Recommendation 15

We strongly support calls for Police and Crime Commissioners to make action on violence and abuse towards retail workers a priority in police and crime plans. We are very concerned how few appear to have prioritised this in past plans, or to have recognised the human cost of retail crime. The resetting of police and crime plans, following the Police and Crime Commissioner elections in May 2021, presents a valuable window of opportunity to ensure that this previously neglected crime is properly prioritised in future. We also encourage Police and Crime Commissioners to set out in their police and crime plans how they will measure their police force’s performance in response to violence and abuse towards retail workers. A particularly effective approach for building confidence would be for local police forces, retailers and Police and Crime Commissioners to discuss and agree a performance metric for the policing response which is tailored to the challenges faced in their local area. (Paragraph 79) 64 Violence and abuse towards retail workers