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The British Journal of Criminology 33:57-69 (1993)
© 1993 Centre for Crime & Justice Studies (formerly ISTD)

RESEARCH-ARTICLE

DID SHOPLIFTING REALLY DECREASE?

DAVID P. FARRINGTON* and JOHN N. BURROWS**

* Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University
** Morgan, Harris, Burrows, Crime Management Consultants

Home Office Criminal Statistics show a substantial decrease (of more than one-third) in the number of recorded shoplifters between 1985 and 1989. The largest decrease was for juveniles. In trying to explain why this decrease had occurred, a survey of shop theft was carried out with sixteen retail chains, totalling 7,873 retail outlets, which accounted for a quarter of total retail sales in Great Britain in 1990. The number of shoplifters apprehended by these retailers remained tolerably constant between 1985 and 1989, and their probability of reporting shoplifters to the police also remained constant. The number of apprehended shoplifters tended to increase with the number of store detectives employed by each retail chain, but the retailers reported that their use of store detectives had not changed since 1985. It is concluded from this research that the true number of shoplifters probably remained tolerably constant between 1985 and 1989, and that the number of recorded shoplifters decreased because an increasing fraction of shoplifters reported to the police were dealt with informally, and hence did not appear in the official statistics of shoplifting offenders.


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