
The comparison with India and Vietnam is misplaced. It’s always about perceived inequality in a community, and a culture of out and out individualism, not the absolute levels of poverty that matters.
Strangely enough, three spurts of shoplifting in both the US and UK appear to happen in wealthier urban regions where you have more employment opportunities and less dire poverty – rural, poverty stricken parts of the country, less so
Another bad take.
There are very inequal societies across Europe and Asia and this culture of looting is not common at all.
Take Rusia, an extremely unequal country. You won’t see this thuggery because they would get harsh retributions. You won’t find useful lefties like you simping for it either.
Iagree with you Clara. These people are expert at virtue signalling but have no idea of psychopathy or what motivates certain types of behaviour . It’s often power and control and not personal suffering, that is the catalyst for many crimes.The lack of empathy is quite striking in those who are happy to stand by and watch people who have little recourse to social justice be mangled and misquoted.
If the police don’t have the resources to investigate every theft – then instead of prioritising by the value of goods stolen – they should just randomly select cases to investigate. All thieves would then be at risk of prosecution. This approach would also crack down on early-stage criminals as well as the professionals.
Good idea – and as you correctly point out, and studies show, the probability of getting caught is the main deterrent factor, not the length of sentence.
‘Martha Gill is an Observer columnist’
Why?
It’ll be the Albanians is my guess
Unrepeatable sadly.
CENSORED.
Isn’t that a teeny weeny bit ‘racist’ as we now say, Bob old chap?
Albanians are white men from Europe. Did you go to school?
Did you?
Saying anything negative about immigrants from Europe or religious groups followed by different ethnicities is racist…..
But attacking or disparaging Whites living in their own countries, or non victim racial minorities, is all fine.
What a world.
What does their skin colour have to do with anything?
Possibly, though it’s fairly common knowledge they’re massively over represented in criminal enterprises in Britain
Good article. It would be good to have a list of ‘crimes the police don’t have the resources to investigate’, for reference and they can include vets charges.
“ And then there’s the hi-tech solution: the fully automated and completely cashless store, in which customers have to be authenticated to even get in.”
This will ultimately be the end result. And only the proper and compliant people will be allowed to enter.
Those that haven’t been ‘de-banked’ because of their political beliefs!
Yes, just like all those young girls displaying their bodies with their miniskirts and skimpy little tops. What do they expect to happen? Asking for it, I tell you!!
Not the first time a lefty with a rotten brain plays the victim blaming game. Sadly it won’t be the last either
Just remember; whatever you think, you hate we you do the left hates you for it.