Cases just keep stacking up…

Policing has popped up plenty in these articles. I’ll tell you what hasn’t…

The justice system.

It’s not a glaring oversight. Most of our work is about identifying and reporting criminal activity. But it’s also about keeping people safe – and whether we like it or not, the justice system sits over all of that like some sort of ultimate gatekeeper.

It controls who’s out and about and who’s not.

And this week, I found myself reading a BBC article that put that into sharp focus.

It claims the average time it takes for a shoplifting case to go from offence to completion in a magistrates’ court has risen from 32 days in 2014 to 59 days in 2024.

Nearly double.

For some offenders, that delay creates a kind of accidental immunity which reinforces the behaviour. For shopworkers, it chips away at any faith they had left in the process.

Some of the quotes in that piece were tough to swallow, stuff like: “there’s no point reporting crimes” and “you’re better off shoplifting than going to work.”
It’s bleak, but it’s also not new.

This has been the landscape for the last 5–10 years. It’s been the case as long as I’ve worked in retail security.

Because let’s face it: when someone strolls into a store and steals £250 worth of goods, it’s not murder, rape, or violent assault. I completely understand why focus leans toward those more serious crimes.

But the result is that shoplifters – often repeat offenders, often stealing to fuel some other vice or vulnerability – slip through the net until there’s enough to bundle together into one case.

Take a look at the court rolls on any given day and you’ll see serial prosecutions… clusters of offences knitted together to create enough weight for a meaningful sentence.

I’m not condemning it. Often it’s the only way, because putting a case together takes heaps of time and resource.

We work with Retailers Against Crime and other firms to collate evidence on individuals. Then we hand it to partner retailers and say, “Here’s what we’ve gathered. Here’s what to look out for. Here’s what to do if they return.”

But courts are in a difficult place. COVID hit them harder than any of us could’ve predicted, and I’m not convinced the system has fully recovered.
I’ve heard plenty of stories of shop owners either not reporting incidents, or taking matters into their own hands – and that vigilante approach brings a whole new set of problems.

The retailers dealing with the most crime are often the ones who report the least. Not because they don’t care – but because they don’t have the time. They’re too busy dealing with what’s happening right in front of them. Same goes for security officers.

Everyone’s got a part to play.

But the strange thing – the part I kept circling back to while writing this – is that the one person who seems to avoid blame… is the shoplifter.

We blame the police. We blame the courts. We blame the security firms. We even blame the retailers for their store layouts. But the person actually committing the behaviour almost disappears into the background. They become a by-product of “system failures” rather than an active participant in the harm.

Not great is it? When accountability blurs like that, shoddy behaviour’s bound to continue.

The rise in ASB, the delays in prosecution, the sheer volume of cases… all of it drains morale at every level. It creates a fatigue that slowly mutates into resignation.

When I worked on a Mobile Response Team, we were the ones sent to track down the ‘big baddies’. I’m talking prolific offenders, violent individuals, serious troublemakers.

And the first question I’d ask a store after an incident was always the same:

“Could this have been prevented?”

The answer usually landed somewhere between a sigh and a shrug.

Often, shopworkers unintentionally put themselves in danger. Some confront too early. Some step into situations that escalate without meaning to.
And when you ask why, the response is painfully honest:

“I earn £12 an hour. They steal £70 in two minutes. What’s the point?”

That line isn’t rare. And it’s the emotional reality behind all this.

Every Christmas I walk into stores and see the tubs of sweets, the liquor, the festive favourites greeting me at the door. Thousands of pounds of stock within arm’s reach of the street.

Great for shoppers. A jackpot for thieves. Hence the tension:

Retail wants to sell. Security wants to protect. Police want to prevent and respond. The courts want to prosecute. Communities want to feel safe. Do all those priorities line up neatly? You tell me.

Before we jump straight to frustration with the courts or police or anyone else in the chain, we need to acknowledge something uncomfortable: retail crime and ASB aren’t ‘justice system problems’. They’re ecosystem problems, and ecosystems only work when every part recognises its influence.
If the last decade has taught me anything, it’s that retail crime doesn’t start in a store and it doesn’t end in a courtroom. It moves through people, systems, pressures, opportunities, blind spots, and everyday decisions.

And if we’re serious about improving safety in retail, all of that matters.

Every single part of it.