The Association of Convenience Stores has welcomed amendments to
the Criminal Justice Bill that would make assaulting a shopworker
a more serious offence.
The Report Stage debate on the Criminal Justice Bill, beginning
today, is set to include a series of
amendments that would the put the following into law: make
assaulting a shopworker while they're at work a separate offence;
introduce new community orders for prolific shoplifters after
their third offence; and introduce the option to require
offenders to wear an electronic tag to monitor their whereabouts,
or to impose curfew requirements on them.
The amendments are part of the Government's wider commitment to tackle
retail crime, which includes improvements to reporting
procedures and a £55m investment over the next four years in
facial recognition technology to identify repeat offenders.
Figures from the 2024 ACS Crime Report show that retailers have
recorded over 600 incidents of theft per hour over the last year,
along with around 76,000 incidents of violence in local
shops.
ACS has been consistently calling on both central Government and
local Police and Crime Commissioners to make tackling retail
crime a priority because of the enormous financial, mental and
physical toll that it takes on retailers and their
colleagues.
Association of Convenience Stores chief executive James Lowman
said: “Working in and running a convenience store business can be
incredibly rewarding and is a great career opportunity for
hundreds of thousands of people, but it can also be extremely
challenging when a store is being targeted by thieves and abusive
criminals.
“The creation of a standalone offence for assaulting a shopworker
is an important step forward that demonstrates to the more than
400,000 colleagues in our sector that government is backing them
and recognises the essential service that they provide on a daily
basis.”
The full ACS Crime Report is available here.
