Retailers turn to bodycams

The statistics are quite sobering.

The latest British Retail Consortium (BRC) Annual Crime Survey reports that retail crime has hit record heights.
The organisation – which represents over 200 major retail brands – says that 22,000 thefts daily are costing retailers a staggering £2.2 billion. It’s a  depressing tally that has jumped by more than 20% in just one year.
Violence and abuse directed at shop workers has also soared by over 50%, with over 2,000 incidents recorded every day, a figure four times higher than in 2020.
Daily, retail staff report 70 incidents involving a weapon.
In a brutal summation, Helen Dickinson, the BRC’s Chief Executive, stated that: “Retail crime is spiralling out of control,” rightly adding, that “We owe it to the three million hardworking people working in retail to bring the epidemic of crime to heel. No one should go to work in fear.”
The Home Office’s Commercial Victimisation Study also shows that whilst clearly not an issue unique to the industry, retailers and wholesalers suffer the
highest rates of crime of any business sector.
Within that sector, the CVS found that supermarkets in particular experience much higher levels of customer theft, assault and threats.

Of course for those in the frontline – the checkout operators, customer service assistants, shelf-stackers, managers and security staff – it’s personal.
In a survey of over 10,000 retail staff, the shopworkers’ union, USDAW (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers), found that 77% had experience verbal abuse and 53% had been threatened by a customer.
Even more shocking, the union’s Freedom From Fear report found that one in ten of all retail workers had actually been the victim of an assault.
Such is the scale of that problem that the government is introducing a standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker. Due to apply in England and Wales, those convicted under the new law will face up to six months in prison and/or an unlimited fine.

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