Local stores invest quarter-billion pounds in crime prevention measures

The UK’s local shops have invested a record £246 million in crime prevention measures over the last year, the ACS said in a new report.

The 2022 Crime Report, published today by the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS), shows that on average, each store in the convenience sector spent over £5,000 on crime prevention measures including security staff, CCTV and intruder alarms.

“During the pandemic, convenience stores were repeatedly targeted by criminals as they were often some of the only businesses trading, but now retailers have sent a clear message that they will not sit back and take this, investing a record amount to keep their businesses, colleagues, and themselves safer whilst ensuring that they have usable evidence to provide to the police in the event of an incident taking place,” James Lowman, ACS chief executive, said.

“The cost of this investment, almost a quarter of a billion pounds, primarily comes from retailers’ own reserves. At a time when all costs are rising in the business, these figures demonstrate just how much of a priority tackling crime is for every local shop trading across the UK.”

According to the report estimates, the cost of crime and investing in tackling crime results in a 9p ‘crime tax’ on every transaction made in stores.

While the issue of retail crime has got much attention over the last year, with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is set to introduce a new aggravated offence for attacks on people serving the public, the period still saw 970,000 incidents of theft, 800,000 incidents of verbal abuse and over 9,000 robberies, as well as other threats like fraud and cyber crime that can financially devastate businesses.

Lowman continued: “Retailers voices are being heard when it comes to taking crimes against their business seriously. Twice as many Police and Crime Commissioners make explicit reference to business crime in their plans this year compared to 2020, new legislation is on the way to make attacking a shop worker a more serious offence, the new drugs strategy offers new approaches to tackle repeat offenders, and there has been UK-wide support for the Home Office backed ShopKind campaign.”

“But we still have a long way to go: too many crimes are still not being reported because many retailers have poor experiences of the response from the police and courts. We urge retailers to ensure that all crimes are reported to the police to demonstrate the true scale of the problem, and for the actions of the police and justice system to be targeted to stop reoffending.”