The number of caught shoplifters rose sharply in the first three months of this year. In Brabant, thieves were caught 1573 times when they tried to take something with them without paying. A year earlier that happened 1130 times. Relatively speaking, most people were caught in Son en Breugel.
Part of the increase is due to the arrival of self-checkout checkouts at supermarkets, criminologists said last month against NOS. The self-scan checkouts lower the threshold for taking things with you without paying. To prevent this, random checks are carried out more often and there is more camera surveillance. As a result, more people are caught.
‘More research needed’
Relatively speaking, most people were caught in Son en Breugel. There were 28 shopliftings in the first quarter of 2023 and 74 thefts in the last year. That is 41 per 10,000 inhabitants. Second is Eindhoven with 272 shoplifters caught in the last quarter and 973 shoplifters in the last year: 40 per 10,000 inhabitants.
In other provinces too, more shoplifters were caught and reported to the police. Nationally, there are 12,578 caught shoplifters. In a response, the police say that more investigation is needed to say something about the cause.
Record broken
Since 2012, the police have been digitally tracking public crime figures, including the number of shoplifting. For years, the number of shoplifters caught in Brabant was around 1300 per quarter in the winter. There was a peak of 1500 in the third quarter of 2013. That record was therefore broken in the first quarter of 2023.
Here you can see how many people have been caught in your municipality:
People answer the question whether they ever steal something at the self-scan checkouts: