Launched today, the government’s new Beating Crime Plan proposes sweeping changes which aim to deliver “less crime, fewer victims and a safer country”.

Areas of focus include neighbourhood and drug-related crime, through prevention, deterrent and enforcement, as well as the challenges faced by local shops.

The plan states: “Shops are critical to areas, and often have become as much part of community identity as the church or pub. There has been too much violence targeted at retail workers and too much acquisitive crime on these premises.”

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The Beating Crime Plan includes the following recommendations:

• Ensuring every single person living in England and Wales has access to the police digitally through a national online platform
• Improving the responsiveness of local police to 101 and 999 calls
• Expanding the use of electronic monitoring for serious acquisitive offenders to a further 13 police force areas
• Encouraging prison leavers to turn their backs on crime by securing employment

Figures from the 2021 ACS Crime Report show there were over 40,000 violent attacks against people working in convenience stores and 1.1m incidents of theft over the last year, many of which committed by repeat offenders with a drug or alcohol addictions.

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