Confidence in policing is “not where it needs to be” says Crime & Policing Minister on Bedford visit

The Crime & Policing Minister has said that confidence in policing is “not where it needs to be” and she wants to get a strong police presence “back onto our high streets” to help build confidence in policing.

Dame Diana Johnson made the comments to the Bedford Independent as we joined her on a walk around Bedford Town Centre to hear what local shop owners and workers had to say about crimes like shoplifting and retail staff abuse.

Last month, the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee said that shoplifting was not being tackled properly and called for more to be done to provide better support for victims and prevent repeat offences.

This includes regulations to make it more difficult to sell stolen goods online anonymously, more funding for offender rehabilitation, and the ability for retailers to be able to report crimes more easily.

In a letter to the Government in early November, it said over 443,000 incidents of shop theft were recorded by police in the year to March 2024. Which is the highest since records began 20 years ago.

But they said this was “a drop in the ocean” when compared with the estimate of 17 million annual shop thefts, including those that weren’t reported, having “devastating consequences for businesses and families”.

They have called on the Government and police forces to take “immediate action”.

£200 cap to be lifted

Currently, the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act says that when the value of stolen goods does not exceed £200, it is considered ‘low-value shoplifting and classed as a summary offence.

While this can lead to someone found guilty of low-value shoplifting being imprisoned for up to 51 weeks, fined, or both, many retailers have complained the £200 cap has led many offenders to believe they can “steal without repercussion”.

This is further enhanced by organised crime gangs running ‘shoplifting to order’ operations.

The policing minister says she wants this cap to now be removed and that the theft of any goods stolen, no matter the value, to be taken seriously.

“We’ve got a series of things we’re going to do, including getting rid of this threshold of £200,” the minister told us. “We’re also going to support retail workers with getting an offence if there’s violence during shop theft.”

The number of police officers fell to just 20,000 between 2010 and 2017 but rose again by 25,000 in 2023 after a recruitment push by the Conservatives, but the minister said the Labour Government still wants more police officers on our streets.

“Our neighbourhood policing guarantee,” she said, “Will make sure that we get those 13,000 police officers, PCOs and specials rolled out into our town centres and our city centres and High streets because we know that presence of police officers is so important.”

Big retailers need to do more

Highlighting retail crimes that are more specific to Bedford, we asked the minister what more could be done to support local independent businesses as they often suffer a greater impact when they’re targetted by shoplifters.

She agreed there needs to be more support for smaller independent businesses, which she called “the lifeblood of our high street” and encouraged better relationships between shop owners and police.

“Some [shop owners] don’t think anything will happen if they report it. That worries me because I want the police to have the information about where shop theft is happening, so they can target their resources,” she said.

The minister said big retailers need to do more to help tackle retail crime, in particular the organised crime groups (OCG) behind ‘steal to order’ operations.

She acknowledged that “big businesses” are already putting money in to help police get the intelligence they need to tackle OCGs, but she wants to work with them to find more preventative solutions.

This includes larger chains putting security on their doors, which the minister says the £5,000,000 announced in the recent budget will help support.

“Public confidence is essential to the policing model in this country and we’ve got to build that back up,” she added.

Lack of police response

A recent Freedom of Information Act FOI enquiry by Sky News found that across England, police were responding to fewer shoplifting incidents each year.

In 2013, figures from 11 forces suggested an attendance rate of 72%, this dropped to just 52% in 2016 according to data from 17 forces.

But in 2023, based on responses from 22 of England’s 39 police forces, only 22% of shoplifting incidents were attended to immediately by police.

Some of the police forces who responded to Sky News’ request said this was because of modern more remote investigation techniques.

Others said that while officers may not always attend crime scenes immediately, they will often follow up at a later date if there are credible lines of enquiry.

Chief Inspector Katherine Rivers from Bedfordshire Police joined the Policing Minister on her visit and welcomed the promise of more police officers on our streets and the measures to tackle retail crime.

Speaking of concerns that the removal of the £200 theft value cap could inundate police forces with retail crime reports overnight, CI Rivers believes this will actually help make sure police funding is directed where it’s needed.

“We would say [to shop owners] report it [shop theft] because it informs our priorities. Where are our hotspots? Where are our locations that are targeted the most? Who are the prolific offenders?

“If we don’t know things have happened, then we don’t know where those hot spots are.

“We want to deal with crimes of all sizes because those smaller offences can become bigger ones. So, we need to know what is happening before it becomes a bigger issue.”