Shoplifting offences in England and Wales 2002-2024

There were almost 444,000 shoplifting offences recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2023/24, the highest in this provided time period. Between 2002/03 and 2012/13, shoplifting offences in England and Wales fluctuated between around 280,000 and 320,000 annual offences. From 2013/14 onwards, shoplifting offences began to increase, and reached a pre-2024 peak of around 382, 607 in 2017/18, before beginning to decline again in subsequent years. The 2020/21, and 2021/20 reporting years are not directly comparable to the other reporting years due to COVID-19 lockdowns that occurred at that time. 

Areas with the highest shoplifting rate

As of 2023/24, the shoplifting rate for England and Wales as a whole was 7.4 shoplifting offences per 1,000 population. Looking at individual police force areas, the area covered by Nottinghamshire Police Force, in the English East Midlands, had the highest shoplifting rate of 13.2, followed by Cleveland, in North East England, at 13.1. By contrast, the Dyfed-Powys Police Force Area, in Wales had the lowest shoplifting rate of just 3.9 offences per 1,000 population. Although Cleveland also had the highest overall crime rate in England and Wales, and Dyfed-Powys had one of the lowest, Nottinghamshire's crime rate was slightly below the overall average, despite having such a high shoplifting rate. 

Comparisons with other theft offences

Shoplifting is one of the major sub-categories of theft in the jurisdiction of England and Wales. Although shoplifting offences have increased significantly recently, the number of theft offences overall has generally been falling. In 2002/03 for example, there were approximately 3.41 million incidences of theft, compared with just 1.78 million in 2023/24. This trend has been driven by declines in other types of theft, such as burglary, which fell from over 890,000 offences in 2002/03, to around 266,500 in 2023/24.