EXCLUSIVE: An investigation by Daily Star Sunday found there was a surge in the number of shoplifting lags being caught across the UK; but they are being sent to jail for longer
The number of shoplifters being caged has surged and they’re going behind bars for longer, an exclusive Daily Star Sunday investigation has revealed. We discovered there were 44,300 convictions in the year ending June 2025.
That’s ratcheted up from 35,300 a year earlier and is nearly as high as the 44,700 convictions in the year ending June 2018. The number of thieves being jailed is also rising; in 2018 25% of those convicted were sent to jail compared to 27% in the year ending June 2025, according to the Daily Star Sunday probe.
That equates to just over 12,000 custodial sentences being handed out in the last year – compared to around 9,800 in 2024, and 6,300 in 2023. Lucy Whing, Business & Regulation Policy Advisor at the British Retail Consortium, said: “Retail theft is a major issue, costing over £2.2bn a year.”
The amount of time pilferers are spending behind bars is also increasing, with the average custodial sentence shooting up to 2.4 months. That’s a rise from 2.2 in 2024, and 1.9 in 2018.
The fightback against Britain’s shoplifting epidemic was uncovered following a series of Freedom of Information requests by the Reach Data Unit. Campaigners welcomed our findings but stressed more needs to be done.
Emmeline Taylor, professor of criminology at City, University of London, said: “We’re seeing record numbers sent to prison. Yet the underlying drivers of offending remain stubbornly unchanged.
“A short custodial sentence does little to address addiction or poverty. Prison is a revolving door that fails to break the cycle of crime. These offenders need rehabilitation which is not only cheaper to the public purse but more effective.”
The investigation comes after supermarkets admitted they have had to put security tags on traditional staple food items, including bread and cheese. Supermarket Sainsbury’s revealed it had to put tags on its fish in one London shop due to the high number of thefts of its fish in recent weeks.
Whilst strolling through the aisles, Daily Star was able to find two packs of Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Beer Battered Cod Fillets that had been reduced to £6. However, security tags had been attacked to them; and it turns out they were not the only items to be tagged, as other fishy items were also rigged with alarms.
Shoplifting has become an epidemic in Britain, with retailers losing billions pounds in revenue each year due to people trying to steal and get away with it. However, the cost of living crisis is also hitting food hard, as the price of a normal fish and chips reaches well over £10 a meal.
Back in January, the British Retail Consortium said that £2.2billion had been lost during the 2023/24 fiscal year. Lucy Whing, from the association, said: “Shoplifting is not a victimless crime; it feeds through into higher prices for honest shoppers at the till.”
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