Retail crime is snowballing: Where to from here - and can it get any worse?

Sunday, 3 September 2023

Retail experts say shop crime is snowballing and only expected to get more ugly if better preventative measures and consequences for offenders are not established.

Retailers say crime is the biggest issue they are grappling with daily, and the association representing the industry says the significant rise in crime and aggressive and violent behaviour towards staff requires a new level of government intervention to resolve.

Retail NZ says there is more that can be done to address the societal issue of retail crime, including specific penalties in the Crimes Act calling out abuse and violence against retail workers.

This week Foodstuffs North Island said retail crime in its supermarkets was up by almost 60% in the past year, with serious incidents such as assault, robbery and burglary more than doubled year-on-year.

Between May and July incidents are up 19% compared to the previous quarter.

Foodstuffs North Island recorded 54 assaults, mostly on frontline staff, in the last three months – up from 39 in the previous quarter, and 16 in the same period in 2022.

Assaults in stores are increasing, along with shoplifting, which accounted for three-quarters of all offences it recorded in the previous three months, up 78% year-on-year.

Supermarket chain Woolworths is grappling with similar issues of frequency and severity.

In the last few years, Woolworths says it has seen a significant increase in aggressive, threatening and brazen behaviour from offenders in its stores, and a marked rise in shoplifting and retail crime incidents.

It has reported a 303% increase in physical assaults, a 806% rise in security incidents and a 326% increase in theft incidents in the past six years.

Woolworths has started deploying new security measures, including 30 additional trolley lock systems, new camera technology at self-checkouts in more stores, and double entry gates at 12 stores, as part of its $45 million investment plan to increase security measures and upskill its team members to deal with conflict situations.

Denva Wren, Woolworths New Zealand's head of health, safety and wellbeing, said the spike in retail crime could be attributed to the cost of living crisis and financial stress people are under.

“What we’ve seen over the last couple of years during and post Covid is a lifting of aggression and violence and also retail crime, but this really does feel like it has accelerated more recently around cost of living and inflationary pressure,” Denva said.

“Our communities are really finding it hard at the moment, and what we see is people almost go from zero to 100 from an aggression perspective or how they might lash out very quickly, versus in the past, we may have had an ability to defuse situations.”

Denva said Woolworths had noticed “buckets of stress” and frustrations were being projected on to staff, and worried increasing volatile behaviour was the result of poor mental health and system not helping.

“It is definitely snowballing and our team at the front line are experiencing retail crime and aggression on a daily basis.

“It’s the repeated nature of these events that is really taking its toll, the recidivist offending and the high volume of offending, but also the sheer nature of verbal abuse and potential for physical abuse.”

Denva said Woolworths was no longer able to reduce the risks on its own and required a multi-agency approach to tackle what had become a national problem.

“It is very hard to say to our team we don’t have all the answers and all the fixes.”

She said work with the National Retail Crime Unit had been useful but had not helped to curb the issue.

There needed to be more frontline police officers, and something more than a trespass order needed to be implemented to be able to tackle in-store crime, Denva said.

“If we were requesting something from the Government it would be increasing the significance of the trespass law to be more effective, and that could be the likes of a behaviour order … something handed down by the judge, so it is significant and would actually mean something.

“The [current] trespass law is not effective for us.”

In the past three months, Foodstuffs North Island said repeat offenders were involved in more than one-third of all incidents, and the number of incidents they committed grew by 44% to 1862 across the North Island’s New World, Pak’nSave and Four Square stores.

Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin said 308 people breached their trespass orders in the last three months, and the company was training more staff to safely navigate the risks associated with retail crime.

He said Foodstuffs North Island’s 300 supermarkets were spending “tens of millions of dollars more” on additional safety measures in an attempt to bring crime under control.

Quin said the risk of adding additional measures was making stores unwelcoming.

He said technology could play a proactive role in reducing retail crime.

“Everyone we work with in the police does the very best they can, but it is a resource challenge for them with this much retail crime. They’re not getting 20% more resources quarter-on-quarter. It is a big ask to keep up with this with the resources they have.”

Quin said facial recognition technology would be useful to manage individuals who had been issued a trespass order, with a supermarket able to receive an alert when these people are coming into the store and specially trained staff can intervene.

“We’ve nearly got agreement with the Privacy Commission about doing a trial – we want to get that underway, and we want to use it to keep teams and customers safer. It is the one proactive thing I think we can do.”

Quin said he believed current trespass laws “worked OK” but there was a lack of enforcement.

“Shoplifting has been around forever … but it is the volume and rate, and the level of danger, risk, aggression and violence that is really pronounced.”

The South Island is not immune to the increase in retail crime being felt around the country.

Almost a third of businesses represented by the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce have reported being impacted by crime or antisocial behaviour in the past 12 months.

According to the preliminary results of the chamber’s quarterly business survey, the majority of businesses (64%) also believed the situation is worsening.

“It’s not something that appears to be going away any time soon,” chief executive Leeann Watson said.

She said while there had been a focus on those in the central city, retailers and wholesalers in the suburbs had also been affected.

Watson said the Chamber wrote an open letter to the Government in November calling for action to be taken following “a significant surge in violent and opportunistic crime and antisocial behaviour throughout the region”.

Despite several Government announcements targeting retail crime and youth offenders since the letter was published, she said they had not had much of an impact.

“Putting funding into things like fog cannons and those sorts of things … It's a preventative measure, but it doesn't make the problem go away. We need to get to the root cause of the problem,” she said.

Watson said the chamber would like to see strengthened trespass laws, a review of what constituted anti-social behaviour and a greater ability to stop it from happening.

“We want to see a continued focus on this from the government.”

She believed the cost of living crisis and a perception that there were no consequences for the crimes being committed was driving the increase in retail crime.

Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young said supermarkets, dairies, vape shop and jewellery stores, such Michael Hill, had been seen as easy targets for retail crime.

Some faced regular ramraids, burglaries and abuse directed at staff, but it was fast becoming more widespread, Young said.

“Retail crime is impacting all retailers regardless of their size scale, or business offering. From the local dairy to the high-end clothing stores retail crime is occurring at significant rates daily.

“Retailers tell us that crime is the biggest issue they are grappling with daily.

“There is more that can be done given the significant societal issue retail crime is for New Zealand – especially given the physical, mental and real terms business costs retail crime has,” Young said.

She said NZ Police National Retail Investigation Support was working alongside Retail NZ to support the sector and combat retail crime. However, more support was needed to combat the “endemic” issue.

“With the significant rise in crime and aggressive and violent behaviour towards staff it requires a whole of government approach to work with retailers on solutions to address these issues. Businesses and their staff have the right to feel safe in their workplace.”

Retail NZ would like the Government to introduce a string of new measures to address retail crime, including training for retail workers to de-escalate instances of violence, aggression and robbery, specific penalties in the Crimes Act, access to mental health and wellbeing support for retail workers impacted by retail crime, increase the number of police on the beat through retail communities across the country and a social change programme to change attitudes towards retail crime and understand property rights.