Middle-class shoplifting: how bougie bandits got in on the act

"Well-off, middle-aged women" are being blamed for a shoplifting spree in Surrey, amid rocketing rates of retail crime by the middle classes.

Shop owners in Haslemere told The Telegraph that the problem has become so bad, they've formed a WhatsApp group to let each other know about thefts and to share CCTV footage of key bourgeois shelf-raider suspects.

What are the middle classes swiping?

It seems that most middle-class shoplifting is carried out at big supermarket chains: robbing the comfortable to feed the comfortable. I "helped myself to more than £1,000 of goods" over 12 months, said Samantha Donnelly on the Mail Online. It all started when I forgot to scan a large bag of nappies hanging from my daughter's buggy. My shoplifting escalated before I was eventually caught when, for reasons I'll "never fully understand", I decided to "chance my luck and steal the whole weekly shop".

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In an article for The Independent, an anonymous "middle-class shoplifter" described getting a "buzz" after "I took the tag off the organic leeks and pretended they were normal leeks at the checkout". I've since moved on to regular shoplifting, she wrote, including "tins of tomatoes (the posh brands)", "Linwoods seed mix", "organic salmon" and "sourdough crumpets".

Another affluent shoplifter named only as Emma, a 37-year-old PR from south London, told London's The Standard that before using the self-checkout, she often "siphons off" some "small, higher-value items", such as smoked salmon, Brie or "a punnet of blueberries", into her tote bag.

Why are the middle classes shoplifting?

It's no surprise that the "middle-class crim with a sense of entitlement" is on the rise, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. There is "an assumption of middle-class probity", which means "nobody checks my bag" and, "when there's an unidentified item in the bagging area, the assistant will wave it through without a glance".

For "well-spoken, nicely-dressed professionals", shoplifting has practically become "risk-free", said The Standard. "They know that, if they got caught they could say, 'Oh my gosh, how silly of me'," Emmeline Taylor a professor of criminology at City, University of London, told the paper.

The trend in middle-class shoplifters has been growing "ever since self-service checkouts were introduced", she said. The cost-of-living crisis has "exacerbated the problem", because "even wealthier people are feeling the pinch". And, as "they've got used to a certain standard of living", they think "helping themselves to a few high-value items is the answer".

Middle-class people might also be less likely to accept that they're breaking the law. "I don't even see it as shoplifting: people like me don't do that," wrote The Independent's anonymous thief. "I'm a nice middle-class woman with young children!"

Is shoplifting on the rise overall?

Between September 2023 and September 2024, the number of customer theft incidents reported by UK retailers "rose by 3.7 million to 20.4 million", costing shop owners "an estimated £2 billion", said the BBC.

Shoplifting is "out of control", the British Retail Consortium told the broadcaster. There are "increasingly brazen and violent acts of theft" and, because "shop staff are advised not to intervene" for their own safety, shoplifters "don't fear any consequences".