Tuesday May 26th 2026
Police Scotland
Written by Glasgow View Reporter, Liam Eunson
Police Scotland have announce that their Retail Crime Taskforce which was launched in April last year has supported over 1,300 arrests for retail crime offences.
The dedicated crime unit was launched following £3 million in funding from the Scottish Government that aimed to ‘address a rise in retail offences’, which includes shoplifting and assault to retail workers.
In its first 12 months of operation, the Taskforce’s four-strand approach — prevent, pursue, protect, and prepare — has resulted in more than 6,400 charges for retail crime. Alongside this, the detection rate has risen to just under 51%, compared with 49% the previous year.
Despite successes in improving detection rates, increasing arrest numbers and enhancing retailer confidence in reporting incidents to police, Scotland continues to experience an ongoing rise in retail crime, with theft by shoplifting offences having risen by 19% in comparison with last year.
To address this, dedicated Taskforce resources are now in place within Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Tayside to ensure areas most adversely affected by retail crime are being fully supported.
Alongside this, Police Scotland have said that they will ‘continue to work alongside local policing divisions and a range of key partners and stakeholders to improve security on-site for retail premises, enhance the safety of retail workers and use all resources at their disposal to undertake effective enforcement activity against retail crime offenders’.
Earlier this year, the Scottish Government announced and additional £9m in funding to Police Scotland to tackle retail crime over the next three years, meaning the Retail Crime Taskforce will operate until at least 2029.
Tactical Lead for the Retail Crime Taskforce, Inspector Emma Wright, explained:
“There have been successes across the country in the first 12 months of the Taskforce as part of our ongoing efforts to tackle retail crime.
“The efforts of the unit and work carried out by local divisions has resulted in a significant number of detections of both shoplifting offences and offences against retail workers.
“While we continue to see an increase in the number of shopliftings reported, there are indications that this is in part due to an increased confidence in reporting from retailers and the resulting police response.
“The additional three years of funding received from the Scottish Government will enable us to continue our efforts to reduce shoplifting and provide support and education to businesses across the country.
“We want to thank retailers for their continued support and engagement as we collaboratively tackle the issue of retail crime.
“We cannot and will not become complacent and we recognise that further work is needed to reduce the number of offences occurring across Scotland. We take these offences extremely seriously and through continued partnership working we strive to make our communities a hostile environment for retail crime offenders.”
Police Scotland have highlighted that year two of the taskforce will ‘see significant changes to the way that retail premises can report crime to police’, through the use of an online reporting form to directly report incidents of shop theft.
This form was developed by Police Scotland’s Contact, Command and Control Division and allows retailers to report incidents where a shoplifting has occurred and there is no ongoing threat or risk to safety.
Not only will this reduce the time businesses need to wait for reporting a crime, but it also aims to assist in reducing demand on call handling, allowing for priority calls to be better serviced.
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