Almost half of all wholesale and retail premises (45pc) experienced a crime in the 12 months before interview for the official Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS). Wholesale and retail premises experienced 5.9 million crimes in the year to 2013, according to the survey, which looks at crime against businesses in England and Wales.
Of these, four out of five incidents were thefts and, specifically, over half (55 per cent) of the 5.9 million incidents were due to theft by customers (3.3 million incidents). This is a similar proportion to the last such survey in 2012 when theft by customers accounted for 53 per cent of all incidents against wholesale and retail premises. Thefts by customers also accounted for the highest rate of all crime types against the wholesale and retail sector, with 9,484 incidents per 1,000 premises in the 12 months prior to interview. Larger retail premises were at increased risk of both thefts and fraud, when compared with premises with less than 50 staff.
ACS Chief Executive James Lowman said: “The findings of the Survey highlight the scale of the issue of shop theft to retail and wholesale businesses, our most recent figures show that shop theft costs the Convenience sector £44 million last year. We continue to work closely with the Home Office to ensure that shop theft is taken seriously by the police and not considered a victimless crime.”
For the survey details visit gov.uk website.
Retail respondents who used computers at their premises were asked about their business’ experience of types of online crime:
hacking: having a computer system accessed without permission
online theft of money: having money stolen electronically (for example, through online banking)
phishing: having money stolen after responding to fraudulent messages or being redirected to fake websites
online theft of information: having confidential information stolen electronically (such as staff or customer data)
website vandalism: having a website defaced, damaged or taken down
viruses: having computers infected with files or programmes intended to cause harm.
The 2013 CVS estimates there were 234,000 incidents of online crime against businesses in the wholesale and retail sector in the 12 months prior to interview. The most commonly experienced online crimes were computer viruses, with 214,000 incidents in the year prior to interview, making up 91 per cent of all incidents of online crime against this sector. However while computers were used by more than five out of six (84pc) of premises in the wholesale and retail sector, there is a question over how useful the statistics are as incidents of online crime are not included in the overall count of CVS crime as these questions are only asked of half the sample and there is a risk of double-counting with other crimes such as theft or fraud.
Around eight per cent of all wholesale and retail premises experienced at least one type of online crime in the last year, with seven per cent experiencing a virus and two per cent experiencing hacking in the 12 months to interview.
Police reporting
As for how many crimes get reported and recorded by police – of interest because besides the Government survey, the only other crime stats are from the police – reporting rates varied by type of offence. Estimates show that incidents of burglary were reported, with around 82 per cent of incidents of burglary with entry and 66 per cent of incidents of attempted burglary being reported to police for the retail sector. Such high reporting may be due to the need for victims to obtain a crime reference number from the police to make an insurance claim. By contrast reporting rates were lower for crimes such as theft by employees (where 31 per cent of the most recent incidents were reported to the police). Around a third of the most recent incidents of thefts by unknown persons (33pc), vandalism (35pc) and assaults and threats (36pc) were reported to police.
Crimes involving employees often went unreported as the business at the premises dealt with the matter internally, according to the survey. A perceived lack of police engagement was cited as the reason for not reporting such crime as theft or fraud to the police.
As for the accommodation and food sector – businesses such as hotels, restaurants, take-away food shops and licensed clubs, pubs and bars – assaults and threats were the most common crime type, making up 42 per cent of all incidents against this sector (240,000 incidents). Some 15 per cent of premises in this sector had experienced at least one incident of assaults and threats. Victims of assaults and threats experienced a relatively high level of repeat victimisation, compared to victims of other crime types, with an average of 13 incidents in the 12 months prior to interview.
Seventeen per cent of premises had experienced thefts and 16 per cent had experienced vandalism with the average number of incidents experienced by victims of each of these crime types were seven and six respectively.
The survey also covers the arts, entertainment and recreation sector – businesses such as sporting facilities, gyms, gambling or betting facilities and theatres – and agriculture, forestry and fishing. The 2013 survey was based on interviews with respondents at 4,041 premises. Of six sectors, the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector saw the lowest rate of overall crime (1,475 incidents per 1,000 premises), though this was only slightly lower than that felt by the manufacturing sector (1,500 incidents per 1,000 premises). Wholesale and retail premises had the highest rate of overall crime (17,261 incidents per 1,000 premises in 2013). The 2013 Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) is the second of a new series of Home Office surveys covering crime against businesses, which began with the 2012 CVS. There are plans to repeat the survey in 2014. Earlier the survey was run in 1994 and 2002.
Metal theft
Questions on experience of metal theft were included in the survey to provide more information on the extent of, and trends in, this type of crime. Respondents in the six sectors were asked whether any metal items had been stolen from the premises in the year before interview that they suspected had been taken for their scrap metal value. This could include metal goods stored on the premises, scrap metal, lead from a roof, metal pipes, or any other metal fixtures.
Respondents from premises in the manufacturing sector were most likely to suspect that they had been victims of metal theft (with 14 per cent of premises experiencing metal theft), whereas respondents from accommodation and food premises were the least likely to suspect that they had been victims of metal theft, with 5 per cent of premises experiencing this crime type.
