By Henry Green
A former shoplifter and drug user has been working with police to educate people on the effects of going to prison – and supporting shops to avoid thefts.
James, who’s originally from Birmingham, has been in and out of prison 22 times over the last three decades.
He overcame offending with the support of Nottinghamshire Police’s Offender to Rehabilitation programme as he is now almost two years clean.
The programme offers support to individuals responsible for anti-social behaviour and crime.
James also speaks to shops and businesses about how they can deter people from shoplifting.
He told Notts TV: “I started shoplifting at a very young age, something I used to do with my friends we’d steal stuff to sell at school.
“I started smoking cannabis aged eight, I progressed onto heroin at 13, 14, and shoplifting how I funded my addiction.
“I work in drug services now and a lot of my clients say they’d rather be in prison than be out here. After I was released from prison, out of 22 times only once was I released with somewhere to live and it just gets overwhelming,” he added.
James urged anyone in a similar position to what he was in to “accept a bit of help.”
In the near future, James, who now lives in the East Midlands, plans to visit schools and educate children on crime and addiction.
He added: “One thing I’m really passionate about is trying to get people with lived experience of crime to be able to go into schools and sit down with these kids and tell them exactly what prison is like.
“I often think if I had someone who sat down and told me exactly what it was going to be like would I have went down that path.
“Even if you change one kids perspective and get them to go on the right path I think it would be worth it.”
Nottinghamshire Police PC Joanna Baxter was on the streets with James for a day of action on Thursday (October 31).
She says the force uses data to help tackle shoplifting, with officers saying drug users who shoplift steal roughly three times more than the amount they spend funding their habit.
PC Joanna said: “Rather than just putting a plaster over some of the symptoms of it by sending people back and forward to prison but actually what the cause of why they’re committing the crimes.
“Often that’s from trauma which has led to their addiction.”
Inspector Ollie Vale has been a police officer for 17 years, with seven of those spent at Nottinghamshire Police.
Inspector Ollie Vale said: “One of the good things is we’re seeing a lot of people reporting shoplifting to us because shoplifting is a crime that’s underreported nationally.
“Part of that is to do with a lot of the work we’ve done with retailers and we’ve been very successful at getting those links within the community because people feel like we’re actually going to do something about it.”
Office for National Statistics figures show there were 15,361 recorded shoplifting offences in Nottinghamshire across the 12 months to March 2024.
This is up from 12,433 in the previous year, a rise of 23.5 per cent.
Police hope support from ex-offenders like James will support stores in better protecting themselves – and deter potential criminals from committing the offences.
