Shoplifting statistics measure different parts of the problem: police-recorded offences, retailer-reported incidents, customer theft at premises, staff impacts, losses and enforcement results. The figures below separate those measures by geography, population and period so that recorded crime is not confused with survey estimates or organized-retail-crime activity.
Key Shoplifting Statistics
The most important figures span recorded crime, retailer surveys and enforcement outcomes:
- In calendar 2024, 516,971 shoplifting offences were recorded by police in England and Wales.
- In calendar 2023, 429,873 shoplifting offences were recorded by police in England and Wales.
- In calendar 2022, 315,052 shoplifting offences were recorded by police in England and Wales.
- In calendar 2024, 93,156 England and Wales shoplifting cases were charged or summonsed, equal to 18% of recorded offences.
- In the year ending December 2024, 516,971 shoplifting offences were recorded in England and Wales, 20% above the previous year.
- In the 2021 Commercial Victimisation Survey, 77% of supermarkets in England and Wales experienced customer theft.
- In 2021, food or groceries made up an estimated 39% of commonly stolen customer-theft item categories at surveyed wholesale and retail premises in England and Wales.
- In 2021, alcohol made up an estimated 25% of commonly stolen customer-theft item categories at surveyed wholesale and retail premises in England and Wales.
- In 2022, 10% of wholesale and retail premises in England and Wales experienced at least one assault or threat in the Commercial Victimisation Survey.
- In 2022–23, about 475,000 incidents of violence and abuse against UK retail workers were reported in the BRC Crime Report.
- In 2023, retailers reported a 93% increase in average annual shoplifting incidents versus 2019 in an NRF survey of 164 mid-size to large brands in the United States.
- In 2023, retailers reported a 90% increase in dollar loss from shoplifting versus 2019 in the same United States survey.
- In the period covered by the ACS Crime Report 2024, UK local shops recorded 5.6 million incidents of shop theft.
- In the ACS 2024 report period, UK convenience retailers spent £339 million on crime prevention and detection.
- In calendar 2024, California’s Organized Retail Crime Task Force conducted 879 investigations.
- In calendar 2024, California’s task force recovered 676,227 stolen goods valued at $13.5 million.
- In calendar 2024, California shoplifting rose 14.2%, according to PPIC’s analysis of California DOJ crime files.
- From 2019 through February 2025, California’s task force reported more than 1.3 million recovered stolen goods valued at nearly $54 million.
Contents
- Police-recorded shoplifting volume and charge outcomes
- Shoplifting trends across recent reporting years
- Retail settings, stolen goods and staff impact
- Retailer losses, shrink and prevention spending
- Enforcement and organized retail theft results
- What shoplifting statistics can and cannot measure
Police-Recorded Shoplifting Volume and Charge Outcomes
The clearest multi-year series in the supplied evidence is the calendar-year police record for England and Wales. It counts offences recorded by police, so changes can reflect reporting and recording practices as well as underlying theft.
| Calendar year | Police-recorded shoplifting offences | Charged or summonsed cases | Charged or summonsed share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 254,547 | 44,969 | 18% |
| 2021 | 256,198 | 39,353 | 15% |
| 2022 | 315,052 | 48,268 | 15% |
| 2023 | 429,873 | 72,144 | 17% |
| 2024 | 516,971 | 93,156 | 18% |
Source: Written questions and answers: Shoplifting. The charged-or-summonsed percentages are outcomes among recorded cases, not conviction rates.
The series shows recorded shoplifting rising from 254,547 offences in 2020 to 516,971 in 2024. The outcome counts also rose over the period, but the percentages remained between 15% and 18%, so a charge or summons should not be read as a conviction or as the share of all incidents that led to court success.
Shoplifting Trends Across Recent Reporting Years
Rolling-year statistics provide another view of England and Wales. They are not interchangeable with calendar-year totals because each period covers a different twelve-month window.
- In the year ending March 2024, police recorded 443,995 shoplifting offences, up 30% from 342,428 in the year ending March 2023.
- In the year ending June 2024, police recorded 469,788 offences, 29% above 365,173 in the year ending June 2023.
- In the year ending September 2024, police recorded 492,914 offences, a 23% increase from 402,220 in the year ending September 2023.
- In the year ending December 2024, police recorded 516,971 offences, 20% higher than the previous year.
Source: Crime in England and Wales: year ending December 2024. The same bulletin reported 1.8 million total police-recorded theft offences in the year ending December 2024, up 1% year over year, with shoplifting the main driver of the increase; that total covers all recorded theft, not shoplifting alone.
The government also reported that shoplifting offences in the year ending September 2023 were 32% above the prior year and 12% above the pre-pandemic year ending March 2020. It noted that increased reporting contributed to some of the rise, which is why these figures describe recorded offences rather than a complete count of every incident.
