Police Scotland’s Retail Crime Taskforce has supported over 1,300 arrests for retail crime offences since it launched in April last year.
The dedicated unit was established following an initial £3m funding allocation from the Scottish Government to address a rise in retail offences, including shoplifting and assault of retail workers.
This week it revealed that in its first 12 months of operation, the Taskforce’s four-strand approach to “prevent, pursue, protect and prepare” has resulted in over 6,400 charges for retail crime, with the detection rate having risen to just under 51%, compared with 49% the previous year.
Despite successes in improving detection rates, increasing arrest numbers and enhancing retailer confidence in reporting incidents, Scotland continues to experience an ongoing rise in retail crime.
To address this, the Taskforce said it will continue to work alongside local policing divisions and a range of key partners and stakeholders to improve security on-site for retail premises, enhance the safety of retail workers and use all resources at their disposal to undertake effective enforcement activity against retail crime offenders.
In addition, dedicated resources are now in place within Glasgow, Edinburgh and Tayside to ensure areas most adversely affected by retail crime are being fully supported.
Earlier this year, the Scottish Government announced and additional £9m in funding to Police Scotland to tackle retail crime over the next three years, meaning the Retail Crime Taskforce will operate until at least 2029.
Year two for the Retail Crime Taskforce will see significant changes to the way retail premises can report crime to police, through the use of an online reporting form to directly report incidents.
This was developed by Police Scotland’s Contact, Command and Control Division and allows retailers to report incidents where a shoplifting has occurred with no threat or risk to safety.
Not only will this reduce the time businesses need to wait for reporting a crime, it will also assist in reducing demand on call handling, allowing for priority calls to be better serviced.
Inspector Emma Wright, Tactical Lead for the Retail Crime Taskforce, said: “There have been successes across the country in the first 12 months of the Taskforce as part of our ongoing efforts to tackle retail crime.
“The efforts of the unit and work carried out by local divisions has resulted in a significant number of detections of both shoplifting offences and offences against retail workers.
“There are indications this is in part due to an increased confidence in reporting from retailers…”
“While we continue to see an increase in the number of shopliftings reported, there are indications this is in part due to an increased confidence in reporting from retailers and the resulting police response.
“The additional three years of funding received from the Scottish Government will enable us to continue our efforts to reduce shoplifting and provide support and education to businesses across the country.
“We want to thank retailers for their continued support and engagement as we collaboratively tackle the issue of retail crime.
“We cannot and will not become complacent and we recognise that further work is needed to reduce the number of offences occurring across Scotland. We take these offences extremely seriously and through continued partnership working we strive to make our communities a hostile environment for retail crime offenders.”
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