The retail theft crime wave was bad data, viral videos, and lies

December 16, 2023 7:23 AM

The National Retail Federation had said that nearly half of the industry’s $94.5 billion in missing merchandise in 2021 was the result of organized theft. It was likely closer to 5 percent, experts say. The NRF retracted its claims. The If Books Could Kill Podcast has an episode on the organized retail crime panic, released a few weeks before the retraction.

The comments in this previous mefi post "Fort Walgreens" are informative. In October of 2021, Walgreens announced it was closing 5 San Francisco locations, citing increased theft rates. "The company’s decision had come months after a video seen millions of times showed a man, garbage bag in hand, openly stealing products from a Walgreens as others watched."

In January of 2023, Walgreens CFO James Kehoe stated "maybe we cried too much last year" during an earnings call with investors. In June of 2023, Walgreens announced it was closing 150 stores in America, but also 300 in the UK.

posted by AlSweigart (59 comments total)

"crime" strikes again. it was important to lie through the US state elections, i think. you can always retract afterwards
posted by eustatic at 7:23 AM on December 16, 2023 [25 favorites]

Sorry, the "The NRF retracted its claims" link should actually link here.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:25 AM on December 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

All I can say is that the chains (especially the so-called "drugstores") are soulless grifters who, having largely demolilshed many small stores, are cheerfully abandoning the places where they drove the local businesses out.
posted by Peach at 7:27 AM on December 16, 2023 [54 favorites]

I hope the news reports on this like they did all of the breathless coverage of this very boring category of crime. WaPo just went back and posted a small clarification note on top of their Editorial Opinion (!) begging for federal intervention on the matter.
posted by Selena777 at 7:33 AM on December 16, 2023 [27 favorites]

METAFILTER: It's enough to make one think that massive corporate consolidation and deregulation of our "news" was bad and maybe just turned it into another "omni-channel" for corporate propaganda.

Sheesh.
posted by djseafood at 7:37 AM on December 16, 2023 [16 favorites]

a huge factor here was reaction against the wave of progressive prosecutors. nowhere got featured more in this hysteria than san francisco and it definitely contributed to the ouster of chesa boudin. in any case this seems like deliberate lying to manipulate public opinion. shouldn’t that carry consequences? someone should be held accountable
posted by dis_integration at 7:39 AM on December 16, 2023 [50 favorites]

given retail wage theft, Walgreens is likely a bigger thief than the shoplifters.

"the criminals are organized" indeed
posted by eustatic at 7:39 AM on December 16, 2023 [45 favorites]

Reminds one of "jaywalking", pinning the responsibility on the wrong person(s).
posted by tommasz at 8:30 AM on December 16, 2023 [9 favorites]

This kind of copaganda shit infuriates me. Just this week NBC nightly news did a ridiculous story about this “new” and “startling” crime wave, with interviews of the LA police dept where they, in breathless tones, described what an enormous problem this was that they’d never seen before.

Crime is a problem, surely, and I can believe it’s bad in areas of LA. But the press narrative is like this is some enormously spiking problem and taking the cops’ and retailers’ word for it instead of doing actual fucking journalism.

As usual, when outlets like NYT finally debunk the shit, it’s already stuck in the public consciousness. Just gross irresponsibility on the part of journos who parrot this shit unquestioningly.
posted by Room 101 at 8:33 AM on December 16, 2023 [34 favorites]

Your regular reminder that the NYT lies about shit all the damn time too. They aren't some beacon of truth.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:37 AM on December 16, 2023 [28 favorites]

Where do you usually go for news, tiny frying pan?
posted by Selena777 at 8:40 AM on December 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

Are there soulful grifting corporations?
posted by Ideefixe at 8:42 AM on December 16, 2023

Are there soulful grifting corporations?

