Retail crime is a scourge on our high streets which has a profound cost not just on retailers but the shopworkers who are too often forced to endure this criminality. Throughout 2023 , reports from across the retail sector demonstrate the extent to which this crisis is escalating, with soaring rates of retail crime including shoplifting and the violence, threats and abuse directed towards retail staff. Across the first six months of the year alone, for instance, Co-op reported 175,000 recorded incidents, representing around 1,000 incidents a day and an increase of 35% from 2022.
Throughout the country criminals have been given the freedom to loot, with organised crime gangs often stealing to order and persistently repeating these offences in the same shops. What’s more, these criminal acts often act as flashpoints for anti-social behaviour against retail staff who are subject to appalling levels of violence, threats and abuse as they go about their jobs.
Throughout last year, the Co-operative Party worked with the trade union USDAW and co-operative retail societies to secure a vital policy commitment from the Labour Party to address this crisis and go further in protecting shop workers from threats, violence and abuse they face at work. But without action from the current government, there is still more we must do. Last month, our Party Chair Jim McMahon recently raised this in the House – see the clip here: https://www.facebook.com/coopparty/videos/1316272052358168?locale=en_GB
We are delighted to share with Co-op Party members details of the pressure being put on the government to ensure these acts against shops workers are made a crime; more on the work of our elected Labour & Co-operative Police & Crime Commissioners and the policing pledges that Labour & Co-operative government will make Britain’s high streets safer.
Speakers include Dr Alan Billings – Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire; Emily Spurrell – Police & Crime Commissioner for Merseyside; Paul Gerrard – Campaigns, Public Affairs & Board Secretariat Director the Co-op; Emma Hoddinott – Assistant General Secretary Co-op Party and (tbc) Paddy Lillis, General Secretary USDAW.