Retail Settings, Stolen Goods and Staff Impact
Business surveys capture incidents that may never enter police records and define customer theft differently from police-recorded shoplifting. In the 2021 Commercial Victimisation Survey, customer theft was reported by 77% of supermarkets and by 25% of wholesale and retail premises overall in England and Wales.
Among commonly stolen customer-theft item categories in that 2021 survey, food or groceries represented an estimated 39%, while alcohol represented 25%. These are category shares among reported commonly stolen items, not shares of all stolen value.
Staff impact is related to retail crime but is not itself a shoplifting count. The evidence includes the following measures:
- Encountering a thief in store was cited by 26% of victims as a trigger for violent crime incidents in retail stores in the 2021 survey.
- 10% of wholesale and retail premises experienced at least one assault or threat in the 2022 Commercial Victimisation Survey; most incidents were verbal threats.
- The BRC Crime Report 2024 recorded about 475,000 incidents of violence and abuse against UK retail workers in 2022–23, including 41,000 incidents classed as violent by respondents.
- The BRC report stated that the 475,000 incidents equated to about 1,300 incidents per day.
Source: Fighting retail crime: more action. The government described the BRC measure as less robust than the Commercial Victimisation Survey, and the figures should not be treated as a police-recorded violence series.
Retailer Losses, Shrink and Prevention Spending
Retailer surveys provide a different scale and geography from official England and Wales crime records. The NRF 2024 study surveyed 164 mid-size to large United States retail brands, representing $1.52 trillion in 2023 annual sales and an estimated 30% of total US retail sales; that coverage estimate describes the sample, not a shoplifting share.
| Retailer survey measure | Reported result | Population and period |
|---|---|---|
| Average annual shoplifting incidents | 93% increase versus 2019 | 164 US brands, 2023 |
| Dollar loss due to shoplifting | 90% increase versus 2019 | 164 US brands, 2023 |
| UK local-shop shop-theft incidents | 5.6 million | Period covered by ACS Crime Report 2024 |
| Convenience-retail prevention and detection spending | £339 million | Period covered by ACS Crime Report 2024 |
Sources: The Impact of Retail Theft & Violence 2024 and Crime Report 2024. The NRF figures are self-reported retailer survey results, while the ACS figures are trade-association survey estimates with their own reporting period and definitions.
The ACS local-shop total was more than five times the 1.1 million incidents in its 2023 Crime Report, and ACS said the 2024-report-period total exceeded 600 incidents per hour. The report also estimated a 10p crime tax per store transaction, up from 6p in the 2023 report, combining crime cost and prevention investment rather than measuring shoplifting loss alone.
Other ACS measures show the wider operating environment: 87% of convenience-store colleagues faced verbal abuse during the 2024 report period, and 67% of retailers believed the cost-of-living crisis increased theft. Those are staff and perception measures, not causal estimates of shoplifting.
Shoplifting Enforcement and Organized Retail Theft Results
California’s Organized Retail Crime Task Force measures enforcement activity in organized-retail-crime cases, not all shoplifting. In calendar 2024, the task force conducted 879 investigations, made 1,707 arrests, recovered 676,227 stolen goods and reported an estimated recovered value of $13.5 million.
In January and February 2025, officials conducted 136 investigations, made 209 arrests and seized 24,510 stolen goods worth an estimated $2.2 million. Arrests are not convictions, and recovered or seized goods represent selected enforcement outcomes rather than total theft.
Source: Retail theft crackdown in 2024 recovers $13.5 million in stolen goods. From 2019 through February 2025, CHP reported more than 3,600 investigations and more than 4,000 suspects arrested, while the task force reported more than 1.3 million recovered stolen goods valued at nearly $54 million.
What Shoplifting Statistics Can and Cannot Measure
The figures above answer different questions. Police records show incidents brought to official attention; retailer surveys capture business experience; task-force releases show enforcement output; and broader property-crime statistics provide context but are not shoplifting-only measures.
PPIC’s analysis of California DOJ crime files found that California’s shoplifting rate rose 14.2% in 2024 compared with 2023 and was 48.0% higher than in 2019. Those are reported-crime rate trends, not national totals.
The same analysis shows why broad proxies need labels: in 2024, property-crime rates ranged from 976 per 100,000 residents in the Sierra region to 2,678 per 100,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Property crime includes burglary, motor-vehicle theft and larceny theft, so these regional figures cannot be substituted for shoplifting rates.
Source: Crime Trends in California. PPIC also reported property-crime decreases in 45 of California’s 58 counties and in 12 of the 15 largest counties in 2024; those county comparisons remain broader than shoplifting.
Under-counting is another central limitation. In the 2021 Commercial Victimisation Survey, 37% of wholesale and retail premises that did not report a crime said the incident was too trivial, while 53% of premises that reported any crime to police were dissatisfied with the police response.
For the year ending September 2023, only 14.5% of recorded shoplifting offences resulted in a charge or summons, compared with an overall 5.9% charge rate for crime excluding fraud and computer misuse. The shoplifting outcome is not a conviction rate, and many cases close without an identified offender.