Prolific shoplifters will face compulsory jail sentences for recurring offenses, alongside an increased adoption of facial recognition technology by police and retailers.
According to the Times, ministers are set to implement harsher sentences for several offences in a crime and justice bill that will require judges to impose custody on those who are caught repeatedly.
Currently, shoplifting, burglary, theft and common assault only result in a jail sentence after a series of offences, similar to the two-strikes-and-out policy on knife crime.
The number of offences required would vary according to the type of crime.
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In the 12 months to March, the police recorded 339,206 cases of shoplifting despite the British Retail Consortium estimating that there were eight million of them, costing shops nearly £1bn a year.
Policing minister Chris Philp is also urging police forces to make greater use of live facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence to match known shoplifters with images on the police national computer.
Ministers want all forces to use facial recognition cameras as only the Metropolitan Police and South Wales police do so regularly.
Retailers will take similar action after the Information Commissioner’s Office approved the use of private facial recognition company Facewatch.
Its software, which costs retailers £10 a day, uses a live facial recognition system that can be hooked into CCTV cameras in shops and is connected to a database of images of prolific shoplifters.
Retailers that have tested the software, including the Co-op, Spar, Budgens, Costcutters and Sports Direct, sent a staff member to approach any known shoplifter the system alerted them to.
They asked whether the person needed any help, making it clear that they were being monitored.
Shoplifting and assaults against retail workers have fallen in stores which have implemented the technology.
Last week, the boss of Co-op warned that retail crime is ‘out of control’ after revealing one of its stores was looted three times in a single day.
The group had recorded its highest-ever levels of retail crime, shoplifting and anti-social behaviour this year, amounting to almost 1,000 incidents every day.
The business said there were more than 175,000 incidents in the first six months of 2023, up by more than a third over the last year.
“I see first-hand how this criminal behaviour also erodes the very fabric of our communities – it’s hard to over-emphasise how important urgent change is. Co-op has invested significantly in keeping colleagues and stores safe, but we need the police to play their part,” Co-op Food managing director Matt Hood said at the time.
“Too often, forces fail to respond to desperate calls by our store teams, and criminals are operating in communities without any fear of consequences.”
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