8
Aug
2014
By Calvin at 16:55 GMT, 11 years ago
Crime Reduction Partnership News recently ran the following story from the FT
According to Britain’s crime minister, petrol retailers encourage crime by refusing to insist on prepayment at the pumps.
According to Norman Baker, Crime Minister, they want more business in their shops. Baker was questioned about whether police should bother responding to calls from petrol retailers whose customers drive off without paying.
Norman Baker also criticised supermarkets which he said saved on staff costs by using self-pay tills with lax security. “If the self-service till is next to the door, the doors are open, there are no personnel from the shop in sight, the tills are some way away, then it’s an invitation to steal,” he told the FT.
Baker’s comments come just weeks after new figures from the Office of National Statistics showed that shoplifting is increasing in more than three quarters of 43 police force areas in England and Wales, threatening to undermine a trend of crime levels plummeting to historic lows under the coalition.
Separate data published in January by the British Retail Consortium showed shoplifting to be at its highest level in nine years, with the average value of customer theft soaring by 62 per cent in the previous 12 months.
TCPW Comment: It’s interesting, when driving abroad, how often you have to use a credit card at the pump or prepay with cash. If these facilities aren’t available then usually there’s an attendant there to fill the tank for you – remember those days?
Self-service tills in supermarkets are, in my view a gift to shoplifters. My local supermarket introduced them a long time ago now, but recently completely changed their orientation and created a single narrow entrance into and out from the tills so that they might be more closely supervised. It’s clear this measure was introduced to reduce the thieving.
I don’t use the self-service tills out of principle. I do most of the work by picking the items off the shelf and putting them in the trolley and I think the least my supermarket can do for me is ‘man’ the check-out.
I guess what Mr Baker is trying to say is that he wants to see more effort by the retail sector to reduce the opportunities and temptation in their stores and on their forecourts and may be the only way to do this is to suggest that the police won’t bother to deal with these ‘unnecessary’ crimes in the future.
I think it’s a cse of watching this space....
Source CRP News: http://www.crp-news.com/htm/n20140808.830861.htm
