Shoplifting Isn't Really Out of Control, Is It?

You've seen the videos all over YouTube. Groups of young people enter a retail store and on a prearranged signal start smashing display cases and grabbing merchandise. "Smash-and-grab" robberies are on the rise, and retail theft in general is out of control, right?

Retail theft has increased 77% since 2017. But it's not the increase in theft that is driving concern about smash-and-grab robberies.

“We are living in a nation where stealing is no longer considered a crime, and those stealing are not criminals,” David Johnston, the vice president of asset protection and retail operations for the Washington, D.C.-based National Retail Federation, wrote in September.

It's a breakdown in the social order caused by lax enforcement, lax laws, and a lax attitude toward property. Those who don't have it want it and will get it any way they can.

In some corners of the internet, people are defending the thieves as champions of racial justice. Besides, retailers all have insurance for this type of thing, right? They don't lose anything, and the poor thieves sell the merchandise for money to buy food for their babies.

Or something like that.

The organized gangs that are responsible for more and more of these smash-and-grab robberies have evolved over the last few years. Their latest tactic is to drive an SUV or pickup truck through the front door of a retail store, jump out, and start grabbing as much as they can.

One store in Chicago has been hit four times with the thieves using the same tactics.

Chicago Tribune:

Drake Sweeney, creative director of SVRN, a small business specializing in luxury fashion, estimated the store sustained a $50,000 to $80,000 loss in property damage and $50,000 to $100,000 in merchandise stolen after a group of thieves drove an SUV into the retail clothing store early Tuesday morning.

“They stole everything you could imagine,” Sweeney said.

The store had last been hit and robbed less than a month ago, in late November.

In the latest robbery, Chicago police say around 3:11 a.m. a group of thieves hit the security gate and front door of the store, located at 171 N. Aberdeen St., with a Jeep SUV to gain entry. They fled using several other vehicles, police said.

“The overall data doesn’t indicate a great shift in the average shoplifting event, but the brazen ransacking incidents, coordinated on social media and captured on video, clearly suggest that there is a sense of lawlessness afoot,” said Adam Gelb, the CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice.

Gee, ya think?

Actually, the Council on Criminal Justice released its own study showing (naturally) that shoplifting is down and we're all panicking for no reason. The council says "larceny fell 7% in the first half of 2023 compared to the same time period in 2019." 

Missing a few years there, aren't we, guys? Those missing years coincide with the years of murder, mayhem, and lawlessness during the pandemic. And the category of "larceny" is different than "retail theft." Shoplifting reports from 24 major cities were 16% higher in the first half of 2023. 

The Council is trying to prove the wrong negative. The dramatic increase in robberies is a reflection of a loss of respect for the law, for businesses, and for each other. It could be a sign of the decline of civilization, or it may not be.

But trying to soft-pedal the rash of robberies by portraying them as normal is ludicrous.

"These individuals are becoming increasingly aggressive," Scott Glenn, vice president of asset protection at Home Depot said. "They are dangerous and often care little about any consequence other than getting out of the store with as much product as possible. Our associates have been threatened with knives, guns, and other physical attacks." 

Will it take a store clerk getting killed to get any action on this scourge?