Shoplifting offences 2019-2024

Request

1.In the last 5 years, [Between April 6- April 5 2019-2024] - how many
shoplifting offences have there been in the area that the force covers? (Broken
down by years, 2019/2020, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24)
1a) Of these offences during this five year period, how many prosecutions
were made?

Response
I approached our Performance Review Unit for assistance with your request. An
analyst within this unit has conducted a search of our Crime Management System - Connect which records complaints or allegations of those matters, which the Home Office specify should be recorded as 'crimes'. All our systems are designed and used first and foremost for Policing Purposes and have limited search capability. They provided me with following explanation regarding their search criteria:

Criteria Used - Incident Created Date is between 06/04/2019 and 05/04/2024, SYP &
crime only filter, HO Sub Group Name is equal to / is in SHOPLIFTING

Q1

Q2 

Please see attached spreadsheet - FOI2024/00412

However, it is important to note that data has been extracted from data sources used by this force for
police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the
inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording systems and information assets.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you
should be aware that the collation of figures/data for any requests may have limitations, and this should
be taken into account when those data are used.

Police forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures for capturing the data. For these
reasons this response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with responses
you may receive from other police forces.