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Who Steals from Shops, and Why? A Case Study of Prolific Shop Theft Offenders

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Retail Crime

Part of the book series: Crime Prevention and Security Management ((CPSM))

Abstract

Despite spending around £2bn on loss prevention, twenty-two percent of retail premises in the UK experienced shoplifting during 2014–2015, with theft by customers accounting for 72% of all crime suffered by the retail and wholesale sector (Home Office, Crime Against Businesses: Findings from the 2015 Commercial Victimisation Survey. London: Home Office, 2016). There remains, however, little data to reliably determine the characteristics of the perpetrators (Dabney, Hollinger, & Dugan, Justice Quarterly, 21, 693–728, 2004). This chapter therefore draws upon police recorded crime data between 2004–2014 in order to analyse the key characteristics of shop theft offenders in an English Core City. The narrative also examines the motivations of shop theft offenders, and their perceptions of retail security, based upon interviews conducted with some of the most prolific shop theft offenders within this city. The insights provided by these interviews reveal a group of individuals who perceive their crimes as ‘victimless’, and where the actions of the retailers in terms of the placement of products and layout of stores makes shoplifting ‘an unbelievably easy’ offence to commit.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Commercial Victimisation Survey is a victimisation survey conducted by the Home Office which is designed to identify the extent and nature of crimes against businesses derived from interviews with a sample of organisations of different sizes based upon number of employees operating within different commercial sectors (including Wholesale and Retail) in England and Wales.

  2. 2.

    Anonymising the identity of the city in question was a condition of data access.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sociology Department, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    James Hunter, Laura Garius & Paul Hamilton

  2. School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Law, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK

    Azrini Wahidin

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  1. James Hunter
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  2. Laura Garius
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  3. Paul Hamilton
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  4. Azrini Wahidin
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urban Planning and Built Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Vania Ceccato

  2. Applied Criminology Centre, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United Kingdom

    Rachel Armitage

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Hunter, J., Garius, L., Hamilton, P., Wahidin, A. (2018). Who Steals from Shops, and Why? A Case Study of Prolific Shop Theft Offenders. In: Ceccato, V., Armitage, R. (eds) Retail Crime. Crime Prevention and Security Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73065-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73065-3_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73064-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73065-3

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