The number of shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales in a year has surpassed half a million for the first time on record, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Police recorded 516,971 shoplifting offences in 2024, a 20 per cent increase on the 429,873 offences in 2023 and the highest number recorded since modern record-keeping practices began in 2003.
The ONS said shoplifting offences have been running at record levels for the past two years, noting a "sharp rise" following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Driven by the rise in shoplifting and theft from the person, a total of 1.8 million theft offences were recorded, up 1 per cent from the previous year.
Theft from the person offences also saw a substantial increase, with a total of 152,416 offences recorded in 2024, up 22 per cent from 125,379 in 2023.
Responding to the data, policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said the Labour Government “will not tolerate the criminality blighting our communities”.
“That’s why we’re putting almost 3,000 more bobbies on the beat in neighbourhood roles this year, and under our leadership, these crimes will receive the attention they deserve.
“We are already starting to reverse the Tories’ decade of decline on charge rates.
“Today’s figures are yet more evidence of the damage done by destroying neighbourhood policing as the Tories did over 14 years.”
Of the 494,086 police-recorded shoplifting offences in England and Wales in 2024 that have so far been assigned an outcome, 19 per cent (93,156) resulted in a charge or summons, up from 17 per cent in 2023, while 57 per cent (281,107) of investigations were completed with no suspect identified, unchanged on the previous year, analysis of Home Office figures shows.
Elsewhere in the ONS data, 54,587 knife crime offences were recorded by police in England and Wales in 2024, up 2 per cent from 53,413 in 2023 but 1 per cent below the pre-pandemic figure of 55,170 in the year to March 2020.
The number of offences involving possession of an article with a blade or point was 28,150, up 1 per cent from 27,892 and higher than the pre-pandemic figure of 23,264 in 2019/20.
There were 216 knife-enabled homicides, down 16 per cent from 258 in 2023.
Billy Gazard of the ONS said: “While police-recorded offences involving knives and sharp instruments have increased, there has been a marked decrease in firearms offences.
“However, shoplifting offences continue to rise, reaching half a million offences in the year ending December 2024, the highest on record.”
The data showed the number of homicides recorded by police in England and Wales fell to its lowest level in a decade.
Some 535 offences were recorded in 2024, down 5 per cent from 563 in 2023 and the lowest figure since 533 in the 12 months to March 2014.
Overall, police recorded 6.64 million crimes in England and Wales in 2024, down by 1 per cent from 6.68 million in 2023.
The total is up from 4.03 million a decade earlier in 2013/14, but this is likely to reflect “changes in police activity and recording practices” as well as genuine changes in trends in crimes reported to and recorded by forces, and “should not be used to say that overall crime has increased”, the ONS said.
New Home Office figures showed the proportion of all offences recorded during the latest period, which resulted in a charge or summons, was 6.9 per cent, up from 6.2 per cent in 2023.
The proportion of investigations into crimes recorded by police in the same period which were completed with no suspect identified stood at 39 per cent, compared with 40.6 per cent in the previous year.
The data also showed the proportion of cases which had evidence difficulties from a victim not supporting the action was 25.1 per cent, compared with 25.3 per cent in the previous year.
Figures from the separate ONS crime survey for England and Wales suggest people aged 16 and over experienced 9.61 million incidents of crime in 2024, up from 8.40 million in 2023.
The rise is mainly due to a 33 per cent increase in fraud, which accounted for 4.10 million incidents in the survey, and a 13 per cent increase in theft, to 2.93 million.
The overall total of 9.61 million is lower than the 11.22 million for 2016/17, when fraud and computer misuse were first included in the figures.
Mr Gazard added: “The increase in crime recorded by the survey in the recent period has been driven by fraud and theft.
“Notably there has been a significant increase in theft from the person, with mobile phones the most common item stolen.”
Experiences of crimes, as measured by the ONS survey, have been on a broad downward trend since the mid-1990s.
The survey covers a range of personal and household victim-based crime, including theft, robbery, criminal damage, fraud, computer misuse and violence with or without injury, but does not include sexual offences, stalking, harassment and domestic abuse, which are presented separately.
