Retail Crime at a Crossroads: Progress, Pressure and the Reporting Gap

Momentum is building between police and retailers, but underreporting continues to limit real impact.

Each year, the British Retail Consortium publishes its Annual Crime Survey. While the numbers shift, the underlying story has remained largely unchanged: retail crime continues to rise, retailers are encouraged to report more incidents, and police forces are under increasing pressure to respond more quickly and consistently.

This year, however, there are signs that the narrative may be starting to shift.

For the first time in several years, retailer sentiment toward police response is showing measurable improvement. Thirteen percent of retailers now rate the response to retail crime as good or excellent, up from zero just three years ago. A further 38 percent describe it as “fair,” marking a notable increase on last year.

These are still modest figures. But in a sector where frustration and disengagement have been longstanding, they signal something important: momentum.

Across England and Wales, police forces are beginning to reshape how they engage with retail crime, recognising that one of the biggest barriers to progress has not just been crime itself, but confidence in the system designed to address it. The long-held belief that reporting does not lead to action has, for many, been as damaging as the incidents themselves.

And yet, despite this progress, the system remains constrained by a familiar and persistent challenge. An estimated 85 percent of retail crime incidents still go unreported.

For retailers, the barriers are practical and deeply ingrained. Reporting processes are often time-consuming, particularly in high-volume environments where incidents occur daily. Staff are frequently uncertain whether reporting will lead to a meaningful outcome, and inconsistent response times continue to erode confidence at the front line. At the same time, unclear expectations around evidence leave many unsure whether what they have captured is sufficient to support an investigation. All of this is compounded by a rise in violence and abuse toward retail workers, adding emotional strain to already stretched teams.

Police forces face parallel pressures. High volumes of incidents, often accompanied by incomplete or inconsistent evidence, slow investigations and reduce the likelihood of successful outcomes. Legacy systems continue to make evidence intake and transfer manual and resource-intensive. With legislative changes, including those within the upcoming Crime and Policing Bill, expected to increase demand further, the strain on resources is only set to grow.

Both sides recognise the need for change. Both are committed to improving outcomes. But without consistent, timely, and actionable reporting, neither can build a clear picture of the scale, patterns, or repeat nature of offending.

This is where a more fundamental shift is beginning to take shape.

Retail crime itself has evolved. What was once largely opportunistic is now often organised, repeat, and increasingly confrontational. Offending frequently spans multiple locations and jurisdictions, exploiting gaps in visibility and coordination. Responding effectively requires more than volume; it requires speed, structure, and collaboration.

Encouragingly, this is starting to emerge.

Police forces are investing in Digital Evidence Management Systems, enabling retailers to submit CCTV, images and supporting information quickly and securely through structured digital channels. In parallel, retailers are improving how they capture and package evidence, making submissions more consistent and investigation-ready.

The impact of these changes is already being felt. Faster access to high-quality evidence is enabling forces to identify repeat offenders more quickly, connect incidents across locations, and progress cases more efficiently through to charge and sentencing. What once took days can now happen in hours.

But progress remains uneven, and one principle continues to sit at the centre of any meaningful improvement: reporting.

The British Retail Consortium continues to emphasise that every incident matters. Not just the most serious cases, but the cumulative pattern of offending that often sits beneath them. At present, only one in three reported incidents results in a police visit. Increasing reporting rates (when combined with structured, high-quality digital evidence) has the potential to change that dynamic significantly.

More complete reporting enables stronger local intelligence, earlier identification of organised retail crime, and more effective, targeted use of police resources. Just as importantly, it helps rebuild trust. When retailers see that reporting leads to action, engagement increases. When engagement increases, visibility improves. And when visibility improves, so does deterrence.

This is the point at which the sector now stands: not yet transformed, but no longer static.

Across the UK, examples are emerging of what good looks like, where structured collaboration between retailers and police, supported by modern digital evidence workflows, is delivering faster investigations, stronger prosecutions, and more visible outcomes. The challenge now is consistency: ensuring these approaches are understood, adopted, and scaled more widely.

To explore how leading organisations are addressing this challenge, and what effective practice looks like in action, NiCE Public Safety & Justice has brought together insights, case studies and operational guidance in a new retail crime whitepaper.

Download the Retail Crime Whitepaper

Discover how police forces and retailers are working together to accelerate investigations, improve evidence sharing, and deliver faster, more consistent justice.