Motown Records?
posted by clawsoon at 8:49 AM on December 16, 2023 [39 favorites]

(Side note: the “Metafilter: Quote” construction is used with quotes from other commenters that someone else views as humorously typical or particularly reflective of the community.)
posted by eviemath at 8:53 AM on December 16, 2023 [11 favorites]

Metafilter: humorously typical or particularly reflective of the community.
posted by clawsoon at 8:56 AM on December 16, 2023 [41 favorites]

eviemath I know!

now we're breaking the rules?! srsly
posted by djseafood at 9:35 AM on December 16, 2023

now we're breaking the rules?! srsly

BREAKING NEWS: METAFILTER CRIME WAVE
posted by clawsoon at 9:43 AM on December 16, 2023 [41 favorites]

The organized-retail-crime-panic is not the organized-retail-crime panic.
posted by srboisvert at 9:43 AM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah weird how this comes out only AFTER a bunch of pro-cop anti-homeless local officials got elected.
posted by Artw at 9:48 AM on December 16, 2023 [9 favorites]

But it's before the 'Combating Organized Retail Crime Act' was passed!
posted by Selena777 at 9:53 AM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well surely now we know it's bullshit they won't flush a bunch of money down the toilet on that....

Oh wait.
posted by Artw at 9:56 AM on December 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

now we're breaking the rules?! srsly

BREAKING NEWS: METAFILTER CRIME WAVE

Ha! Fair. I can get a bit pedantic.
posted by eviemath at 9:57 AM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

I am not disputing any of the reporting here, and obviously anecdotes are not data, but I have been going to the same grocery store twice a week for almost ten years (except during the lockdown) and I went from seeing obvious theft once in 5 years to twice a month. Employees seem to agree that it is more common, based on how they complain about it. Something has changed that makes retail theft more obvious and stressful for employees, at least in one part of my city.
posted by hermanubis at 10:43 AM on December 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

METAFILTER CRIME WAVE

Perhaps this is the thread you mean.
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:50 AM on December 16, 2023

It isn't "organized crime," but the number of people walking out of markets in suburban Norther CA with massive amounts of unpaid goods is shocking. Maybe it's just the blatant nature of the thefts when in the past they were bothering to be sneaky, but holy smokes is it disconcerting to say the least.
posted by cccorlew at 11:03 AM on December 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

Eh, I work retail. The stress comes not from the shoplifting, which is totally overblown, but from the corporate countermeasures, which complicate the work of the employees. Try spider-wrapping every Lego set over $39.99 while meeting your freight metric (gag), and then tell me the source of your trouble, friend.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 11:03 AM on December 16, 2023 [33 favorites]

Also, it’s insulting to listen to corporate cover up their own bad decisions with cries of theft, day in and out. The main office couldn’t forecast spending habits post-pandemic, and here we sit with stuffed back rooms—still! And yet daily deliveries keep rolling in, and of cheaper and cheaper product.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 11:10 AM on December 16, 2023 [13 favorites]

Yurp. Was glad to see some pushback to Target trying that shit last time they tried it.
posted by Artw at 11:23 AM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

I hope some people who think I'm too pointed about this economic stuff go back and read that prior thread.
posted by praemunire at 11:39 AM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

A post I made previously that might be of interest:
Zombie Apocalypse

The gulf between perceived problems businesses are facing and the way they might be addressed and the actual problems and practical solutions are VAST.
posted by Artw at 12:04 PM on December 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

the number of people walking out of markets in suburban Norther CA with massive amounts of unpaid goods is shocking

I wonder how many people, having never shoplifted before (for whatever reason), saw the breathless news reports about how people were blatantly stealing from stores with utter impunity, the police can't even enforce the blah blah blah, and thought: well hell, maybe I should give that a shot.
posted by penduluum at 12:05 PM on December 16, 2023 [18 favorites]

Also, don't steal. It's not nice.
posted by Czjewel at 12:47 PM on December 16, 2023

Reminds one of "jaywalking", pinning the responsibility on the wrong person(s).

