§ 30. Mr. Dykesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will consider the establishment of a special departmental study group into ways of combating violence in shops.
Mr. HoggNot at present. However, various research projects by the Home Office crime prevention unit have a650W bearing on the issue of violence in shops. For example, a project carried out for the Home Office by Birmingham university into crime and disorder in shopping centres, including assaults on store staff, has just begun and a report to the Home Office is due next April. A survey of crime and racially-offensive behaviour occurring in over 200 small retail stores in London is currently under way and the report, due by summer 1987, will deal with the incidence of all types of offence, the preventive measures shopkeepers now take and the scope for improving the nature and delivery of preventive advice. From a broader perspective, the work of the crime prevention unit in encouraging stores to tackle shoplifting by prevention has the potential to avoid the violence which can occur when staff attempt to stop suspects (about one in a hundred such arrests lead to violence according to the records of one major retail chain).