Shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales have soared to the highest level in 20 years, figures have revealed.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), shoplifting offences are at the highest level since current records began.
A total of 430,104 offences were recorded in the year to December 2023, up 37 per cent from 315,040 in the previous 12 months.
This is the highest figure since current police recording practices began in the year ending March 2003.
The number of offences involving theft from the person stood at 125,563 in 2023, up 18 per cent from 106,606 in 2022, and is the highest level since 2004.
The data published on Thursday comes after major retailers raised concerns about the rising cost of theft.
Nick Stripe, from the ONS, said: “In the past 12 months, police recorded crime shows notable increases in robbery, theft from the person and shoplifting.
“The latter has risen by more than 100,000 offences, while the police have been dealing with the highest levels of theft from the person offences recorded in two decades.”
The ONS figures, gathered from police recorded crime and the annual Crime Survey for England and Wales, also show the number of robberies rose by 13 per cent last year to 81,094, up from 71,983 in 2022. However this is still 26 per cent lower than the year ending March 2003 (110,271).
Meanwhile, crimes involving knives or sharp instruments were up 7 per cent to 49,489 offences in 2023, but rates are still 3 per cent lower than the pre-pandemic high of 51,206 offences in the year ending March 2020.
This set of figures does not include offences recorded by Greater Manchester Police and Devon and Cornwall Police due to problems recording data.
The figures come after the Co-op reported record amounts of retail crime in 2023, with 336,270 incidents of shoplifting, abuse, violence and anti-social behaviour across their 2,400 stores – a shocking 44 per cent increase on the previous year.
Meanwhile the chairwoman of John Lewis Dame Sharon White last year warned shoplifting had become an “epidemic” with staff having to put up with abuse and attacks by thieves.
John Lewis and the Co-op are among a group of the UK’s biggest retailers which have agreed to fund a police operation to crack down on shoplifting, dubbed Project Pegasus, which launched last year.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the figures expose the “scale of Conservative failure on law and order” while “criminals are just getting away with it”.
“Despite repeated warnings from retailers, communities, and from Labour that action was needed to tackle soaring shoplifting and abuse affecting our town centres, these figures show that shoplifting has surged by further 37 per cent in the last 12 months alone to its highest ever recorded level, with ruinous consequences for our town centres and high streets,” she said.
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