The modern day retail store is becoming increasingly tense as a new survey shows incidents of violence and abuse from customers are on the increase.
The survey, released by the British Retail Consortium, shows that there were 43 incidents of physical violence against employees throughout 100 outlets last year.
This is in comparison to only 36 in 2002, with verbal abuse more than doubling over the same period as well as threats of physical abuse rising by 161 per cent.
Many staff members found themselves having to detain people attempting to steal items as well as resolving confrontations resulting from relatively minor issues such as refunding and queuing.
Kevin Hawkins, BRC director general, said: “The hidden cost of crime, the emotional and business viability impact of violence towards staff has shown a serious and worrying rise.
“Retail crime is not victimless. Reducing these figures and the terrible unseen cost of this type of crime is a priority for the industry.”
Industry experts blame the problem on high levels of anti-social behaviour currently affecting local communities, beliefs that bear far wider implications for local economies.
However, although violence and intimidation increased in our local stores, the cost of retail crime has fallen, dropping by £700 million to £1 billion in 2003, down from £1.7 during the previous year.
BRC attributed the decrease to improvements in crime prevention by shop owners, with a 78 per cent increase in security installations, such as CCTV, last year.
Hawkins said, “The visible cost of crime showed a considerable and welcome fall. These figures show how determined retailers have been to tackle this serious problem. Massive investment of resources has led to significant success.”
