Hampshire police commissioner Donna Jones, a strong advocate of rehabilitating offenders, said that sending shoplifters to jail did not work and that shop owners could help to pay to get them some help. Stuart Reddish, national president of the NFRN, said he found Jones’ attitude “bewildering and completely out of touch with reality”. He said: “I would like to ask Miss Jones how she would react if someone walked into her home and started helping themselves to her possessions. “The response so far has been positive, but the opinions expressed by Miss Jones completely undermine the work we are doing to highlight the scale and seriousness of these offences. “Apart from the financial impact that shoplifting has on businesses, such incidents often escalate and lead to verbal or physical attacks on shop owners and their staff when the perpetrators are challenged.”