Police and the courts are turning a blind eye to theft, burglary and shoplifting which makes up three quarters of all recorded crime in England and Wales. That is according to Labour MP and mayoral candidate David Lammy.
Lammy, MP for Tottenham, is author of a report on property crime for the Westminster-based think-tank Policy Exchange. He calls on politicians, policymakers and public servants to better address, prevent and respond to what he calls ‘Britain’s property crime epidemic’. He calls for a crime prevention Centre of Excellence at the College of Policing; in private homes, such security as standard as window locks, double locks or deadlocks on external doors, internal lighting on a timer and external lighting on a sensor; more and better designing out crime in buildings at planning stage; more partnership work between public and private sectors such as using the forensic marking product Smartwater; a national Government website for crime prevention; better official statistics on business crime; and ‘police should work with retailers to encourage them to report all crime’.
He calls for a revision of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2013 to redefine ‘seriousness’ of shoplifting by the impact on the victim, rather than a nominal monetary figure. “The impact of a £150 theft, for example, would be far greater on an independent corner shop than on Fortnum and Mason, yet this is not reflected under the current Act.”
Lammy writes: “Far from the stereotype of lone burglars or shoplifters, organised crime is behind an increasing proportion of property crime committed in the UK. In particular, the increase in mobile phone theft in recent years is not, as some may think, limited to opportunistic thieves. Instead, much of it is well organised by gangs who make significant profits from sending stolen phones abroad for resale.”
This is not true only of the UK, he says. “New York detectives I met with described gangs shifting their focus away from high-risk activities such prostitution, drugs and extortion to equally lucrative but far lower-risk shoplifting and resale. In London, groups of moped-mounted thieves smash and grab designer handbags and luxury jewellery from Bond Street shops, or snatch iPhones from unsuspecting pedestrians in Camden.” He speaks of pawnbrokers on UK high streets as an ‘an explosion in opportunities for thieves to fence stolen property’. And such crime is not victimless, he argues: the ‘perception that only violent crimes have victims is inaccurate and unhelpful’.
The report claims swathes of property crime goes unreported, especially among independent shopkeepers, with people having little faith in the ability of the police to bring the perpetrators to justice. A poll of 400 members of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents carried out as part of the research discovered that over half of all respondents had been the victim of two or more shoplifting incidents in the preceding three months yet over a third (35pc) doubted the police’s ability to successfully prosecute shoplifters. Less than one in ten incidents of shoplifting is reported to the police, according to the report. Other figures:
Only two thirds of burglaries are reported to the police
Half of burglary victims never hear back from the police after reporting a crime
19,000 incidents of bicycle theft were reported to the Metropolitan Police in 2013-14 yet only 666 (3.5 per cent) of these thefts were solved
The paper also argues that shoplifting from smaller retailers such as newsagents has virtually been decriminalised in the eyes of the law. The Anti Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, set the threshold for a ‘serious’ shoplifting offence at good valued £200 or higher. Yet the median value of a shoplifting incident from a convenience store is around £40. The paper says courts are failing to tackle the problem of repeat offending:
Half of all offenders sentenced for theft offences in the year to June 2014 had 15 or more previous convictions or cautions. This represents 62,000 offenders in one year alone
45 per cent of offenders cautioned for theft offences had already received a caution or conviction for a previous offence
Half of all fines imposed by courts go unpaid
The only recourse a magistrate has to address non-payment of fines is six months imprisonment
The report makes recommendations:
Restoring ward-level neighbourhood policing teams consisting of a sergeant, two constables and three Police Community Support Officers and ensure they focus their efforts on preventing and solving local property crime.
Giving magistrates flexibility to enforce unpaid court fines through means other than six months imprisonment
Implementing a penalties escalator for repeated theft. Courts should be able to break the caution-fine-reoffending cycle by increasing the sentence for reoffending.
Making it compulsory for new police recruits to walk the same beat for at least a year – and preferably two years – after they complete training.
Introducing New York Compstat-style data sharing between police forces to pinpoint crime trends and hotspots
Establishing a Crime Prevention Academy to improve crime prevention expertise within police forces.
To download the 54-page report with a foreword by Bill Bratton, NYPD Police Commissioner, visit the Policy Exchange website.
