Written by Bira CEO Andrew Goodacre
The latest ONS figures on shoplifting make for interesting reading. For the first time in years, shoplifting offences in England and Wales have fallen, dropping from 516,611 to 509,566 for the year ending December 2025. The charge rate rose from 18 per cent to 22 per cent, and the overall volume of charges increased by 17 per cent.
This points to greater enforcement activity by police and a better response to retail crime.
This is progress, and we need to acknowledge it. Over the past 12 months, there has been a better response from police forces, more arrests, more community officers on the ground, and a much sharper focus on retail crime. That matters enormously, particularly for fashion and gift retailers who have been dealing with persistent theft of high-value items, organised gangs targeting designer goods, and repeat offenders who face little consequence.
However, we cannot afford to be complacent. Half a million shoplifting offences in a single year is not a figure any of us should be satisfied with. For independent retailers, every incident represents lost stock, damaged margins and the emotional toll on staff who face threatening behaviour. The human cost of retail crime goes far beyond the statistics.
What these figures tell us is that when police take retail crime seriously, increase enforcement and charge offenders, it makes a difference. The challenge now is maintaining that focus and momentum. We cannot allow this issue to slip down the political agenda just because the numbers are moving in the right direction.
This is where every retailer has a role to play. Report every single incident. I know it feels futile sometimes, especially when response times are slow or outcomes seem unlikely. But that reporting culture is what drives the data, and the data is what drives political will to act. When we can demonstrate the scale of the problem with hard evidence, we get the meetings with ministers, we get the policy changes and we get the enforcement.
Bira will continue campaigning for stronger protections for retail workers and independent shopkeepers. We are pushing for measures that remove the effective threshold below which theft has historically been treated as a low priority by some forces. We are working with the Home Office to ensure this progress continues and accelerates.
The direction of travel is encouraging, but the destination is still a long way off. Stay vigilant, keep reporting, and know that your voice matters in this fight.