Shoplifting incidents increase 4% in a year
An OnBuy investigation which used data from the UK Police has revealed a 4% increase in shoplifting offences in this financial year.
The figures were compared with previous years’ figures for England and Wales. The investigation showed a total of 378,725 shoplifting incidents reported to 42 police forces in England and Wales from April 2017 – March 2018. The figures represented a 4% increase on the previous year when shoplifting incidents totalled 365,783 overall.
According to the same report, Dyfed-Powys Police saw an increase of 1,861 shoplifting offenses compared to last year’s 1,533 (21% increase).
However, 13 of the 42 police forces were shown to have “positively experienced a decrease” in shoplifting offences from previous year, with the most notable decrease occurring at Northamptonshire Police at 14% (4,518 in 2017-18 compared to 5,246 in April 2016-17).
Among the findings, the Metropolitan Police had 46,840 shoplifting offences this year (128 per day in the capital) reaching the highest number in the report.
