UK replaces cops with cardboard cut-outs in effort to reduce shoplifting

POLICE in the UK have shelled out more than £50,000 to place cardboard cut-outs of officers in stores to discourage shoplifting. Real-life memes?

Police cardboard cut-outs to act as reminders inside hotels.

POLICE in the UK have shelled out more than £50,000 to place cardboard cut-outs of officers in shops.

The bizarre move is intended fool would-be shoplifters and petrol thieves into thinking they are being watched by real coppers, the Daily Mail reports.

But police admit that they don’t actually know if the cut-outs stop crime.

We reckon they’d be better off at least putting a security camera in each one like the White Goodman cardboard cut-out from the movie Dodgeball.

“Nobody makes me bleed my own blood. Nobody.” - White Goodman

The British police force has bought more than 750 of the replicas, at the same time as axing more than 10,000 officers, according to the Daily Mail.

Police had spent a combined £53,940 on 782 cardboard cut-outs since 2008.

South Yorkshire Police claimed the cut-outs reduced crime by 35 per cent, but this could not be verified.

Better than the real thing? … Constable Chris Gilby with his cardboard likeness carrying the message “Don't drink and drive”.

Originally published as UK replaces cops with cardboard cut-outs in effort to reduce shoplifting