Thames Valley Police chief announces new strategy tackling retail crime

Thames Valley Police’s Commissioner has announced a new strategy tackling retail crime throughout the area.

In recent months supermarket chains and well-known high street business, like Boots and Marks and Spencer, have reported an increase in crimes taking place at their premises.

Yesterday (22 January), Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Barber, announced a plan to combat in-store crime.

A new scheme called, the Retail Crime Strategy, has been announced by the police chief following conversations with retailers and business leaders.

A key aim of the new strategy is reducing shoplifting and violence towards shopworkers throughout the policing area.

PCC Barber has broken the scheme down into six key priorities: intelligence, enforcement, partnership, prevention, justice and reassurance.

He said: “Many people see retail crime as a victimless crime, but it has a profound impact on retail staff, customers and the wider economy.

“My new Retail Crime Strategy sets out a series of tangible actions to help redress the balance. It includes the creation of a Business Crime Team within Thames Valley Police to improve investigations and identify prolific offenders and, with the rollout of Operation Purchase, the Force’s operational response to retail crime, increasing the visible presence of police officers and PCSOs in retail spaces as well as improving the officer response to reports, particularly incidents involving violence towards staff.

“A core aim of the strategy is to enhance the collaboration between businesses and the police to better tackle retail crime in addition to the policing response. To help facilitate this my office will soon be providing access to Disc – an online information-sharing and reporting platform which allows retailers to report and access information about crime such as shoplifting and anti-social behaviour (ASB). The system, which can be accessed as an app, also makes reporting to the police faster and more efficient as users can submit a crime report directly through the platform, removing the need to call 101.

“Taken together, I hope these measures will deliver a more visible, targeted and robust response to retail crime, increase the security and confidence of local businesses and help make high streets and retail spaces across the Thames Valley safer for us all.”

The scheme is the result of several months of discussions with local and national businesses, the PCC says.

Christian Bunt, Assistant Chief Constable for Thames Valley Police, said: “Thames Valley Police is supporting the launch of the Retail Crime Strategy alongside the Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Barber. Over the last few months TVP has developed operational plans which will be led by our neighbourhood policing teams and our new Business Crime Team who will specialise in retail crime investigations.

“We understand the frustrations of the retail sector and hope that by introducing this new strategy, we can continue to work collaboratively with our partners and wider criminal justice system to bring offenders to justice.”

When preparing the scheme the commissioner found that approximately 14,000 shoplifting offences occur in the Thames Valley each year.