§ Mr. PickthallTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether separate statistics are kept on retail crime. [151350]
§ Ms Blears[holding answer 27 January 2004]Currently, with the exception of a limited number of crime categories, such as 'theft from shops'. which explicitly relate to retail crime—police recorded crime figures provide only a very limited picture of crimes experienced by the retail sector.
However, surveys such as the recent Commercial Victimisation Survey 2002 (a survey of over 6,500 retail and manufacturing premises) provide a fuller and more accurate picture of business crime, measuring both reported and unreported crime.
This survey captures statistics on crime experienced by businesses in the previous year, the cost of crime, concerns about problems and crime in the local area, action taken by businesses to respond to criminal incidents and their crime prevention precautions.
Provisional headline findings were released on 13 August 2003. The main findings should be published this spring.