Background Low-value shop theft
95.The police are empowered to prosecute directly a number of uncontested, low level cases without the involvement of the CPS, and a best practice model for police-led prosecutions is being implemented in a number of pathfinder areas. Police-led prosecutions are designed to be a simpler and more proportionate response to high-volume, low-level offences where the case is uncontested, increasing police discretion to tackle crime in their area, freeing up CPS resource to focus on more complex cases and generating efficiencies in the criminal justice system. On 16 May 2012, as part of the Government’s commitment to improve the efficiency of the criminal justice system, the Home Secretary announced her intention in a Written Ministerial Statement to simplify and extend the police-led prosecutions model (House of Commons, Official Report, column 36WS; House of Lords, Official Report, column WS37).
96.Shop theft is a high-volume crime that causes significant harm in local communities. Under current law the police may choose to deal with such offences by means of a Penalty Notice for Disorder,(44) where this is deemed appropriate. However, approximately 80,000 cases of shop theft come to court each year and the fact that the vast majority of these are dealt with in magistrates’ courts (where most cases result in a guilty plea) makes shop theft a suitable offence for the simpler, more proportionate police-led process. In addition, the value of goods stolen is typically low. Research into shop theft in 2006(45) showed that the median value of goods stolen was £40, and that 90% of cases involved property worth less than £200. Shop theft has, therefore, been identified as a suitable offence for police-led prosecutions. However, the police-led model is designed for summary-only offences, that is, cases that are dealt with in the magistrates’ courts rather than the Crown Courts. In order to extend the benefits of this simpler, police-led model to uncontested cases of low-value shop theft, section 176 enables minor offences of shoplifting in England and Wales to be treated as summary only for most purposes.