The headline announcements from the police reforms Shabana Mahmood announced today will concern the new “British FBI”. But ordinary people are more dispirited by low-level, high-visibility crime. A less flashy aspect of Mahmood’s declaration was the establishment of policing areas to deal with everyday crimes such as shoplifting.
The Home Secretary posted on X that shoplifting was rising across the country and “too often victims report offences and wait hours or days for a response – by then offenders and witnesses are gone. I will restore neighbourhood policing and expand police patrols to catch criminals and cut crime.”
Shoplifting has gone through the roof in the UK: a record 530,000 offences were recorded by police in England and Wales last year. It’s something I’ve seen in my job as a security guard. Before those stats were published, staff numbers on my shift had been reduced as part of a cost-cutting drive. This meant that I was alone when I noticed two local heroin users picking up a TV that had been marked for disposal.
They probably would have got away with it if they hadn’t first carried it to a plug socket ten feet away from me to see whether it still worked. After I’d chased them off and attended a simultaneous first aid shout – an employee who’d had a glass of wine in her lunch hour had fallen backwards off a toilet and cracked her head – I started thinking that maybe I should have steered the telly addicts towards Iceland.
That supermarket’s executive chairman has been offering a £1 reward to any of his customers who report a suspected theft. The TV thieves might have been interested: it seems a more sure-fire earner than trying to jump-start a cracked Samsung.
Today, my shift is back on full numbers. Each of us wears a bodycam attached to our protective vests and the site we’re on is covered by scores of CCTV cameras. But the black lenses don’t stop everyone with light fingers: the last few months have seen us chase after opportunists armed with tack hammers, some late-night sports bike joyriders, and cable thieves who are trying to rip the internet connection off the side of buildings.
This last one seemed pretty sketchy in terms of risk versus reward. It made me think about how close my own disposable income is to the criminals I’m pursing. Last summer, my job paid £12.38 per hour: 17p above the National Living Wage.
This year, my two decades’ service means I’ve gone up to £13.41, which puts me above the National Living rate but below the so-called “Real Living” figure of £13.45, calculated according to the cost of household goods and services.
It seems I’m always close to some sort of danger level. Every time I think I’m out of the woods, prices and bills jump up again and suddenly there’s more undergrowth in front of me. It’s on those mornings when I start thinking I’m unmotivated, even if my alarm has gone off at 2.30am so that I can fit a workout in before my 12-hour shift. I can start beating myself up for not having the drive to do something bigger and get rich.
But the idea of having tons in the bank has never really blown my dress up. I enjoy my job, and have miraculously managed to cling on to the things that I used to fantasise about: a girlfriend, a kid, a modest but cosy place to live. I don’t mind that being a guard can be a squeeze, and that the closest I’ll ever get to a six-figure cash pile is getting really good at Monopoly.
The only thing that brings me down is what happens when we security staff strike gold, and catch a thief in the act. Officially, stealing is an indictable offence meaning we can perform a citizen’s arrest. This gets as many laughs as you’d expect.
Unofficially, we’re only really able to stop the half-committed perpetrators, the ones who turn back at the sight of our uniforms. Our employer doesn’t want us brawling with the dead-set robbers in public, so all we can do after approaching is capture images and a description to pass to the police. Then pray that they have enough spare bodies to attend.
People outside of the job sometimes ask me why snatch thefts have jumped so high (the 2025 figure is a 19 per cent increase on the previous year). It’s a question that makes me daydream about being a kid back in the low-tech days of the nineties.
Back then, and one method of stealing was called double basket. You and a mate both pick the same items from the shelves; you then wait in the aisle while your mate pays, slips you the receipt, and leaves with the legitimate purchases. That’s when you make a beeline for the exit with your identical items, avoiding the till. If a guard stops you, all you have to do is show the receipt. Hopefully, and usually, the shop hadn’t got CCTV.
Decades later I’m sorry to report that the cumulative increase in inflation that’s fuelled the cost-of-living crisis has hit thieving too. A shift-mate of mine who does his second job in a supermarket told me that double basket has evolved into triple trolley: families will walk in, each fill up and then run for the barriers.
Again, the guards alone so can only realistically chase after one. If you’re browsing in store when an unpaid dash happens, you could always follow the advice of the Thames Valley police and crime commissioner and confront the shoplifters yourself. But here’s an inside tip: go for the trolley full of electricals and premium goods. You won’t feel too good running after someone who’s trying to snatch baby formula.
Sometimes I think I’m too soft for the job. On some annual leave recently I was on the street with my girlfriend and our daughter when two kids came flying off an e-scooter.
I wasn’t sure if it was theirs or one of the many stolen/beefed-up/getaway models that the police are always chasing. But it definitely wasn’t being ridden correctly: the bloke looked like he’d had a few, and the girl was either on powders or exhibiting signs of shock. The latter seemed more likely given the road rash she was suffering.
I got them both sitting against a shuttered garage and used what my girlfriend calls my “man tin” – a small first aid kit I always carry with me – to clean them up. Once I checked their pupils were OK, the girl and boy both refused the cab money I offered them. A reminder that most people are polite so long as you treat them respectfully. Of course, others are more committed to mischief, like the kids in full face masks who we catch testing bike locks in the car park.
Here’s what I would tell the Home Secretary, my own anti-crime advice: I was never more scared into behaving than when I’d come home and smell the local copper’s tobacco mixing with my dad’s. The fact that the officer knew my parents was a great incentive to not cause trouble. That level of local knowledge is something I’m still working on. Hopefully it’s something the Home Secretary is working on too.
[Further reading: Bouncer’s verdict: Is Starmer truly pro pub?]
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