From squashed buns to stolen mushrooms… Exactly where do we draw the line?

A squashed bun. A 1km chase. An arrest… It sounds ridiculous, but that’s exactly what happened in Japan last week. As reported by the BBC, a 40-year-old woman in the southern city of Fukuoka has been arrested for allegedly squashing a bun at a convenience store and leaving without buying it. Although the bag’s wrapper was intact, police said one of the buns was damaged after she pressed it with her right thumb, and the entire bag could not be sold. The store manager chased her down the street for 1km, restrained her, and called the police. She was then arrested for ‘criminal damage’.

Arrested for squashing a bun? That’s a new one on me, and I’ve seen and heard A LOT over the years! (Thank goodness I’m not in Japan – I regularly give my Hovis a gentle but decisive quick squeeze before buying!) That being said, you might be surprised by some of the bizarre items that our officers see people attempt to steal here in the UK. A single tomato… a lone mushroom (closed cup, in case you were wondering!)… and the winner? A single egg! It’s almost laughable. But when you look closer, the reality isn’t funny at all. Because what starts with a petty theft or a moment of opportunism can lead to more serious habitual offending. And I’m sure you’ll agree, that’s definitely no laughing matter.

At the moment, I’m deep into a case study looking at how much crime is prevented when one shoplifter is stopped. Take one repeat offender we dealt with. The thief is known to visit the same store twice a day, every day, stealing £200 worth of stock at a time. That’s £400 worth of goods a day. It might not sound like a huge amount, but that adds up to £146,000 a year… A £146k loss from one shoplifter alone! When the offender was finally caught – stealing £251 worth of goods in one of his raids – the police responded because he was already on a suspended sentence. But stopping him that one time meant preventing 729 future offences and £146,000 in losses for the retailer in the next 12 months.

Deterring offenders is not the end of the problem, though. Because, as I see time and again, shoplifting serves as an entry point into more serious offences, from organised retail theft to violent crime. It’s therefore time society stopped trivialising shoplifting and recognised it as the ateway offence it so often is. The Government’s plan to scrap the £200 arrest threshold for so-called ‘low category shoplifting’ is a good first step, and one that’s long overdue. I only hope it translates into real action, with proper enforcement and consequences. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we need to adopt Japan’s approach and start rugby-tackling shoppers to the ground for testing the freshness of their bread! But surely there’s a sensible middle ground?

Advantage One officers stopped 7,007 shoplifters for one customer last year. That’s an average of 20 offences prevented every day. Not every theft needs a police call-out… we’re not dialling 999 for a stolen egg, but every intervention matters. So let’s not underestimate the impact of tackling retail crime. Because sometimes, it’s not just about a squashed bun or a missing mushroom – it’s about what happens next… f you see some of our officers in action on social media, ‘like’ what we’re doing. Share some of our videos. It all helps us to increase the deterrent factor and tackle crime. After all, each and every one of us is paying for this through the cost of our shopping…

According to the Centre for Retail Research, shoplifting adds £133 to the cost of an average UK household’s shopping bill each year. I don’t know about you, but I can think of much better ways to spend that money! That’s it for this week… I’m off to double-check that I’m not one egg short of a dozen (no jokes please!).