Retailers and police launch shoplifting action plan

A national shoplifting action plan has been launched to tackle prolific shoplifters and organised crime groups (OCGs).

Thirteen retailers, including Co-op and Tesco, have teamed up with a specialist unit within the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s (NPCC) to launch the Pegasus Project, which will see shoplifting investigated from an organised crime perspective.

It is the first time a dedicated national unit has been created for shoplifting incidents.

Shoplifting rates reached a record high of 1,000 offences a day, equivalent to a 25% increase, for the year ending June 2023, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed last week.

Project Pegasus will see six new intelligence analysts review information from CCTV, number plate recognition, dashcam footage and more to capture prolific shoplifters from the 13 retailers.

Sussex police and crime commissioner (PCC) Katy Bourne, who spearheaded the project, said smaller retailers should benefit from the initiative as it will target OCGs operating across multiple areas and currently impacting them too.

This is because the project will encourage areas to share information to link OCGs operating in multiple places. She said the police is not currently “resourced efficiently” to do this.

“Pegasus is doing at the macro level what I want PCCs to do at a micro level,” she added. “I want PCCs to work with their chief constables at the micro level and target those prolific offenders.”

The 13 retailers have pledged to invest more than £840,000 over two years to the project.

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“At the moment, retailers spend quite a bit of money on protecting their own stores,” Bourne said. “My reassurance to the smaller independent retailers is that [Pegasus] will benefit everybody.”

ACS chief executive James Lowman said the action plan “sets a clear marker” that shoplifting will be taken seriously by police forces and the government.

“It’s crucial that every incident reported to the police gets investigated,” he added. “Using artificial intelligence to identify prolific offenders can be an effective way of drastically reducing the amount of police time it takes to make links between crimes committed against different businesses locally, and we hope that this will encourage more retailers to submit CCTV evidence of theft when it occurs to help make the link between crimes that have previously been seen as separate offences.”

However he added that the “real challenge” of “apprehending these people” remains, as well as breaking the cycle of reoffending.

Crime and policing minister Chris Philp said: “I want a new zero-tolerance approach to tackling shoplifting. It is a blight on our highstreets and communities and puts the livelihoods of traders at risk.

“I am determined to drive forward change. While it is encouraging to see a 29% increase in charges for shoplifting in the past year, the rise in offending is unacceptable and there is much more to do to stop it happening in the first place.

“That’s why we’re taking action and bringing together government, policing and business to commit to smarter, more joined up working when it comes to retail crime, which will help to drive down criminal behaviour and rebuild public confidence in the police response when it does occur.”

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