Property crime is not a victimless crime

While researching Taking its Toll, a report written with Policy Exchange on the regressive impact of property crime, some troubling facts became clear. In the year to March 2014 there were an estimated 6.85 million victims of theft in England and Wales, representing 1 in 10 of the population. Yet a significant proportion of property crime is not reported to police: a third of burglaries and 90 per cent of shoplifting incidents go unreported.

In a climate of heightened threats to our national security, the police are struggling to keep up. Last year around 19,000 bicycles were reported stolen to the Metropolitan Police yet only 666 (3.5 per cent) of these thefts were solved. Estimates show that only five per cent of burglaries end up with an alleged offender in court. A key reason why so much shoplifting is not reported is because over a third of shopkeepers have lost faith in the ability of police to prosecute thieves successfully.