Addiction ‘fuelling shoplifting plague’
SHOPLIFTERS addicted to drugs should face tough twoyear jail sentences, a thinktank said yesterday.
The Centre for Social Justice warned that 70 per cent of class A drug use is fuelled by theft from shops.
Addicts hooked on heroin, crack cocaine and psychoactive substances like spice are funding their addiction by stealing.
They cost businesses an estimated £6.3billion last year – equal to £270 for every household.
While only 385,000 incidents were reported, the report says this is “the tip of the iceberg”, with the real number nearer 38 million.
The think-tank behind many of the recent welfare reforms also estimates that 88 per cent of prolific burglars steal from shops, with around half shoplifting every day.
The CSJ – chaired by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith – has recommended that 10,000 of the worst offenders should be targeted with two-year sentences.
This would include a year of drug-free secure accommodation and a year of therapeutic drug treatment.
Similar schemes already operate in Australia and the Netherlands. The programme would cost an estimated £250million over five years.
Andy Cook, chief executive of the CSJ, said: “It’s clear that current efforts have failed to prevent further offending by the most prolific thieves.
“If we took the 10,000 most prolific offenders and turned around just one in 10, it would save taxpayers up to £1billion and significantly lower the burden on businesses plagued by shop theft. The solution is to be found in addressing the root causes of the problem.
“In this case it is drug addiction.
“It’s time we got tough to protect our businesses, but also to rehabilitate prolific offenders, reduce the burden on the taxpayer, and safeguard communities.”
The programme has been described as being “tough on crime” – because it is intensive and two years in duration – and “tough on the causes of crime” by seeking to tackle the addiction that drives the offending.
The report’s author Rory Geoghegan said: “By focusing on detecting shop thefts committed by prolific drugaddicted offenders, it is possible to engage more serious offenders and thereby tackle both shop theft and other offences, such as burglary, robbery, and car crime.”