Morning, Wednesday, 22nd January 2025
Online
This conference will discuss the future for tackling retail crime and anti-social behaviour on UK high streets, looking at the Government’s Take back our streets mission and priorities for the Crime and Policing Bill.
Key stakeholders and policymakers will examine proposals for addressing the long-term growth in retail crime against the backdrop of a sharp rise in assaults on retail staff, particularly in supermarkets, highlighted in the Office for National Statistics’ 2023 Commercial Victimisation Survey.
Delegates will assess latest thinking on the design, scope and practicalities of measures in the Crime and Policing Bill, announced in the King’s Speech and outlined by the Minister for Policing, Crime and Fire Prevention in November. These include making the assault of a shop worker a standalone offence, scrapping the unofficial convention that thefts under £200 be treated as summary-only offences, and boosting neighbourhood policing by reintroducing Police Community Support Officers in local communities and providing 13,000 additional officers.
Sessions in the agenda will consider options going forward in light of the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee’s recently concluded Tackling Shoplifting inquiry and letter to the Minister, which recommended funding rehabilitation initiatives and developing improved systems to report retail crime.
Areas for discussion include increased police presence and legal protection for shop workers, additional support for victims, and improved measurement of crimes, as well as reforms announced in November aiming to improve standards in neighbourhood policing and increase efficiency. Use of technology will also be discussed, looking at effectiveness as well as best practice, with privacy concerns arising from use of technology such as body-worn cameras for retail staff, and AI and facial recognition systems to identify repeat offenders.
The agenda also looks at the progress on and next steps for partnerships between businesses and the police, including the Pegasus initiative, which aims to build intelligence about the relationship between shoplifting and organised crime gangs, and the National Business Crime Centre’s (NBCC) standardised witness statement to help retailers submit CCTV evidence.
We are pleased to be able to include keynote sessions with: Lord Foster of Bath, Chair, Justice and Home Affairs Committee; as well as with Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman, NPCC Lead, Volume Crime, North Wales Police; Sophie Jordan, Manager, National Association of Business Crime Partnerships; and Professor Emmeline Taylor, Professor, Criminology, City St George’s, University of London. Further senior contributors are being approached.
Further sessions will examine wider expected measures aimed at tackling anti-social behaviour, including Respect Orders for tackling persistent adult offenders on high streets, and for fast-tracking Public Spaces Protection Orders. Further areas for discussion include options for clamping down on dangerous and anti-social use of off-road bikes, and strategies for ensuring local partners co-operate to tackle anti-social behaviour, including the powers that local anti-social behaviour leads would require to be effective.
We also expect discussion on longer term priorities for addressing societal factors such as drug and alcohol addiction and poverty, alongside options for deterrents and penalties, and their impacts on both offenders and victims, as well as possible challenges thrown up by urgent measures introduced to ease prison overcapacity.
All delegates will be able to contribute to the output of the conference, which will be shared with parliamentary, ministerial, departmental and regulatory offices, and more widely. This includes the full proceedings and additional articles submitted by delegates. As well as key stakeholders, those due to attend include officials from DBT; NAO; Home Office; and the Welsh Government.
