Cost of crime over last year: £3,000 per store

Crimes committed against the convenience sector cost £142 million over the last year alone, equating to over £3,000 per store, according to the latest crime report by the ACS.

The 2021 Crime Report of the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) also reveals that the stores have invested heavily over the last year to make their businesses safer.

Over £175m has been spent by retailers on crime prevention measures like CCTV, external security staff and intruder alarms. Taken together with the cost of crimes committed, there is effectively a 5p crime tax on every transaction in stores.

“During Covid-19 we have invested in a £10,000 CCTV system with facial recognition and outside ANPR cameras. The facial recognition works with people wearing masks and will find historic footage of every time that person has been in-store. We are prepared for when we have to use this, unfortunately not if,” commented Susan Connolly, business development manager at Connolly SPAR, Pewsey.

The report reveals that 89 per cent of colleagues working in local shops have experienced some form of abuse, with over 1.2 million incidents recorded over the last year.

“Over a million shop thefts and incidents of violence and abuse aren’t just big numbers, each one is a crime that has a personal impact on retailers and their colleagues,” said James Lowman, chief executive of the ACS. “For so many people in local shops to have suffered this kind of abuse, just for doing their jobs, is shocking and must not be allowed to be normalised.”

Covid-related abuse has become one of the biggest issues facing retailers, and is now one of the top triggers of violence in store, with 65 per cent of respondents to the 2021 Crime Survey witnessing Covid-related threats to staff.

“Customers have threatened to cough on colleagues and ‘give them Coronavirus’ and further threats of assaults because people have had to queue to enter stores, social distance or simply because they do not have a specific product,” Craig Goldie, of Central England Co-op, said.

The most common causes of Covid-related abuse have been: Reminding customers to wear face coverings; Reminding customers of social distancing measures; Queueing outside stores; and Requesting removal of face coverings to check ID.

Over the last year, there have been around 40,000 incidents of violence against people working in convenience stores. Of these, over one in four involved a weapon, such as a knife, hammer, axe or syringe.

“Convenience stores have been on the front line serving their communities throughout the last year, but despite this they have been the constant target of criminals, often repeat offenders, who aren’t being dealt with properly by the justice system. This results in fewer retailers being willing to report crimes and less trust in the ability of the police to respond to incidents when they occur,” Lowman noted.

Launching the report ahead of the 2021 Police and Crime Commissioner elections, Lowman urged every candidate to “set out their priorities and commit to tackling this issue and supporting local shops.”

With just 18 of the 42 current PCCs included any reference to business crime in their Police and Crime Plans, ACS has called on all prospective PCCs to take action in four areas to support local shops:

• Create police-led business engagement teams with dedicated resource to engage with the retail sector
• Provide funding for ‘Second Chance’ Programmes to deal with repeat offenders suffering from addiction issues
• Use Community Remedy Powers to ban repeat offenders from local shops
• Provide better support for victims of violence and abuse in local shops

“We need action now to ensure that everyone, from neighbourhood police and the courts to Police and Crime Commissioners and central Government, takes crimes committed against retailers and their colleagues seriously,” Lowman said.