Also: racism.
posted by chavenet at 12:52 PM on December 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

‘Maybe we cried too much last year’ is the title of my year-end gothwave mall music compilation.
posted by chronkite at 12:55 PM on December 16, 2023 [31 favorites]

I try to hold to a rule that if I see someone shoplifting feminine hygiene products, baby formula, diapers, food, basic necessities... nope, I didn't see that.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:00 PM on December 16, 2023 [23 favorites]

MetaFilter: I can get a bit pedantic.

I once saw a pair of guys in a Milwaukee CVS stuffing an amazing amount of merchandise in their trousers. I almost asked them if they had modified their garments to make it easier, but I don’t like to interrupt a man unnecessarily when he’s working. Ironically, I saw them because I had been wandering around the store trying to find someone to direct me to the mouthwash, but there was almost no one working.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:24 PM on December 16, 2023 [9 favorites]

I feel like outrage right now is potentially wasted. Let's wait until after this year's post-Christmas sales period to see who hasn't brought in the administrators.
posted by krisjohn at 2:05 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I try to hold to a rule that if I see someone shoplifting feminine hygiene products, baby formula, diapers, food, basic necessities... nope, I didn't see that.

If I see someone lifting a giant TV and a massage lounger, I'm not saying a damn thing. Why would I? What kind of incentive is there for me to take that risk? I don't know if the shoplifter is going to figure out it was me; I certainly don't trust corporations to safeguard my identity these days. Suddenly I'm on the wrong side of a criminal, perhaps even a criminal organization. And the company won't care if I report someone, they won't give me a reward or a pat on the back. The security person that I tell is now obligated to put their life on the line to safeguard merchandise they don't care about. If they get injured on the job they're screwed for life. Why would I do that to them?

There was a time when I'd report shoplifters just to uphold law and order, truth, justice and the American way, but since the wealthy and powerful have broken the social contract to the point where America's new motto is 'everyone for themselves', well, I'm not taking even the tiniest risk for a corporation without being paid.
posted by MrVisible at 3:47 PM on December 16, 2023 [20 favorites]

shoplifting at a corporate chain? that’s none of my business
posted by dis_integration at 3:55 PM on December 16, 2023 [18 favorites]

As a reminder, giving money to cops, as assorted local business groups and whoever is behind this stupid bill will be lobbying for, does absolutely nothing for anyone but the cops, but if you give money to the homeless this happens every time.
posted by Artw at 4:44 PM on December 16, 2023 [12 favorites]

METAFILTER: BREAKING NEWS: METAFILTER
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:53 PM on December 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

I'm not sure if it'll be fully clear enough from even this three paragraph excerpt from the FPP's first link, but holy smokes is this a damning bit of data mismanagement. Maybe this should be called Data Inbreeding? Or Statistics Inbreeding?

In a report this year dedicated to organized retail crime, conducted with risk, compliance, investigations and monitoring firm K2 Integrity, the NRF said that shrink was $94.5 billion in 2021, “nearly half of which was attributable to ORC, according to NRF survey data and research by the National Coalition of Law Enforcement.”

This came from testimony from CLEAR’s Dugan, who in 2021 told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the group estimated that organized retail crime led to $45 billion in annual losses for retailers. In an email to Retail Dive, Dugan confirmed that he was citing NRF’s 2016 report on total retail shrink [i.e., ordinary shoplifting + organized retail crime + inventory mismanagement, which, as far as I can tell, includes not just accidental loss/damage but also, for instance, over-ordering products that can't be sold or returned to the supplier] as CLEAR’s ORC estimate.

That means that, for a crime report published this year, NRF used shrink totals from two different years, citing one as total shrink and the other as the ORC subset of that shrink. In fact, each number reflects inventory loss due to all reasons, unadjusted for inflation, five years apart.

And to be clear, this was bound to happen because the NRF has apparently always relied on rhetorical slippage between the total category of "shrink" [see bracketed note above] and the subset that can be attributable to theft. It's so sleazy.

