Let’s be real here – the cozzie livs is affecting us all.
What with rising grocery prices, ever-inflating electricity bills, and even – yes, really – the consumer cost of water company’s sewage spills, it’s no wonder shoplifting rates are rising in the UK.
And a recent study from TradingPedia shows where, exactly, shoplifiting is most common in Britain.
Here are some of the findings:
Surrey ranks bottom for shoplifting offences per capita
The study, which was based on data from the Office of National Statistics, shows shoplifting crimes per 100,000 residents from 2021/2022.
Surrey was at the bottom of the list at 309 shoplifting offences per 100,000 people. Other shop-safe havens included Dyfus-Pows at 344 shoplifts per 100k people, and Warwickshire at 377.
Merseyside was bang in the middle of the chart, at 507 cases per 100,000 citizens.
London takes the lead, with the North-East following
London has easily taken the UK’s shoplifting crown at 7,907 shoplifting offences per 100,000 residents.
This is over six times as much as the second-highest offender – Cleveland, at 1,172 cases – and more than seven times as much as the third-highest shoplifting hotspot (Nottinghamshire at 1,005 cases).
However, while London takes the overall lead, the study states that “The most dangerous UK region in terms of shoplifting is the North East with an average rate of 778 offences per 100,000 people as confirmed by the Office of National Statistics. What is more, as many as 3 of the areas with the highest number of offences per capita in 2022 are located there – Cleveland, Durham, and Northumbria.”
So far as cities go, though, “according to CrimeRate, the City of London is the most unsafe small city and one of the most dangerous localities overall, with various types of crimes taken into account.“
Ah, excellent.
Of course, money is a factor
As the survey says, “the South East is the wealthiest UK region with over 50% of its households not deprived in any area. It is there that Surrey, the county that secures the lowest shoplifting rate, is located.”
In fact, Yahoo News reports that “Surrey and Sussex have been revealed to be the wealthiest areas of Great Britain, with residents owning assets worth an average £263,200 each.
Meanwhile, The North East Child Poverty Commission found that “In 2020/21” – the year before this survey was – created “the North East overtook London to have the highest rate of child poverty in the UK, at 38% - up from 37% the year before. This equates to just over 11 children in a classroom of 30.”
Cleveland (number two on the survey) was added to the list of the 20 local authorities with the highest child poverty rates in the UK in 2021.
As TradingPedia says, “The number of reported shoplifting incidents soared in the most deprived regions of the UK, where the crisis has hit the hardest.”
And, of course, London has the most police per capita in any part of the UK (with Scotland taking second place).
So, considering that the survey says “in the 12-month period to March 2023, several grocery items saw a price rise of over 40%, with cucumbers (52%), olive oil (49%), and hard cheese (44%) showing the highest annual growth”, it’s hard to imagine these numbers going down any time soon.