John MacDonald: Have we lost the retail crime battle?

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

“Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

That’s the message cops have been given about shoplifting.

And the powers-that-be can say as much as they like about their memo to staff about only bothering with shoplifting worth more than $500 not being worded as well as it could have been, but the message is very clear. You steal stuff worth less than $500 and you’re going to get off scot-free.

If I was a retailer, I’d be really brassed off. I’d be brassed off with the cops and I’d be brassed off with the Police Minister, who is no longer doing interviews about retail crime, apparently.

This is the guy who made a career out of sending off media releases every time there was a ram raid. This is the guy who promised the crims would be scared of him and his coalition government, because the free ride for crims was about to end.

This is the Mark Mitchell who said this two years ago, when he was in Opposition:

“While retail crime incidents have more than doubled since 2018, fewer offenders are being held accountable for their actions. Despite an enormous spike in retail offending under Labour, the number of convictions for this type of offending have decreased.

“Staggeringly, this drop in convictions coincides with skyrocketing incidents of retail crime. Offenders are simply not being held to account by a Labour government which has been nothing except soft on crime.”

So if I was a retailer, I’d be angry. I’d also be very worried. In fact, even if I worked in retail —not necessarily owned a shop, but worked in a shop on the daily— I’d be worried.

Because I’d know that even if I saw someone nicking stuff and I called them out on it, they’d just tell me to go to hell. “What’re you gonna do? Call the cops?”

Sunny Kaushal, who used to run the Dairy & Business Owners Group and now chairs the Government’s advisory group on retail crime, says other countries have taken this approach and it’s gone very badly.

Quite rightly, he says that it “emboldens” criminals. Makes them even more brazen, because they know nothing’s going to happen.

Which is why —if I was someone who likes to go into shops and help myself to stuff— I’d be very happy. Because the police writing this stuff down and it getting out means retail criminals have a licence to do what they want.

They can go into your local supermarket and walk out the door with $490 worth of groceries. You picture $490 worth of groceries in a trolley at Pak n Save and someone walking out the door without paying, knowing the police won’t be coming anytime soon. Pretty much flipping the bird at anyone who tries to stop them.

Now I’m realistic and I know, just like you do, that the chance of the police turning up is less likely than it used to be.

And yes, they’ve probably always had a cut-off point where they decide something’s too small fry to investigate.

Which is fine, but, making it an explicit instruction or suggestion not to investigate unless the stuff nicked is worth more than $500, is a major cock-up by the police.

And I don’t know if there’s any coming back from it.

Because, even if the Police Minister showed some fortitude and told the police to ditch this approach to retail crime, we know that even then the likelihood of the police getting involved in this lower-level retail crime would be pretty low. Because they just don’t have the resources.

Which tells me that, despite tough talking from politicians, the battle against retail crime is a losing battle. And if it’s not a losing battle, it’s a battle we’ve already lost.

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