Retailers feel that they are being isolated in their constant fight AGAINST criminals as law enforcers are seemingly abandoning stores to the crooks. That is a key message contained in the British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) Retail Crime Survey 2005-2006 (see ‘Damage limitation’, pp30-31).

90% of retailers questioned in the annual ADT-sponsored survey believe that retail crime is too low on the Government’s agenda, while 86% believe that the present administration is failing to address the issue in a proper manner. 77% are dissatisfied (or very dissatisfied) with police response times, while only 5% believe the police service treat retail crime as anything other than a low (or very low) priority.

BRC director general Kevin Hawkins (pictured) told Security Management Today: “Attempting to hand thieves over to the police has become a waste of time. It’s something of a futile exercise. All-too-often they are not interested, and even when there is a successful prosecution the penalties from the Courts are derisory. Many store security and loss prevention managers are now resigning themselves to the fact that their own efforts at beating the crooks will not be supported.”

The new BRC figures emerge just as the Sentencing Advisory Panel (SAP) consults on its widely-criticised proposals to further water down the penalties in place for shop theft (including the removal of the threat of a prison sentence for even the worst repeat offenders). The SAP’s research shows that 95% of those convicted of shop theft had at least one conviction. On average, each offender had already been sentenced 19 times.

Source

SMT