Police vow to tackle shoplifting - most common theft offence across Mansfield

According to Home Office data, just 23, 2.2 per cent, of 1,031 thefts “from the person” – which includes pickpocketing and bag-snatching – reported to Nottinghamshire Police in the year to September 2022 resulted in a charge or summons.

There were a further 3,366 thefts “from a vehicle” over this period, of which 1.4 per cent resulted in a charge.

And across the country, thefts of vehicles themselves also have relatively low rates of prosecution.

Of the 1,481 reports of bicycle theft in Nottinghamshire over the same period, just 19, 1.3 per cent, led to the offender being charged.

There was a higher rate for car theft, with 2.8 per cent of 2,100 cases of “theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle” prosecuted in the area.

Meanwhile, 16 charges were brought against people in Nottinghamshire for “making off without payment” – a crime which includes stealing from petrol stations or leaving a restaurant without paying – despite 1,358 crimes being reported in the year to September.

However, Nottinghamshire Police said its most common theft offence is shoplifting – which it is actively working to tackle in Mansfield.

For example, in Mansfield last year, police investigated about 70 theft-from-the-person offences, compared with about 1,300 shoplifting offences.

The force also stressed recorded theft-from-person crimes are not necessarily pickpocketing, but include where someone honestly believes something such as phone has been taken, “so these numbers may include more innocent losses of equipment”.

A force spokesman said: “Theft is a non-violent loss and is investigated accordingly.”

Insp Kylie Davies, Nottinghamshire Police’s Mansfield district commander, said: “These numbers refer only to a small minority of our total theft offences and are therefore being presented out of context.

“The majority of theft statistics are made up of shoplifting offences, which – although not mentioned in these numbers – have a detection rate of more than 20 per cent across the force.

“In Mansfield, where we recently made shoplifting a priority area, our detection numbers are even higher. Over the last few months, we have been working hard with our partners and local businesses to prioritise the issue of shop theft and our efforts are clearly paying off.

“By identifying and targeting the handful of repeat offenders in our town we have been able to secure several restrictive criminal behaviour orders that ban people from certain areas or compel them to get help for the addictions that are driving their offending.

“We have also returned a significant number of offenders to prison and will continue to do so in the in the weeks and months ahead. I want people to know, then, that if they commit theft offences in this area, they are likely to end up before the courts.”

Thefts are not the only crime where very few cases result in an appearance in court – despite more than 25,000 cases of blackmail reported in the year to September across England and Wales, 12 forces brought no charges forward at all. In Nottinghamshire, just six of 541 reports of blackmail were prosecuted over the same period.