SAN FRANCISCO, CA — California is currently the most successful state in selling the “War on Retail Crime,” according to Business Insider.
And, an upcoming new measure will be proposed next month on Nov. 5, which would eliminate the “$950 requirement on the third offense, effectively creating a ‘three strikes’ rule for shoplifting,” the article reported.
Originally, California passed a law in 2018 “defining organized retail theft as two or more people who steal ‘with the intent to sell, exchange, or return the merchandise for value,’” and the theft becomes a felony if the total amount of stolen goods reaches $950.
Now, according to Business Insider, that will all be changed in November, when, “if you and a friend keep ripping off your local drugstore, you could, by definition, be participating in felony organized crime,” wrote Amy Martyn.
Just in August, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed “10 bills into law promising to further increase the prosecution of retail theft” over a display of buckets at a Home Depot.
Martyn, a journalist who covers issues of consumer products, worker safety, and criminal justice, narrowed down and argued the “War on Retail Crime” rhetoric has not and will continue to not address the core issues of theft.
In fact, Martyn argued that this continuous crackdown has criminalized poverty, provided convenient scapegoats for issues post-COVID, and ultimately, exacerbated the “very problem they’re complaining about.”
“The result, as with the government’s long-running ‘wars’ on drugs and terrorism, has been a dragnet that ensnares a lot of small fish who are then presented to the world as big catches,” Martyn emphasized, drawing direct comparisons to the notorious “War on Drugs” campaign.
“It’s very hard for me,” one homeless woman stated to Martyn, reportedly in jail after pleading guilty to felony organized retail theft. “I steal because I can’t read or write.”
Meanwhile, two homeless men found with a group in Mission District scoffed at the notion of retail theft being classified as “organized crime,” stating, “Not even close. It’s a bunch of f**king crackheads.”
“The goal is to get them the help they need for health and services,” claimed David Johnson, the National Retail Foundation’s vice president of asset protection and retail operations. However, their official stance, according to Business Insider, is one where the organization “insists that homeless people are recruited by criminal organizations to steal.”
Another asset-protection executive for Kroger stated homeless people and “drug-afflicted” were among the most “extreme” and violent. “No longer are we going to allow that population to rule our stores,” he stated at an industry talk last year.
Yet, according to Business Insider, in recent years, “CVS, Walgreens and Walmart have been required to pay billions of dollars to state attorneys general to settle claims that they fueled the opioid crisis.” In addition, a 2022 survey revealed that “two-thirds of Kroger employees struggled to afford food and housing.”
Martyn has exclusively interviewed homeless people, also arguing “there is no evidence to suggest that homeless people are more violent than others who commit retail theft.”
“They steal from corporate chains, which often prohibit employees from confronting shoplifters, specifically to avoid violence,” she wrote, adding such crimes are committed by “people in serious need” and by those especially “lacking housing” or “suffering from drug addiction or mental illness.”
However, retailers and “white-collar” prosecutors responded with an extremely “coordinated crackdown reserved for terrorists and drug cartels,” under the premise that it is “being orchestrated by high-level crime rings.”
The Department of Homeland Security, in addition to the National Retail Federation, has weighed in on the thefts as federal crime, stating on its website that organized retail crime is “not shoplifting” and “these crimes are not victimless.”
Industry lobbyists and other lawmakers, according to Business Insider, claimed that “retail theft has direct links to human trafficking and domestic terrorism.”
San Francisco has been deemed by retailers as the “focal point of organized retail theft in America.” City jails are being filled up with people “accused of stealing from leading retailers.”
The San Francisco public defender’s office stated it is “common” for prosecutors to “slap retail-theft suspects with multiple charges,” making it easier to argue they should remain in jail until their trials and serve more time, according to Insider.
“It’s this idea of overcharging or charging everything on the board, both to file a detention motion and to make sure something sticks,” Deputy Public Defender Elizabeth Camacho stated.
Camacho also noted how “racialized the policing of organized retail theft has become.” According to her office, of the 47 people represented since 2019, 38 were Black.
Security guards at various stores have been interviewed by Martyn on their experiences with retail theft.
“They’re not sophisticated,” a guard at Victoria’s Secret in San Francisco stated. Most of the people who steal were “teenagers, or middle-aged men (I assume) looking to buy drugs.”
San Francisco’s “prolific Organized Retail Crime” list of individuals charged with felony are minors, including a 14-year old girl and 13-year old boy, revealed Insider, noting last April officers from three police departments and a California Highway Patrol helicopter pursued a 25-year-old and two teenagers in a high-speed chase after they were accused of “walking out of a Lululemon with $25,000 worth of athleisure.”
In August, the district attorney in San Francisco refused to prosecute the security guard after unarmed homeless people were fatally shot when they were suspected of shoplifting at Walgreens stores, citing that he “had feared for his life.”
Gov. Newsom sent $267 million across California to increase arrests of organized retail crime October, 2023, and another $17 million from Newsom’s initiative went to the police department and district attorney’s office in San Francisco in particular, according to Insider.
However, Newsom’s grant centers on “patrolling Union Square, the city’s version of Rodeo Drive, featuring luxury retailers like Saks, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel.”
“To be sure, there have been a handful of cases where people have been convicted of organizing multi-million dollar thefts and recruiting others to steal for them,” wrote Martyn. “But after thousands of arrests, prosecutors have shown no evidence that the nationwide wave of shoplifting is being secretly coordinated by mobsters or terrorists.”
There is also no concrete evidence that retail theft, “organized or otherwise,” is on the rise, Martyn also noted.
Studies reported by NY Times and other outlets have actually shown retail theft crime rates dropping, Inside said, adding data on theft provided to law enforcement and lawmakers to arrest and prosecute the accused comes “exclusively from corporate retailers” and is not “independently vetted.”
In fact, in 2023, the National Retail Federation was forced to “retract its claim” organized retail theft cost its members “nearly half” of the $94.5 billion in lost inventory since 2021. The actual figure, according to one researcher reported by NY Times, calculated it closer to 5% as opposed to “nearly half.”
What is most troubling, perhaps, is how the term “organized retail crime” cannot be agreed on a universal definition, which even concerns the person who coined the term, said Read Hayes.
“Nobody knows and probably will never know,” added Hayes, founder of the industry-funded nonprofit Loss Prevention Research Council after retailers recruited him back to their anti-theft campaign with research. “It’s like measuring the wind.”
