Lords Committee continues hearing evidence on combating shoplifting
The Justice and Home Affairs Committee holds its second and third oral evidence sessions of a short inquiry into tackling shoplifting.
Meeting details
The Justice and Home Affairs Committee continues its inquiry on tackling shoplifting. Previously, the Committee heard from a policing perspective about Project Pegasus – a new business and policing partnership. Today, it is holding two separate evidence sessions.
In the earlier session, the Committee will be hearing from experts on organised and retail crime, including the impact of serious acquisitive crime within the retail sector as well as new and emerging surveillance technologies. It will also hear about organised crime from the perspective of The Co-op.
In the later session, the Committee will hear from retailer representative organisations providing an insight into the work of other business and policing partnerships and the experiences of smaller independent retailers in respect of tackling shoplifting.
Possible questions for organised retail crime experts:
- What is the difference between 'shop theft' and 'shoplifting'?
- What is the relative contribution of organised retail crime on shop theft and how is it manifested?
- What is the impact of shoplifting on the Co-op and what recent trends have been observed?
- How effective is the Pegasus Partnership and can it help retailers in a way that existing partnerships do not?
- How does facial recognition technology help to tackle shoplifting and what are the risks involved?
- Do policing and business partnerships have public buy-in, and is it important that they do?
Possible questions for the retailer representative organisations:
- What is the impact of shoplifting on smaller retailers?
- What are the most effective strategies to combat shoplifting by prolific offenders and organised crime groups from a business and policing perspective?
- How do Business Crime Reduction Partnerships work?
- Does Pegasus have an impact on businesses not involved as partners of the scheme?
- How does facial recognition technology help to tackle shoplifting and what are the risks involved?
- Do policing and business partnerships have public buy-in, and is it important that they do?