Crime Stoppers and Tas Police asking for public help in stopping shoplifting
With retail crime on the rise across Tasmania, a determined push is underway involving police, Crime Stoppers, and the community to tackle shoplifting. How you can help.
Launceston
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Crime Stoppers have been sharing images and video to their social media to get information from the public, helping to identify 11 out of 19 suspects.
Crime Stoppers general manager Aldo Antolli said Crime Stoppers would now be increasing this campaign, which began eight weeks ago.
“Sixty per cent of the individuals we put up on our Facebook site has actually led to arrests or criminal convictions and we wanted to expand on that,” he said.
“There’s a huge amount of interest from local government where commercial customers are facing the scourge of shoplifting and retail crime with many organisations and customers facing losses of multiple thousands of dollars per day, which increases the burden on their staff and retail crime is often accompanied very often by aggressive and anti-social behaviour.”
Mr Antolli said in the campaign launched in the south, there had been 115,000 views on their Facebook page and 11,000 on their website.
‘We’ll be posting regularly photos of people of interest and we would like you, the public, to name those individuals,” he said.
“Follow the link on the Facebook page and then go to the open case that we have on our website … you can anonymously put in information.”
Bunnings is often hit with shoplifters, with Launceston store site manager Matt Edwards stating he has people as young as 15 working their first job.
“It’s not so much the financial impact, it’s about the impact it has on our team,” he said.
“They’re subject to that behaviour daily and I feel really sorry for them.”
Mr Edwards said they’ll often see familiar faces shoplifting.
“They can get arrested one week and be back the following week which is frustrating for ourselves and also police,” he said.
Mr Edwards said shoplifters often target tools, automotive section and power garden section.
He said they often ban people from the store.
Tasmania Police Acting Commander John Toohey said speaking up about retail crime was taking a stand for the community.
“We know Tasmania is a safe place to live, however there is a small proportion of people that commit a large proportion of the crime and we want to target those people,” he said.
“This campaign is something we want to stand behind.”
Commander Toohey said there has been an increase in retail crime across Tasmania and was a focus of Tasmania Police.
Crime Stoppers provide Tasmania Police 30 to 40 per cent of all their actionable intelligence on all sort of crimes every month.