The John Lewis Partnership (JLP) has said “greed not need” is behind the record levels of shoplifting that British high streets are seeing; the JLP has also rolled out a host of new measures to clamp down on the surge in crime.
It has been upgrading its CCTV system and installing more public display monitors, alongside other measures.
Director of Central Operations and Security at JLP, Lucy Brown, told the Financial Times: “Shoplifting and retail crime have been a growing problem across the industry… we wanted to see what was the cumulative effect of doing more than one thing.
“There’s a depressing narrative around cost of living and that shoplifting is because of that. I’m not seeing that. I describe it as absolutely greed, not need. There are lots of people, they shoplifting for as many hours in the week as I work, which is a lot. It’s basically their occupation.
“You get organised gangs… They will strip the shelves… They’re doing that for resale. You then get prolific offenders, who are described as having chaotic lives, and they are generally stealing to feed their own addiction or they are stealing to swap something to feed that addiction.”
Violence and abuse against retail staff has seen an increase to around 1,300 incidents a day in the 12 months to the end of August 2023 – up from almost 870 a day during the same period a year earlier – according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
Last year the retailer said that it suffered a £12 million year-on-year increase in stock “shrinkage”, most of which was because of shoplifting.
