Workers urge Home Secretary to support shop violence campaign
25 Sep '07
3 min read
Retailers and shop workers are calling on the Home Secretary to back their call for local authorities and police forces to make retail crime a higher priority. The move comes as new figures are released showing an increase in threats and acts of violence against shop staff.
The figures, compiled by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), show a fifty percent increase in incidents of physical violence against shop workers in the past year. Over the same period recorded threats of violence against staff have more than doubled.
Retailers and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) will present these preliminary findings from the BRC's Annual Crime Survey to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith at their Shop-Crime Fringe Meeting at the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth.
The interim findings show that: • Violent acts against staff are up 50 per cent. • Threats of violence against staff have doubled. • The number of incidents per store has shot up by 18 per cent. • Incidents of verbal abuse decreased by 6 per cent.
The BRC and USDAW are making a joint call on the Home Secretary to push local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships to give crime against retailers and shop workers the same level of attention as they direct toward crime and anti-social behavior in residential neighbourhoods.
BRC Director General Kevin Hawkins said: “These figures show the current approach to shop crime is not working. Last year retail employees were subjected to around half a million incidents of abuse or violence in the work place."
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