* Supt Jon Bowcott , North Wales Police, and Ashley Rogers, Chair of North Wales Police and Community Trust (PACT) with bags full of seized stolen property.
A police crackdown on retail crime across North Wales has led to a “hugely positive” 9% increase in the detection rate for shoplifting that’s bucking the UK trend.
But the officer
running the campaign, Supt Jon Bowcott, says he’s not resting on his laurels
and is the first to admit there’s still a lot of work to do.
Since last Autumn
he’s been the North Wales Police lead on retail crime and he’s set up a task
force to combat it.
Supt Bowcott
will be giving an update on the crackdown and offering advice and guidance at a
special conference – titled Protect Your Business! Expert Session - that’s free
for North Wales businesses next month.
The event between
10.30am and 1pm on Thursday, March 7, at the Scala Cinema in Prestatyn, is
being organised by the North Wales Police and Community Trust (PACT) in
conjunction with North Wales Police and the North Wales Business Council.
Other speakers
will be focusing on how businesses can guard against cyber crime and property
theft as well as dealing with anti-social behaviour and spotting the signs of
modern day slavery.
The renewed push
on detecting retail crime in the region comes against a backdrop of a
significant increase in offences across the UK – with a 32% hike in England and
a 36% rise in Wales as a whole.
While the
24% increase in North Wales is smaller, there have been 800 more
shoplifting offences reported in the region since last April, compared to
the previous year.
The good news is
that a growing number of shoplifting crimes are being now detected as a result
of the force’s campaign.
When it started in
the Autumn, the detection rate was running at 29% and had increased to just
over 38% during January.
The onslaught has
been particularly effective in Wrexham where there has been a 9.6% drop in the
number of shoplifting offences.
Supt Bowcott said:
“There has been a national trend where retail theft was increasingly dealt with
over the phone if the offender wasn’t there.
“We’re moving away
from that and switching it around so that the default option is that we will
attend when retail thefts have been committed, particularly where an offender
has been detained, where violence has been used or threatened or where there
are enquiries at the scene the would benefit from an officer attending.
“To oversee our response
and analyse performance I am chairing a coordination group made up of key
individuals from across the force to ensure we continue to make progress.
“Essentially, we
are having a renewed focus on combatting retail crime because it’s about
fulfilling the message of our mission to make North Wales the safest place to
live, work and visit in the UK.
“Cracking down on
retail crime aligns well the force’s vision set by our Chief Constable Amanda
Blakeman and is absolutely the right thing to do.
“We started this
half way through the crime recording year which runs April to April and,
despite an increase in reporting which is a national trend, we have seen
an increase in the outcome rates in the past three or four months.
“When we started
we were detecting around 29 per cent of shoplifting incidents and the monthly
positive outcome rate for January was 38.3 per cent so we are seeing green
shoots but we are not complacent because there is more to do.
“It’s not just
about convicting people either because I recognise there are people who
struggling with substance misuse or other difficulties so we are also
involved with our prevention team who look at methods of offender management
that can address some of their lifestyle challenges and sign post them to support.
“One area I want
to develop is dealing with repeat offenders to prevent that demand happening.
Dealing with the prolific offenders can have a big impact – probably 80 per
cent of offending is carried out by 20 per cent of offenders.”
According to Ashley
Rogers, the Chair of PACT and Chief Executive of the North Wales Business
Council, the improvement in the detection rate for shoplifting was “hugely
positive and encouraging” news.
He said: “Coming
out of Covid, people’s behaviour is different and the economy is different and
retail theft has increased as well as a perception that anti-social behaviour
has become more of a problem.
“For North Wales
businesses who are on the front line in terms of handling these issues, it’s
really valuable to have an insight from the experts along with guidance
how to manage things if and when it happens or even avoid it by designing your
premises in such a way that would discourage it.
“Over and above
that you have the scourge of exploitative modern slavery and there are elements
of the problem, like the involvement of organised gangs, that businesses might
not be aware of.
“It’s really
important that businesses are able to spot the signs of this insidious, often
hidden crime, so they can report any suspicions to the police. In uncertain
economic times it’s never been more important for us all to pull together to
make North Wales an even safer place, especially with the very high cost of
living.”
* For more information and to book a place go to https://bit.ly/49zq4t9
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