Shop staff are facing a “Christmas crime wave”, an MP has warned as new figures revealed an average of more than 650 shoplifting offences a day went unsolved in the past year.
In the year to March 2024, 245,500 investigations were closed without a suspect being identified – an average of 672 a day – according to analysis from the House of Commons Library.
This is a 38% increase from the total number of shoplifting offences that went unsolved in the same period five years ago.
More than half (56.4%) of shoplifting cases were closed because no suspect was identified, and only around one in six cases resulted in someone being charged or summonsed in the past year.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Lisa Smart said: “Shop staff are having to deal with a Christmas crime wave as shoplifters act with impunity, with so many crimes being effectively legalised by the previous Conservative government’s shocking neglect.
“The new Government needs to get a grip on this shoplifting epidemic, and hard-working shop staff on the frontline need to be reassured that they will not continue to be abandoned.
“That must start with ministers making sure that officers will actually have the time and resources to focus on their local neighbourhoods and keep shop workers safe.
“Until that happens our communities won’t see the proper neighbourhood policing that they deserve.”
The data comes amid a rising level of shoplifting, with official figures released in October showing the offence had hit a 20-year high.
A total of 469,788 shoplifting offences were logged by forces in the year to June 2024, up 29% on the 365,173 recorded in the previous 12 months, and the highest annual figure since current records began in the year to March 2003.
In November, the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee wrote to policing minister Dame Diana Johnson saying that shop theft is “seriously underreported and not being tackled properly”.
It said that the problem risks undermining confidence in the police and the criminal justice system.
A police squad set up to combat the rise in shoplifting arrested 93 members of organised crime gangs behind retail theft within seven months, the National Police Chiefs’ Council announced earlier this month.
Dame Diana said: “In the last year of the Tory government, shoplifting soared to a 20-year high, up 30% in just 12 months.
“By the end of their tenure, more than half of the public said they never saw a bobby on the beat, double the proportion than in 2010.
“That was the Conservatives’ disastrous legacy on law and order and our communities have paid the price.
“That’s why this Labour Government is committed to putting neighbourhood police back on the beat and creating new powers for the police to crack down on the scourge of antisocial behaviour, shoplifting and street crime in our towns and cities”.