It's worth reading the article. Here's another good excerpt, with the extra bonus of demonstrating how government agencies (and the media) then pick up on these totally off-base statistics:

In 2021, the California Retailers Association used RILA’s finding to come up with its own claim that organized retail crime in the state accounted for $3.6 billion in annual retail losses. The Los Angeles Times noted that would be equal to 25% of the annual retail sales in the state – unlikely if not impossible — especially given the NRF’s estimate that year that losses from organized retail theft averaged 0.07% of retail sales, “an amount roughly 330 times lower than the CRA’s estimate.”

Despite its questionable utility, this statistic continues to be quoted with authority. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency picked it up last year, and the Department of Homeland Security uses that in its online information about its efforts combating organized retail crime. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce employs the RILA report in its calculations of retail theft by state. Reuters included RILA’s number in a June explainer on retail crime this year.

posted by nobody at 6:20 AM on December 17, 2023 [8 favorites]

My very first job, at the age of 17, was at the local Walgreens (in a shopping mall).

Walgreens … is a weird place. I don’t know if it is still the case, but back then you had to call your boss Mr So-and-so (mine were all male). Like it was company policy that employees could not use their boss’s first name.

I left after a month and found out how weird that was.
posted by teece303 at 9:35 AM on December 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is such a frustrating subject, because there is a lot of evidence that *something* is going on -- at least in some locales -- but the law enforcement and giant chain data is so massively suspect it's not useful at all.

Here in San Francisco, we do have some kind of "organized retail theft" happening, as shown by these kinds of arrests.

Part of what is I think misleading is that when folks hear "organized retail theft" it sounds like the *theft* is organized -- my personal suspicion is that that may sometimes happen but it's really the availability of large-scale fencing operations that's organized, and then local folks who, y'know, steal stuff know where to go to sell it. Is this happening more than it was 10 years ago? Hard to say!

Anecdotally, it does seem like there is much more *brazen* retail theft happening. My own suspicion is that it's a mix of 1. addicts needing cash, who are then working with 2. the relatively organized fencing operations, combined with a lot of 3. retail businesses cutting down their staffing SO MUCH that the beneficial effects of having a lot of staff (not specifically security guards) around are gone.

One thing I push back on is that these kinds of thefts are always victimless. I'm not going to cry for Walgreens'
bottom line, but the more pushy / violent mob thefts are scary as hell for retail workers and other shoppers. And they also hit a lot of smaller businesses, whose bottom lines I do care about a bit more.

In my fantasy world I'd address this with:
- Actually helping the folks with addictions
- Concentrating any law enforcement action on the fences (some of this seems to be happening now)
- Somehow (not sure???) getting retail to actually staff up properly to get more eyes on the street
posted by feckless at 12:45 PM on December 17, 2023 [8 favorites]

> I'm not going to cry for Walgreens' bottom line, but the more pushy / violent mob thefts are scary as hell for retail workers and other shoppers.

Same. I've been in a Walgreen's when three men just walked out the door with their arms full of stuff they hadn't paid for, laughing. The cashier looked unnerved, the manager she called looked fed up. Nobody seemed to have a "a crime is being committed, let's stop them!" impulse, including me, and I'm usually a goody two-shoes.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:58 PM on December 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

Good! No one should put themselves on the line for retail theft.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:29 PM on December 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

I just want to say, if you see someone stealing necessities (food, water, clothing, formula, diapers, etc) no you didn't.
posted by signsofrain at 7:26 PM on December 17, 2023 [6 favorites]

California, at least most of it, is essentially unaffordable for people who are not wealthy. If shoplifting is going up in high cost of living areas, that would make sense to me just because it’s so fucking hard to make a living wage.
posted by Bella Donna at 4:10 AM on December 18, 2023

> feckless: "Anecdotally, it does seem like there is much more *brazen* retail theft happening."

This accords with my casual conversations with my friends working in retail. They mention that in the past, the main kind of retail theft they were used to was people trying to sneak stuff out surreptitiously whereas now it's not so unusual to see someone grabbing stuff off the shelves and just walking out with no attempt at concealment. One possible contributing factor I've heard is that there's just been a growing, mass recognition that retail workers won't/can't actually physically stop people from leaving if they're determined to leave, often due to corporate policies. The veil has been pierced. It turns out that people were probably always able to do this, but now that a critical mass of people know about it, it's become more visible.
posted by mhum at 11:30 AM on December 18, 2023 [4 favorites]

> feckless: "Anecdotally, it does seem like there is much more *brazen* retail theft happening."

