Shoplifting rose 24% this year, no end in sight Shoplifting has soared in the U.S. in 2024, forcing many stores to leave cities and continuing a trend in recent years. Shoplifting has risen 24% in the first half of 2024 alone, according to newly released data from the Council on Criminal Justice. The White House cited the CCJ’s data to boast a drop in violent crime so far this year, but a closer look at the data showed that while violent crime has declined, shoplifting continues to rise. CCJ studied 23 U.S. cities. Shoplifting has become a major problem in cities around the country, with some store owners announcing they had to close up shop because of the increased theft. Shoplifting and looting during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots helped spur on a new era of increased shoplifting. Several major stores, including CVS, Macy’s, Target, Walmart and others have cited shoplifting when they closed down urban locations. ---------------------- This is a direct result of liberal prosecutors like Alvin Bragg and Larry Krasner refusing to charge shoplifters.
Though only up 10% compared to 2019. Self-checkout a growing part of it. Lobbying group overstated how much "organized" shoplifting hurt retailers A national trade group representing retailers incorrectly attributed half of all industry losses two years ago to organized shoplifting, raising questions about how much merchandise thefts are weighing on retail chains' financial results. In a report on what it calls "organized retail crime," the National Retail Federation (NRF) initially said theft results in $45 billion in annual losses for retailers, roughly half of the industry's total of $94.5 billion in missing merchandise in 2021. But the lobbying group has since retracted the figure, saying the report from the group relied on an inaccurate figure from Ben Dugan, president of the National Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail. The statement that half of all missing merchandise, known in the retail industry as "shrink," was attributable to crime was "a mistaken inference," the NRF said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. It was based on a statement Dugan made in 2021 Senate testimony, the group added. It has since amended the report to make clear that Dugan was citing 2016 statistics representing total retail shrink — not the share attributable to organized theft. ... "Crime is an issue — I don't think that should be denied," he told CBS MoneyWatch. "The problem is there's a lot of talk about it as an issue, but very little quantification of how much an issue it is." A recent analysis from the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice found that reports of shoplifting in two dozen cities rose 16% between 2019 and the first half of 2023. When theft data from New York City was excluded, however, the number of incidents across the other cities fell 7% over that period. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/organi...WNrTGVFSVNCaU14eHYwMk9JTzQyUGxpUFNzMU5VTzdqVg..