Shoplifting Up 24% Nationally

New data from the Council on Criminal Justice indicate that; in a survey of 39 cities that consistently report crime statistics, violent crime has declined slightly over the first half of 2024, while shoplifting has increased by 24%. An article by Hans Bader in Liberty Unyielding reports that following the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, retail theft has reached epidemic levels in the cities surveyed. This has forced the closure of major stores in some locations including Macys, CVS, Walgreens, Target and Walmart, which have become unprofitable or unsafe due to repeated thefts,. sometimes by mobs of shoplifters.

In many parts of the country, laws have changed to reduce the consequences of shoplifting which has led to more thefts.  In other cities, progressive district attorneys financed by socialist billionaire George Soros have simply refused to prosecute thieves who steal less than $1,000 worth of merchandise.

Shoplifters are less likely to be prosecuted in Washington, D.C. than they used to be. “Federal prosecutors in the Washington, D.C., U.S. attorney’s office declined to prosecute 67% of those arrested by the police in cases that would have been tried in the D.C. Superior Court in 2022, according to The Washington Post. . . . As recently as 2015, the prosecutor’s office was only rejecting 35% of arrests that would have been tried in the Superior Court.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office is headed by Matthew Graves, who was appointed by Joe Biden.

Axios says the “problem is made worse by flash mobs like the 80 people who stormed a Nordstrom in San Francisco in November, and organized retail crime groups that often hire homeless people and drug addicts as “boosters” to do the dirty work. Store shelves aren’t the only places getting hit: Warehouses and cargo trucks are also in the crosshairs. Teams of “boosters” will throng a store with laundry bags, grabbing what they can and assaulting workers who confront them—sometimes fatally. One Bay Area crime ring stole $8 million in merchandise from CVS, Walgreens, and Target stores. Another one ripped off a staggering $50 million in goods—mostly health and beauty products that thieves stockpiled in a warehouse. “More than $1.6 million in razor blades alone were recovered.”

While progressives who support policies that excuse shoplifting consider it a “low level” crime, the financial losses retailers suffer are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices and when stores close, particularly in poorer neighborhoods, residents can no longer purchase food and medications locally.

The answer, of course, is to restore consequences for theft, especially for repeat offenders. California may do this in November when voters have a chance to pass Proposition 36, a ballot measure that also addresses drug addiction.

It took almost 25 years for pro-criminal politicians to quietly dismantle the criminal justice systems in places like California, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and New York.  The 2020 riots were a wake-up call for millions of Americans who suddenly discovered that their cities, suburbs, and businesses were no longer safe.  Let’s hope that it doesn’t take another 25 years to put the guardrails back up and put some teeth back into law enforcement.