Labour to let 12,000 of UK's most prolific shoplifters free to hide prison chaos

Nearly 60% prolific thieves, individuals that have at least 15 previous convictions, avoided jail in 2024, Ministry of Justice data suggests. This is the largest proportion since the department's records began more than 10 years ago.

Of those jailed in the year to September 2025, 76% were jailed for three months or less. Only 1.7% (231 out of 12,734 shoplifters sentenced to prison) were sentenced for a year or more. Overall, shoplifting offences increased in England and Wales in the year to September, but remained slightly below record levels seen in the 12 months to March 2025, the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures available show.

There were 519,381 shoplifting offences in the year to September 2025, up 5% from 492,660 the previous year.

"This is a shoplifters' charter and means shop theft will snowball out of control," he added.

An MoJ said: "This Government inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse. The suspension of short sentences is part of wider, urgent reform to ensure our prison system isn't pushed to the brink of collapse ever again and dangerous criminals are kept off our streets.

"It would be wrong to suggest every short sentence for shoplifting will be suspended - particularly in the case of reoffenders. However, evidence shows that community orders and suspended sentences act as a more successful deterrent to reoffending than prison time.

"This Government is committed to punishment that works as we tackle recurring shoplifting which blights our communities and high streets. We are delivering one of the biggest expansions of tagging in British history - backed by £100 million in funding - which will target shoplifters among other offenders."