Usdaw welcomes Home Secretary’s summer blitz on town centre crime and anti-social behaviour

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “High streets and town centres are the very heart of our communities. Residents and businesses have the right to feel safe in their towns. But the last government left a surge in shop theft, street crime and anti-social behaviour which has left too many town centres feeling abandoned. It’s time to turn this round; that’s why I have called on police forces and councils alike to work together to deliver a summer blitz on town centre crime to send a clear message to those people who bring misery to our towns that their crimes will no longer go unpunished. The fact that 500 towns have signed up shows the strength of feeling on this issue. Through our Safer Streets Mission and Plan for Change, we are putting officers back on the beat where you can see them and making our town centres safe again." 

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “We are on the side of local businesses, and our Plan for Change is helping create the right conditions for our great British high streets to thrive. The Safer Streets Summer Initiative will play a vital role in achieving this by keeping footfall high, communities and those that work in them safe, and the economy growing.” 
 
Shop theft and the abuse of shop workers has become an endemic problem for Britain’s high streets with many shop workers victimised in the same communities where they live. The Government is set to introduce a new law to protect shop workers from this vile abuse. Record levels of shop theft have been driven not just by organised crime gangs but drug addiction for some prolific offenders and opportunism for others. 
  
The new Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy will bring together multiple sources of data from industry and policing to create a single avenue for intelligence to help better target and respond to perpetrators. Police and retailers will also team up with security firms and local communities to locate the highest harm areas and identify the role that offender management programmes can play in breaking the cycle of crime for repeat offenders.   

Paddy Lillis – Usdaw general secretary says: “This initiative represents the change we need, with cross-government working and co-ordination between the police and retail industry. Usdaw has long campaigned for legislative measures to combat the growing problem of retail crime, theft from shops and the abuse of retail staff. 

“We now look forward to a much-needed protection of retail workers’ law; ending the indefensible £200 threshold for prosecuting shoplifters, which has effectively become an open invitation to retail criminals; and funding for more uniformed officer patrols in shopping areas, along with Criminal Behaviour Orders. 

“These crucial measures will be delivered by the Labour Government through the Crime and Policing Bill. They demonstrate the Government’s commitment to protecting shop workers and stemming rising theft from shops, with official figures showing that shoplifting has more than doubled since the pandemic and rose by 20% last year. This initiative shows that our members can also look forward to much-needed enforcement of the law to tackle retail crime.”