Sarah-May Buccieri
Reporting from Grimsby

As I enter a shop on Grimsby's High Street, I feel watched. Partly by the keen eye of the shopkeeper - but also thanks to the presence of numerous CCTV cameras perched in each corner.

The owner tells me he sees shoplifting every day.

I'm on Victoria Street West, which is a hotspot for shop thefts. According to data gathered by the BBC, it is where nearly 10% of recorded incidents in North East Lincolnshire take place.

Figures also show there are 15.7 incidents of shoplifting per 1,000 people in the local authority area. The national rate is 8.1.

Further down the street, I meet Kathryn Dawe, a charity shop manager who says someone attempts to steal from her shop at least twice a week.

"I think it is the lowest of the low," she says. "We're a not-for-profit organisation, so everything that gets taken from our shop means that that's a potential sale that we've lost."

She keeps one eye on her shop as we talk, watching out for any trouble.

She says shoplifters will take "anything", from gift sets to clothes, and dealing with it has become a normal part of her job.

You can read more about how Kathryn is trying to combat the problem here.

Alix Hattenstone
BBC England

Research published last year suggests fewer than three percent of shop thefts are formally reported to the police, retail analyst Catherine Shuttleworth points out.

“I think the frightening thing is that shoplifting has become totally normalised, so it’s like an OK crime - but it isn’t,” she says.

“There’s two sides. Gangs of people going into shops, dragging things off shelves and running out again, and violence against shoplifters. I think we’d all say that is terrible.

“Then there’s the other side - people who shoplift as an everyday thing - they do self-scanning in shops and they don’t pay for all the items in the basket.”

Shuttleworth says there is a misconception that stealing from big companies does not matter, but customers will feel the impact.

“Of course they will notice because prices will go up for everybody. There is a cost to shoplifting that is really real. We’ll all be complaining about it.”

Ema Sabljak
England Data Unit

Image source, EPA

While the number of shoplifting offences recorded in England and Wales in 2025-26 has dropped slightly compared to the previous year, it is still significantly above pre-pandemic levels.

There were 502,011 offences recorded in 2025-26. That's a little lower than the record-breaking total of 525,741 in 2024-25, but still up 50% on the 334,976 recorded a decade previously in 2015-16.

Policing minister Sarah Jones told the BBC we have “turned that corner” on shoplifting - but acknowledged that "we all know there is a lot further that we need to go, and a lot more we need to do".

Tom Holder, spokesperson for the British Retail Consortium, said its surveys suggested these incidents were a fraction of what retailers were facing.

"As we see more action from the police, we see the reporting go back up," he said.

How does this compare with other UK nations?

In Northern Ireland, shoplifting dropped 4% from 8,586 offences in 2024-25 to 8,243 in the most recent financial year. Meanwhile, it rose by 19% in Scotland during the same period to 53,369.

It is a growing concern in many communities across England, with poverty, addiction and organised crime among the causes.

Today we're looking at how shoplifting has risen over the last decade, the threat of violence faced by shop workers and the impact on businesses battling this issue on a daily basis.

It comes as a new BBC analysis found 270 prolific shoplifters had been connected to at least 28,000 crimes across the country.

We'll be hearing from former shoplifters, the police teams unmasking criminal gangs and the people behind community initiatives aiming to turn the tide.

Stay with us throughout the day for more, including the stories shared by listeners across our network of BBC Local radio stations.