![]() ![]() What has received far less attention, however, is the fact that California’s Prop. Soon after it passed, retailers in California began reporting a sharp uptick in retail theft, often in plain view of helpless store personnel and distressed customers. recent headline-making “flash mob” shoplifting sprees have brought widespread attention to Proposition 47 - a 2014 state ballot initiative, supported by a range of left-leaning and libertarian groups, which, among other things, boosted the felony threshold for shoplifting from $450 of merchandise to $950. Nine people were initially charged with organizing a brazen theft of a Louis Vuitton store in San Francisco in November 2021. “Without deterrents and accountability, communities will be victimized, and businesses terrorized,” said Laura Cooper, head of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. ![]() Like retailers, top law-enforcement officials place some of the blame for the crime surge on a widespread lessening of penalties for shoplifting. Nearly two-thirds of the retailers surveyed by the National Retail Federation said that violence associated with store thefts has risen, led by organized gangs that resell the goods they steal. Shoplifting no longer fits its traditional mold as a nonviolent crime perpetrated mostly by teens or substance-abusing adults. Now that retailing has resumed, crime has spiked again. The COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and early 2021 moderated losses, largely because stores were closed or had curtailed operating hours. The biggest increase over that period happened not during the pandemic but in 2019, when total losses from shoplifting surged to $61 billion, up from $50 billion the previous year. The National Retail Federation reported that store losses mounted from $453,940 per $1 billion in sales in 2015 to $719,458 in 2020. Retail crime has been rising throughout the US for the past five years, with organized criminal rings targeting stores everywhere from Woonsocket (Rhode Island) to Greensboro (North Carolina) to Grafton (Wisconsin). Lowe’s worker fired after 13 years of employment for confronting thieves trying to steal $2K of merchandise Lowe’s worker axed after trying to stop shoplifters gets her job back Journalist witnesses 3 thefts in 30 minutes during segment at most-robbed Walgreens in US ![]() Shoplifting is big business for organized theft, not to feed families ![]()
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