Help your local shoplifters plea dismissed by NFRN

Hampshire police commissioner Donna Jones, a strong advocate of rehabilitating offenders, said that sending shoplifters to jail did not work and that shop owners could help to pay to get them some help.

Stuart Reddish, national president of the NFRN, said he found Jones’ attitude “bewildering and completely out of touch with reality”.

He said: “I would like to ask Miss Jones how she would react if someone walked into her home and started helping themselves to her possessions.

“Would she simply send them on their merry way and offer to foot the bill for some kind of rehabilitation?”

The NFRN has this year been urging crime commissioners to make shop theft a higher priority.

Reddish said: “Following the latest elections in May 2021, our political engagement team and members have been meeting with police and crime commissioners across the country to urge them to include tackling retail crime in their five-year crime plans.

“The response so far has been positive, but the opinions expressed by Miss Jones completely undermine the work we are doing to highlight the scale and seriousness of these offences.

“Apart from the financial impact that shoplifting has on businesses, such incidents often escalate and lead to verbal or physical attacks on shop owners and their staff when the perpetrators are challenged.”