A gang of underage teenagers are allegedly "marauding through Glasgow, central Scotland and Edinburgh with impunity", a not-for-profit crime partnership has said, highlighting the need of Scottish government to change its stance of lenient treatment of young offenders.
According to Retailers Against Crime, a group of about 42 youngsters, mostly under 18, is on a rampage shoplifting in Scotland and are behind about 160 separate incidents. They make no effort to conceal their identities, are violent and have been caught on CCTV brazenly removing high-value items from shelves and putting them into bags.
Maxine Fraser, the managing director of Retailers Against Crime, told the Scottish Daily Mail, “There are 42 of them, most under 18, and they are marauding through Glasgow, central Scotland and Edinburgh with impunity.”
Fraser described the youths as brazen, recounting instances where they dismiss security officers’ attempts to intervene.
“They are extremely violent. They have thrown bottles at staff and customers — because there are no consequences,” she added.
Retailers Against Crime, the organisation that compiles reports and video evidence, has said that store security personnel are ineffective in deterring these offenders.
The gang is believed to be based in Glasgow but use buses to travel across the central belt for its criminal activities, primarily targeting alcohol. The gang is said to have targeted stores in Edinburgh city centre, Stirling, Falkirk, Dumbarton and Prestwick.
Fraser is calling on Scottish government to change its stance of increasingly lenient treatment of young offenders in Scotland, which she believed was enabling such crime.
“Whoever decided on these laws has no idea what is going on out in the retail world because they don’t listen, and they need to listen to the retailers,” she said.
Fraser has called for the police to be granted statutory powers to revoke bus passes used in criminal activities, a measure possible only under a court directive at present.
Police Scotland said that a number of charges had been filed in connection with the thefts.
Russell Findlay, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, in a recent parliamentary address, raised the issue of rising violent cases against retailers, noting that some staff members had already lost their lives and also that shoplifting statistics were largely meaningless owing to under-reporting.
Findlay said, "Retail crime is out of control in Scotland. And it’s not me saying that, it’s the retailers and the police. It’s [crime] targeted and it’s organised. The gang members are brazen. They make no attempts to hide their faces and they sweep high-value items from the shelves.
“It’s inevitable that more people will end up dead. The police tell the retailers that their hands are tied and I speak with police officers who often feel powerless and frustrated,” he said.
