Shops must ‘design out theft’, says Humberside Police Chief

Shops must help tackle retail crime by “designing out theft”, recently-appointed Humberside chief constable has stated.

Paul Anderson, who took over earlier this month, said retail locations needed to be made less appealing.

“It’s also about shops taking responsibility for this as well, they need to make sure that the way items are stacked for instance doesn’t allow people to walk in and take them, they can help by designing out theft.

Stating that shoplifting had been an issue since he’d been an officer, Anderson issued a warning against retail thieves and shoplifters.

“Let me be crystal clear to those who think they can steal with impunity, if you shop lift we will look at the CCTV and we will try to find you and arrest you,” reports quoted Anderson as saying.

“In terms of demand, we get in excess of 18,000 calls a month which equates to about 8,500 crimes,” he said. “In terms of what’s most prevalent, we have two broad brackets of crimes. One bracket is things like shop thefts, antisocial behaviour and vandalism, these are things which are often regarded as low level but they’re often the crimes which impact people’s lives the most.

“The way we deal with that is through community policing, I’m resolute on protecting that, it’s key. In the places where things like this are happening we’ll put in extra resources and deal with it.

“The other bracket is the crimes that cause the most harm in our society and affect the vulnerable particularly, things like preying on children, drug offences and domestic violence. We’re aware that shop thefts are an issue in some areas and for some retail outlets, but there’s not been a huge rise in the Humberside area as a whole.”