The rise in shoplifting and abusive behaviour has dominated the retail landscape this year. A survey of British Retail Consortium members found levels of shoplifting in 10 of the biggest cities had risen by an average of 27% in 2023, while in the 2022/23 reporting year, England and Wales witnessed a notable increase in shoplifting offences, jumping almost 25% to 342,343 cases from the prior year. 

The situation has become so dire that retailers like John Lewis, Tesco and Next have banded together and agreed to fund a new police operation to crack down on shoplifting. The new operation, named Project Pegasus, will allow the police to run CCTV images of shoplifting offences provided by retailers through the Police National Database, and identify shoplifting gangs using facial recognition technology and crucially, see where they’re operating. 

To reveal the places which are hardest hit by shoplifting, and the areas where it’s seemingly safest to operate a shop, money.co.uk has extracted crime data for England and Wales and here are the results: