More career criminals will be convicted under Tory plans to force police officers to build stronger cases against shoplifters, the Daily Express can reveal.
In a major win for our Stop The Shoplifters crusade, officers will be told to run all CCTV images of retail thefts through the millions of entries on the Police National Computer database to identify and build prosecutions against offenders if the Conservatives win the next election.
And the expanded use of facial recognition technology will lead to more thieves being caught and thrown in prison, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp believes.
If a shoplifter is committing their first offence, the images will be added to the PNC so that when they commit their next crime, facial recognition technology can identify them, link them and allow officers to move forward in both cases.
Retailers have estimated that up to 70 per cent of the thefts from their stores are carried out by just 10 per cent of shoplifting offenders.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told the Daily Express: “Shoplifting has surged 20% under Labour to the highest ever level.
“We need a zero-tolerance crackdown where shoplifters are actually caught and sent to prison. Ramping up facial recognition technology can do this.
“The next Conservative Government will ensure police use all the tools at their disposal to clamp down hard, and deliver the law and order our businesses and high streets deserve.
“These scumbags are putting livelihoods at risk with rampant theft and Labour’s weak tolerance of this scandal must end.”
And judges must come down on shoplifting “scumbags” like a tonne of bricks and hand out proper punishments, Robert Jenrick declared.
The Shadow Justice Secretary warned of a “two-tier nightmare under Keir Starmer” as career criminals avoid jail whilst offensive tweets lead to prison sentences.
The top Tory vowed to abolish the Sentencing Council, declaring sentences are being “watered down” despite the law allowing judges lock offenders up for longer.
Mr Jenrick warned the “public are sick of voting for tougher sentences and getting the opposite”.
He exclusively told the Daily Express: “I believe in the broken window theory of policing – if you allow so-called low-level crime it will only spiral. It’s time to come down on these criminals like a tonne of bricks.
“The scumbags that shoplift and burgle blight the lives of ordinary people and need to be properly punished. But the sentencing council has allowed judges to water down sentences. Enough.
“Two-tier justice isn’t a conspiracy theory. Until the public pressure got too big and forced Starmer to u-turn, it was explicitly his government’s policy.
“Starmer is testing the patience of the public when he claims the public are imagining two-tier justice. The responsible thing to do would listen to the concerns and sort it out. He should start by abolishing the Sentencing Council whose biased sentencing rules replaced equality with prejudice.”
Police recorded more than 530,000 shoplifting offences in the year to March 2025, up 20% in a year.
And retailers have warned of gangs marauding into shops, sweeping items off shelves, attacking and threatening staff and returning day after day.
Almost 800 shoplifting cases went unsolved every day last year.
A staggering 289,464 shoplifting cases were closed before a suspect was intensified up from 245,337 the previous year.
Just 18% resulted in a suspect being prosecuted.
Highlighting the crisis in the justice system, Mr Jenrick will warn judges, under law, can lock up burglars for 14 years.
But the Sentencing Council says thieves who break into someone’s home should be imprisoned for between 0 and six years – a staggering difference of 57%.
And thugs who attack emergency workers can be jailed for up to two years.
But sentencing guidelines handed to judges states they should be locked up for 12 months.
Mr Jenrick will say on Tuesday: “The Sentencing Council is not fit for purpose. Never again can the British people face the prospect of two-tier justice.
“We are slipping into a two-tier nightmare under Keir Starmer.
“All too frequently the law is not applied equally. No more – every single person in this country must be treated exactly the same, regardless of their background.
“The public are sick of voting for tougher sentences and getting the opposite. So, in future the Justice Secretary, accountable to Parliament, will be responsible for setting sentencing policy. No longer will an unaccountable quango be able to subvert the will of the British people for criminals to be properly punished.”
The Shadow Justice Secretary said a new prison in Scotland is costing taxpayers a staggering £2million per cell.
And some in England are costing an eye-watering £600,000 per cell.
Mr Jenrick stressed ministers must build more prisons to ensure dangerous criminals can always be locked up.
The Express’ has launched its Stop The Shoplifters crusade demanding government action to address the crisis and is calling for police to attend all reports of retail theft to help cut the crime epidemic. Retailers have spent £1.8bn on their own security whilst the cost of theft has soared to £2.2bn – a cost that retailers inevitably pass on to hard-pressed customers.”
The Sentencing Council, responsible for setting the guidelines used by judges, found itself at the centre of a row earlier this year after it issued guidance recommending judges take into account factors such as ethnicity or gender when deciding whether to ask for a pre-sentence report.
Mr Jenrick and others said the guidance would result in people facing a lesser punishment on the basis of their ethnicity.
The proposal was withdrawn and the Government has introduced legislation to require any new guidance to be approved by ministers.
A Labour spokesperson, responding to the Conservatives’ announcement on the Sentencing Council, said: “This is yet more rank hypocrisy from a Conservative Party that wrecked our justice system and left Labour to pick up the pieces.
“After fourteen years of Tory neglect, our prisons were left bursting at the seams because they didn’t build enough prisons, our courts overwhelmed, and public confidence in the justice system was left shattered.
“The Conservatives backed the proposed changes to pre-sentencing reports when they were announced and did nothing to stop them when they were in government. Labour took action the moment we uncovered their mistake.
“This is just another cynical gimmick from Jenrick, a man who constantly undermines the independence of the judiciary just to further his own career.”