Why won’t the police let us call shoplifters ‘scumbags’?

The police in the UK seem almost comically indifferent to tackling criminal behaviour. Their lax attitude to crimes like shoplifting and burglary is sometimes enough to make you wonder if there is any law enforcement at all. Yet at the same time as they’re allowing creeping anarchy on our streets, they are fiercely clamping down on speech and thoughtcrime. It’s as if the authorities are far more concerned about what people say, rather than what they do.

This depressing combination of lawlessness and petty authoritarianism was on full display recently in Wales. Rob Davies, the owner of a second-hand clothing store in Wrexham, attached a small note to his shop’s window last week. It stated: ‘Due to scumbags shoplifting, please ask for assistance to open cabinets. Thank you.’ This handwritten missive caught the attention of the local constabulary, who promptly paid him a visit – not to help him catch any shoplifters, but to scold him. North Wales Police told him to remove the sign on the grounds that it is ‘offensive’, presumably to the shoplifting community. In other words, the people employed to prevent crime were worried that a victim was being too unkind to criminals. (The police have since been forced to clarify that Davies had not committed any criminal offence and he has refused to take down the sign.)

Another recent example of the authorities’ kid-gloves approach to shoplifting comes courtesy of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The quango in charge of data laws recently advised shop owners that displaying photographs of suspected shoplifters might be a breach of data-privacy regulations. So, if a business names and shames suspected shoplifters, it could find itself in trouble with the authorities.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised that the police and ICO are effectively siding with shoplifters over law-abiding shopkeepers. After all, it won’t have escaped most people’s notice that shoplifting has effectively been decriminalised. The authorities repeatedly deny this, of course. Instead, police forces and local councils say they are ‘addressing root causes of offending’ or are taking a ‘community-based approach’ instead of arresting lawbreakers.

But the facts speak for themselves. This year, shoplifting reached the highest level since records began. In the year up to March 2025, more than 530,000 shoplifting offences were recorded across England and Wales. The problem is particularly acute in London, where more than 90,000 shoplifting offences were recorded. Yet, at the same time, prosecutions have plummeted. Instead of trying to deter this behaviour, police and prosecutors have largely absolved themselves of responsibility. The number of shoplifting cases going unsolved rose by a fifth over the past year.

As the case of Rob Davies attests, the nonchalance of officials towards crime could not be in sharper contrast to their determination to interfere in behaviour most of us thought was perfectly legal – such as criticising shoplifters. Indeed, while a blind eye is turned to petty theft, 30 people on average are arrested each day for supposedly ‘offensive’ social-media posts.

When the police are more concerned about us causing offence to criminals than they are with stopping criminals, it is clear their priorities are badly skewed. It’s time they stopped policing our speech and got back to policing the streets.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.