San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan appeared in front of the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement and Intelligence on Tuesday for a hearing about organized retail crime.
The California Attorney General’s office defines organized retail crime (ORC) as “organized criminal rings that steal property with the intent to sell and distribute, or return stolen merchandise for value.”
Stephan, who is about to take over as president of the National District Attorneys Association, called for Congress to pass the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which would create a coordinated multiagency response to tackle organized retail theft.
She said retail theft is about much more than financial loss.
“Talk to the employees in the stores, you will sense the fear and the trauma and how much impact this has on human beings," Stephan said.
And while viral videos of thieves grabbing things off shelves with impunity can add to the perception that retail theft is on the rise, the Organized Retail Crime report published by the National Retail Federation (NRF) lobby group earlier this year acknowledged that "national crime data on ORC does not exist, and most law enforcement authorities do not specifically track ORC as a specific category of crime."
In early December, the group retracted an assertion in the report that organized retail theft had been responsible for nearly half of inventory losses reported by members in 2021. That number, according to the federation’s revised estimate, was closer to 5%.
University of San Diego economics professor Alan Gin said retail theft is actually down when comparing data from the first six months of 2019 — a year before the pandemic — and the first six months of 2023.
"So I think what the numbers show is that possibly inventory loss is up compared to 2021," he said. "But those are the pandemic years, so they were down considerably.”
He said what the retail industry is seeing could be attributed to a lack of security staffing at stores and the use of self-checkout counters rather than a rise in shoplifting.
District Attorney Stephan and retail industry lobbyists tell a different story.
The NRF's David Johnston said while shoplifting and organized retail theft isn’t new, what’s happening today is, and he said without congressional action, it will only get worse.
"The frequency of theft, the openness and brazenness of the criminals, the violence and the quantities and types of merchandise stolen are truthful indicators of criminal activity beyond amateur or opportunistic shoplifting for need," Johnston said.
A shoplifting trends report from the Council on Criminal Justice doesn’t support this. Based on police data from the first half of 2023, shoplifting incidents decreased by 7% when compared to 2019, when excluding New York City — which saw the highest surge in incidents.
