Shopping in a Washington DC pharmacy these days is unpleasant. I recently ventured to CVS, the Boots-like chain, to purchase razors, shampoo, shower gel and deodorant. It was like a mini-Fort Knox. Each item, caged behind locked cabinets, demanded a buzz signal to summon a store worker for release.

This apparatus isn’t for show. Shoplifting has surged in DC, as it has in New York and Los Angeles. Anything “CRAVED” — “concealable, removable, available, valuable, enjoyable or disposable” — is a target for petty thieves and organised gangs. I have recently witnessed two blatant thefts at CVS and someone hiding expensive cleaning products within kitchen towel packets at a local supermarket.

The economic fallout from rising shoplifting is evident. One CVS closed after repeated ransacking by teenage looters reduced it to a Soviet-like, empty-shelved dystopia. A raft of other shops no longer stock items thieves desire or else lock down goods that can be sold online, such as laundry detergent and lavatory paper.

Major chains like CVS have splurged on security tags and locked cabinets, but even this is a double-edged sword. By inconveniencing customers, these measures further reduce sales revenue by encouraging people to shop online. Who wants a shop worker waiting beside you as you choose your facewash?

Is the UK heading down the same path? Police in England and Wales recorded 402,482 shoplifting offences in the year to September 2023, a 32 per cent jump from the year before. Considering most shoplifting goes unreported, this is the tip of a massive iceberg.

The British Retail Consortium says companies recorded 16.7 million theft incidents last year, with the direct costs of stealing doubling to £1.8 billion from the year before, alongside a 50 per cent rise in violence and abuse towards retail workers. Add in prevention investments and the crime bill faced by companies was £3.3 billion.

Small retailers are hit hard, given the high fixed costs of employing security guards or tagging products. The Association of Convenience Stores reported a fivefold increase in thefts to 5.6 million incidents last year, exposing how its members suffered from this social blight.

Tackling shoplifting is incredibly complex. Eradicating it entirely is a pipe dream due to its multifaceted causes (such as high inflation) and the constraints of policing and the penal system. It’s evident, though, that honest customers pay for shoplifting via higher prices and that it’s more likely to flourish when crimes are underreported, penalties mild and societal attitudes lenient.

In DC, the maximum shoplifting sentence is only 90 days in jail and a $500 fine, but only serious repeat offenders typically get prison time. Coupled with a corporate ethos that advises against employees detaining criminals and a progressive culture that invokes social hardships to excuse theft or romanticises it as anti-capitalist activism, it’s obvious why thieves feel emboldened.

It’s little better here. The government deprioritised law and order as a central priority in the 2010s. Police now often disregard shoplifting incidents unless there’s violence or a suspect is being detained. Although thefts of products totalling under £200 can technically lead to six months in jail, they’re usually treated as minor offences with meagre fines.

Faced with this shoplifting surge, the government launched an “action plan” last October aimed at organised and violent retail theft. Yet to ease pressure on prisons, Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, later proposed community service and suspended sentences for criminals facing under a year in jail, including shoplifters. An already weak penal deterrent will be weaker still.

On Monday Charlie Peters of GB News shared a video of a man stealing olive oil from Sainsbury’s. Peters confronted the thief, who fled, leaving a bag of shop items. On Twitter/​X, Peters was criticised as a “grass”, a corporate boot licker, and for ignoring how the “struggling” thief may have been driven to crime by need. With policies and social attitudes like this, shoplifting will get worse before it gets better.