SHOPLIFTERS are being targeted by police after a spike in theft.
Officers have made reducing shop theft a priority after a huge rise in the past two months.
As revealed in the Mail, the biggest increase has been in people stealing food. Police believe this is due to people struggling to make ends meet.
Sergeant Rob Danby, of the Riverside neighbourhood policing team, said: "Since April, shop theft has spiked. There has been a noticeable rise in people stealing, and a significant increase in food theft.
"We are trying to look at the reasons why and reduce the numbers."
In April, shoplifting rose by 50 per cent in the St Andrew's ward, which includes Hessle Road, and 11 per cent in the city centre.
View a map of crimes in the Riverside Police area of central Hull.Earlier this year, police launched a Shop Watch scheme in Hessle Road, which links traders and the police through a radio system.
Sgt Danby said: "The increase has been across the area but, for the past two years, there have been significant reductions in shoplifting. The numbers aren't huge, but they are going back to the levels we were seeing around two years ago.
"There has been a bigger increase in Hessle Road but, hopefully, the Shop Watch scheme will have an effect on that.
"It means the shop owners can talk to each other about prolific offenders they see in the area, they can share intelligence about suspected shoplifters and warn each other when a theft has happened."
Police officers have also been carrying out extra patrols in the shoplifting hotspots. In the city centre, they have been joined by security officers from Hull BID to walk the streets.
Prolific shoplifters who are arrested are being given bail conditions banning them from the shopping areas they target.
"We have increased the amount of highly visible patrols around the city centre in order to reassure retailers and businesses and deter criminals," said Sgt Danby.
"We have also been conducting regular meetings with security officers from stores all around the city centre.
"Using bail conditions to ban known offenders from shopping areas also helps to prevent thefts, because they can be arrested if they are seen in that area before they have chance to commit a crime."
Sgt Danby said officers have also been giving shop owners advice about how to lay their stores out to make them less vulnerable to thieves.
Cardboard cut-outs of police officers have also been given to stores in the city centre, with one now prominently placed in the entrance to Tesco in St Stephen's Shopping Centre.
Posters warning that 75 per cent of shoplifters are caught have also been given to shops.
Sgt Danby said: "We want to let people know that, if they steal, the chances are they will be caught.
"We are monitoring the level of shoplifting daily. We want to reduce it and carry on making the city centre a safer place for people to live, work and visit.
"We want to focus on prevention, rather than detection and stop the thefts before the occur. People often say shoplifting is a victimless crime, but it has a huge impact on businesses and the city, so we want to put a stop to it."
Officers and police volunteers are also holding weekly events in St Stephen's to increase police presence in the centre and meet shoppers. They will be giving out crime prevention advice in the car parks, organising bike marking and showing people how to register their property on the online database Immobilise.
