Shoplifting in Scotland is up 25% in a year and yet the news has created barely a ripple. People walk into shops, they steal, they pinch, they nick, they leave, the authorities appear to do nothing, or virtually nothing, the problem gets worse, and we look up from our phones, or don’t, and say: what do you want me to do about it, it’s how the world works, isn’t it?

In some ways, yes. The very first person who opened a shop was faced in no time at all with the very first person who wanted to steal from it; the earliest recorded cases of shoplifting are from the 17th century. We also know that shoplifting gets worse when the economy isn’t doing well and under this government, and the last one, the economy isn’t doing well.

But even so, the latest figures are extraordinary. According to the Scottish Government statistics, in the year to September 2024, shoplifting incidents increased from 33,789 to 42,271. Looked at from 2020, the increase is 70%, from 24,861 to 42,271. And that’s just the recorded crime. How much shoplifting isn’t being detected? How many shopkeepers aren’t reporting it? However big the problem really is, it’s clear something big is driving it.

According to conservative critics, it’s the fault of a weak justice system and government cuts to policing. The Scottish Tories’ justice spokesman Liam Kerr said no one would be surprised by the increase in shoplifting because those responsible know that if they’re caught, they’ll often get no more than a slap on the wrist.

I can see what he’s saying to some extent. There have been cuts to policing. It’s also true the sentencing for shoplifting is pretty light. Your first time? A fine, probably. Been caught a couple of times? A few months in prison, possibly. Although even if you do get a longer term, the Scottish Government’s Early Release Bill, passed this week, means that if the sentence is for four years or less, you’ll only serve 40% of it.

However, the harshness or otherwise of the sentence has never really been the point with shoplifting. Until the 19th century, the offence attracted the death penalty – and some offenders were executed – and yet people still risked their lives to steal. The most obvious explanation is they felt they had to - they were motivated by poverty - but more recently, there’s been the phenomenon of the middle-class shoplifter (nicking organic humous and other edible stereotypes). We know organised gangs have got into shoplifting in a big way too.

More important than sentencing though – for shoplifting and all crime actually – is what are the chances of getting caught. After the news about the 25% increase, The Scottish Grocers’ Federation confirmed that the official figures are only the tip of it; they said 77% of their members were unlikely or very unlikely to report shoplifting to the police because they have little confidence there would be a meaningful outcome. The federation has now written to the Finance Secretary to ask for emergency funding for the police to deal with the problem.

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Would it work? It’s interesting that The Grocers’ Federation says the extra funding would “send a message” because I fear that’s all it would do. A large, and expensive, increase in the number of officers tasked with shoplifting might, just might, increase the chance of being caught but it wouldn’t change the sentences being handed out or the slap-on-the-wrist culture, if that’s what it is. It also wouldn’t change the deeper trends that are helping feed the increase.

You know what I mean. My local Tesco Metro. The other night. The staff, two of them just, are at the back of the shop. There’s no one at the self-check-out and no one at the door. The thought occurs to me, not for the first time, that it would be easy to leave without paying for some or all of my stuff. I don’t do it of course – my criminal career is only in my head, mother – but how many people do go for it? Lots, and increasing, because who said stealing was hard.

It does surprise me a bit that this issue doesn’t come up more in discussions about shoplifting because self-service checkouts are central to what’s going on. It’s no coincidence that Japan, which has traditionally had low rates of crime, has also seen a rise in shoplifting as self-service has proliferated. And Andrew Goodacre of the British Independent Retailers Association has pointed out what’s going on: where once there would have been lots of staff round the checkouts and exits, now there are very few, if any. Mr Goodacre says retailers are going to have to think through the consequences of the business choices they’ve made and work out the best way to protect themselves.

(Image: A warning against shoplifing)

None of this should let the authorities off the hook. It would also be unfair to lump small retailers in with the big ones because the smaller guys are also suffering from the increase in shoplifting and don’t usually have self-service checkouts. It’s obvious too, as I said, that cultural and social factors play their part, not least poverty and the cost of living.

But what the trend towards self-service proves is that if you make shoplifting easier, more people will do it, and more people will hear that it’s easier, leading to even more people doing it, in shops of all kinds. Could we arrest our way out of the problem? Not sure. And how many police would it take anyway? And how much would it cost?

Better, I think, for the big retailers to accept that the trend towards self-checkout has gone too far, change tack and increase staffing levels (it’s started to happen a bit already with security guards appearing on the exits of some stores). Yes, it’ll cost more. And it will reduce profits for a while. But better that than watch your profits walk out the door with a bunch of shoplifters buzzing with impunity. Remember: 25% this time. What about next year?