Shoplifting

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FIN/24/2517

Version Date: 15/11/2024

The Performance & Analysis Department have provided the following information.

Q1 & 2 are from the Storm database. These are incidents with a disposal of THEFT or THEFT CRI and where the Inc Description matches ‘shoplifting’ or ‘shop lifting’.

Q2 is where incidents have a dispatch date, indicating officers attended.

Please provide the number of reports of shoplifting submitted to Dorset Police for the following years: 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 (to date).

Please provide the number of reports of shoplifting that were attended to by Dorset Police for the years 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 (to date).

Dorset Police utilises remote video enabled attendance for suitable crime types and also use shoplifting packs for suitable retailers.

These packs recognise that that most shoplifting incidents are very short in duration, mostly non-violent and normally involve an offender quickly leaving the scene. The packs contain sufficient information for the reporting business to record the incident, provide relevant evidence and return to the police for investigation.

Both methods are used frequently but will not be recorded as a ‘police attendance’ in the enclosed figures.

Please provide the number of arrests made by Dorset Police in connection with shoplifting for the years 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 (to date).

Q3 is from Dorset Case Custody database. For this we searched all arrests and filtered out those which were for ‘Theft from a shop’.