Yeah while I am fully able to believe that the hype about the National Crime Wave was overblown by corporations for their own purposes...I also have seen some very brazen theft and some straight-up fucked-up shit go down in my neighborhood/surroundings over the last year.

My hair salon has to keep their doors locked during business hours because people rushed in and grabbed armfuls of product and tools off the shelves. Two different liquor stores in my neighborhood were robbed by people who drove SUVs through the plate glass and loaded them up with everything they could get. At one, they stabbed the elderly clerk (he is okay though). People in Walgreens a week or so back were loading up large rolly suitcases and just marching out the doors.

Did people rob liquor stores before, and shoplift from Walgreens? Of course. And people got hurt in robberies before as well. But it's just very extra these days.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:04 PM on December 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

I knew someone who could be considered the "Organized" side of "Organized Retail Theft"
That is, the person that many 'boosters' in an area know will buy their stolen goods with cash (at a very steep discount).
He was making around $50k on Ebay in a year. Mostly selling OTC drugs. Was forging his own invoices, because after you've been selling bulk Claritin on ebay long enough, they start asking questions. AFAIR he was also reporting all this on a 1099? Had a full time job as well, it was purely a side gig.

We talked about theft and how the internet has changed it. He said that as it gets easier for him or any individual to sell (whatever) on the internet, the deal gets better and better for someone willing to steal. OTC drugs have enormous markups in legitimate retail settings, including online, so if you get a discount from your supplier, the market is wide open.
posted by shenkerism at 3:23 PM on December 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

Two different liquor stores in my neighborhood were robbed by people who drove SUVs through the plate glass and loaded them up with everything they could get.

That's why big box stores have those bollards outfront. Crashing through the front of stores has been a known issue for decades.

IDK, I go shopping regularly, and I've never seen anyone stealing anything significant. IMO: it's probably something that sticks with you if you do see it personally.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:24 AM on December 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

Most people think the U.S. crime rate is rising. They're wrong.
posted by Artw at 9:20 AM on December 19, 2023 [7 favorites]

What Artw said. This needs to be repeated again and again.

The idea that we are living through some historic crime wave is just not accurate. Over the course of these last 3-5 decades US crime is consistently trending down. The pandemic bump is the only change of that trend to speak of, and it seems to have already largely reversed itself (and was limited to certain types of crime).

The places often cited as the epicenters of these crime waves are generally safer than dozens of places no one bats an eyelash at, concerning crime.

The whole phenomenon is frustrating for its Mandela effect like properties.
posted by teece303 at 4:15 PM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

There was a dramatic rise in murders in 2020 that only recently started declining. People aren't wrong to have noticed.
posted by riruro at 4:42 PM on December 20, 2023

From the story Artw linked

The FBI data, which compares crime rates in the third quarter of 2023 to the same period last year, found that violent crime dropped 8%, while property crime fell 6.3% to what would be its lowest level since 1961, according to criminologist Jeff Asher, who analyzed the FBI numbers.

Murder plummeted in the United States in 2023 at one of the fastest rates of decline ever recorded, Asher found, and every category of major crime except auto theft declined.

The local news is making good money by hyping crime crime crime. And the local police love to see it.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:54 AM on December 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

2019s stats are a boom fit anyone who wants to make shitty false comparisons.

Feels like murder, being comparatively rare, would be most vulnerable to noise and statistical spikes being spun out into pretend societal patterns.
posted by Artw at 11:22 AM on December 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

"Retailthefts Georg was an outlier and should not have been counted"
posted by pwnguin at 4:28 PM on December 21, 2023

CNBC report contradicts Target’s reason for closing Ballard store
posted by Artw at 2:12 PM on December 22, 2023 [2 favorites]