California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta organized retail crime in the state, unveiled a new partnership between the Justice Department and over a dozen stores and online marketplaces.
Partners such as Target, Albertsons, and Amazon have vowed to enhance information sharing between law enforcement, retailers who experience theft, and online marketplaces where stolen goods can be sold in order to facilitate prosecution.
California Attorney General and Retailers Join Forces
The agreement also lays out specific responsibilities for the brick-and-mortar businesses signing the agreement, including keeping accurate records of incidents, submitting police reports, and instructing staff on how to obtain relevant evidence.
Also, the Justice Department has developed a brand-new online platform where members of the public can report complaints and tips regarding crimes they may have witnessed.
Instead of shoplifting, employee theft, or fraud, which account for a sizable portion of all retail losses, the project concentrates on organized retail crime.
In recent years, organized retail theft has drawn widespread notice, with both businesses and government officials raising the alarm.
Footage of smash-and-grab burglaries — groups of people breaking store windows and collecting cartfuls of merchandise — have circulated widely, stoking fears that organized crime rings are running rampant and operating complex reselling enterprises.
In response, many retailers have upped their security measures, often to the point of angering their paying customers.
It has become the new normal for basic household items such as toothpaste and allergy medicine to be held behind plastic barriers or security devices — and getting them out requires waiting for an available employee. More products have also been moved behind the cash register.
Complex gangs are not the main cause of retail losses, according to some opponents, who claim that the problem has been exaggerated.
Some contend that merchants have leveraged consumer anxieties to defend discriminating policies and heightened store security.
Disparities in Locking Up Stolen Items Based on Neighborhood Income
Even though the prevalence of property crime was greater in those places, a Times poll of pharmacies in the Los Angeles area in November found that retailers in higher-income districts were locking up fewer often stolen items.
Estimates of how much money retailers lose as a result of incidents of organized retail theft vary greatly. In 2021, at least $35 billion worth of goods are expected to be stolen, according to a National Retail Federation analysis that was published last year.
However, the report did not distinguish between organized crime and shoplifting.
Los Angeles, just ahead of San Francisco and Oakland, was the metro area in the country most impacted by organized retail theft, according to the research.
Target executives claimed that increased theft was responsible for losses of between $700 million and 800 million in 2022 during a teleconference about quarterly earnings in May.
The retail giant predicted that related losses could be up to $500 million more in 2023, to the tune of $1.2 billion.
Some California stores have closed their doors permanently, making subtle references to theft.
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