The crime that’s got every villager’s tongue wagging! Are we blindly walking into a world where apathy becomes the norm..?

I came to an important realisation this week. The moment hit me when I was at my local pub enjoying a quiet drink with Esme. The instant we walked through the door, I sensed something was amiss. The locals – yes, all seven of them (it’s a tiny pub!) – were in quite the tizzy. Huddled around someone’s phone, they were watching footage from a video doorbell. The star of the show? An ‘unsavoury’ character who had knocked on a resident’s door and spun a tale about needing to fix his bike.

Now, when I say shock and horror filled the room, I’m not exaggerating. The indignation was palpable. Judging by the furore, you’d have thought the guy had a chainsaw and a ski mask in hand. Well, I guess this village is like something straight out of Midsomer Murders! One particularly rattled villager was so perturbed by the incident that she’s now taken the drastic measure of… locking her car and shutting the garden gate! Clearly, these were serious steps for such a low-crime area!

The whole affair left me pondering: was this incident really as dramatic as they were making it out to be? But then it hit me – my new life in the countryside is a world away from the bustling chaos of my old stomping ground in Birmingham. If something like this had happened there, it wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow, let alone become the hot topic of conversation over a pint! However, this isn’t Birmingham. This is a quaint little village where the most shocking events tend to involve heated debates about over-zealous hedge trimming! Crime is thankfully a rarity here. But that means even relatively minor incidents are a big issue for local residents.

Clearly in my new rural idyll, the concept of neighbourhood watch is alive and kicking. But the reality is that in many parts of the country, the dynamic has shifted. Crime has become so commonplace that it’s almost accepted now. We’ve grown numb to it. How often do we hear about bystanders walking past people in distress, not wanting to get involved? Or stores where thieves casually stroll out with armfuls of goods, met with indifference from staff?

Take Scott’s experience the other day. He had driven his 72-year-old mum to a well-known discount shop to buy some wool. (She needed it for her Knit & Natter group, which is selflessly knitting items to send to Ukraine.) When his mum got to the checkout the wool rang up at full price, despite clearly being marked down. You’d think this would be a quick fix. Instead, the store manager argued with her over the difference. After a lengthy back-and-forth – and only once Scott had stepped in – the manager finally relented.

But here’s the irony. Whilst the manager was battling it out over a few pounds’ worth of wool for charity, Scott saw multiple shoplifters brazenly walk out with hundreds of pounds worth of stolen goods. Not one staff member challenged them. Given the rise in violent attacks on shopworkers, I don’t blame them for not intervening. But it does raise a bigger question: as a society, are we selectively deciding what’s right and wrong? And have we drawn the lines in all the wrong places? (Thankfully, when it comes to protecting public spaces and ensuring safety, professional officers like ours are here to help keep that ‘line’ firmly in place).

What’s even more troubling is that our collective desensitisation to crime plays right into the hands of those who exploit it… Most shoplifters know the game. They know that in many cases, store policies prohibit staff from approaching them. And even if the police are called, prosecutions are rare.

Of course, there’s no single culprit here. The issue is a symptom of a much wider social problem. But that doesn’t mean we should sit idly by and accept it. Isn’t it time that organisations, and society as a whole, wake up and say “enough is enough”? If something doesn’t change, I fear we could be blindly walking into a world where apathy becomes the norm and lawlessness is met with nothing more than a shrug. And the more we turn a blind eye, the more emboldened those who exploit the cracks in the system become.

As I sat sipping my drink in the pub, I realised something else. In this sleepy village, at least people care. They pay attention. And maybe that’s where change starts. With small communities standing together and drawing clear lines about what they will and won’t tolerate. And if that involves a bit of curtain-twitching and a village-wide debrief over a pint, count me in!