Current data reveals that the incidence of shoplifting in the three most populous US cities – New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago – extends beyond pre-pandemic levels. This information is offered by the politically impartial research team, Council on Criminal Justice. The sudden and rather steep advancement in retail larceny indexes in past years has pushed this once overlooked issue into prominence, particularly amongst political discourse aimed at public safety. The year 2020 snowballed this trend when numerous videos of rampant ‘smash-and-grab’ thefts went viral amidst the COVID-19 crisis, stimulating an elevated fear of unchecked crime among the masses.
Although recent polls suggest a slight ebbing of this fear, the majority sentiment is that criminal activities today far exceed past figures. Increasingly, there is a perceived audacious demeanor among the criminal fraternity where they believe they can freely plunder a store without repercussions. This not only impacts the buying public but the retail organizations too. It is crucial to instill in them that the rule of law is not optional. It’s a message that was echoed by a collective of eight states including Arizona, California, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, New York, and Vermont.
In the year 2024, these states enacted 14 laws aimed at curbing the menace of retail theft. These legal efforts encompassed the restructuring of commercial crime definitions, adjusting sanctions, approving cross-county accumulation of theft indictments, and safeguarding retail workforce. Retail giants reacted to the theft upsurge since 2020 by securing merchandise, enhancing CCTV technologies, recruiting private security agencies, and even resorting to shutting down stores. Nevertheless, shoplifting continues to defy these efforts.
In the case of Chicago, though the reported shoplifting cases remained lesser than pre-pandemic statistics throughout 2023, there was a 46% rise from January to October 2024 compared to figures from the equivalent duration of the previous year. Similarly, in Los Angeles, the rate of shoplifting was up by 87% in 2023 compared to 2019. The January-October 2024 period saw a decrease when compared to 2023, possibly impacted by the city’s transition to a new crime reporting system installed in March 2024.
However, this new system may have led to a partly misleading decrease in numbers, as suggested in the report. New York City witnessed an increase of 48% in shoplifting from 2021 to 2022, albeit a slight drop was seen in the subsequent year. Even so, the shoplifting rate in New York was 55% higher in 2023 compared to 2019. The start of the year, from January to September in 2024, saw a slight surge of 3% in comparison to the same period the previous year.
Interestingly, the typical late-year spike in shoplifting cases, often attributed to holiday shopping, appeared to be overshadowed in 2024. Data from the Council on Criminal Justice, capturing a sample array of 23 American cities, showed higher incidences in the initial half of 2024 as compared to 2023. Despite concerted efforts by retailers to stem the tide of thefts, researchers were taken aback that the rates continued to climb. This anomaly suggests that increased detection and reporting of shoplifting may be more responsible for the surge rather than a tangible increase in theft incidents.
Contemplations about the spike in numbers resulted in a challenge when trying to comprehend shoplifting trends. From the period of 2018 to 2023, the locales of major shoplifting occurrences in Chicago were primarily the downtown area, Old Town, the Lincoln Park, and River North neighborhoods. In an effort to mitigate these numbers, Eileen O’Neill Burke, the newly inaugurated Cook County State’s Attorney, in the current month reduced the felony charging threshold for retail thefts from $1,000 to $300, aligning it with state law.
Retailers nationally have expressed increased concerns for organized retail crime rings. The National Retail Federation reported that 36% of the total $112.1 billion recorded as merchandise losses in 2022 was due to external theft, inclusive of organized retail misdemeanors. Organized retail felonies generally involve group coordination to pilfer items with the ultimate goal of reselling these products for gains. Items often targeted in these thefts are high-demand products such as infant formula, laundry detergents, and electronics.
Experts in public policy emphasize that shoplifting and its organized versions significantly damage pivotal industrial sectors, inflate consumer prices, and curtail sales tax contributions to states. These concerns have spurred recent moves at state levels to enhance penalties for shoplifting. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom enacted a set of 10 laws in August to address the issue of retail theft. These regulations enabled multiple theft convictions to be treated as felonious, allowed crimes across counties to be charged as a single felony, and authorized arresting officers to apprehend suspects even without direct witnessing of the theft.
In September, Governor Newsom signed another bill mandating increased felony punishments for large-scale theft crimes. Later in November, California’s electorate massively voted in favor of a ballot measure aimed at making penalties harsher for specific theft and drug-related crimes. A third-time offender, irrespective of the monetary value of the stolen goods, could now face felony charges under this new regulation.
With the inception of these legislative modifications, the focus primarily leans onto ensuring the prompt arrival of law enforcement when required and dedicated prosecution efforts. These are the key elements in deterring retail theft in communities. In New Jersey, a bill with bipartisan support is currently undergoing legislative review. If successful, it could increase the penalties for leaders of organized shoplifting rings and enable extended prison terms for recurrent offenders.
This proposed New Jersey legislation aims squarely at a formally organized criminal cohort that wreaks havoc on local businesses. It is designed to act as a deterrent by allowing extended periods of imprisonment of up to 10 to 20 years for those found guilty of leading a retail crime group, and increased penalties for serial shoplifters based on theft value aggregated over a year. The bill also proposes measures for the protection of retail workers, including stricter penalties for assaults committed against them, and demands retailers to train employees in identifying gift card scams.
In Maryland, this year’s legislative session saw the consideration of a parallel law. This proposed bill would have categorized organized retail theft as a felony. Although the bill did not pass the committee stage, plans are afoot to propose a new bill targeting gift-card fraud in the next legislative session.