OPINION: Ask store security if retail theft is a problem

This editorial was published in The Seattle Times.

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When it comes to shoplifting and retail theft, the public has every right to be confused.

Is it going up or down? Is it a crime wave, or an urban myth made up by struggling retailers to justify poor sales or shoddy management practices? Are more police needed or fewer?

Like everything else, shoplifting statistics have been politicized to prove one point or another. Locally, activists who want to defund the police say retail crime concerns are overblown.

The truth is, retail theft is clearly a problem, and coordinated efforts by businesses, police and prosecutors are paying off.

Earlier this month, this newspaper and others around the nation carried news that the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, got it wrong when it previously claimed organized retail crime accounted for nearly half of overall industry shrink, which measures overall loss in inventory, including theft. That added up to about $45 billion annually.

“It was an inaccurate inference,” David Johnston, the national retail group’s vice president of asset protection and retail operations, told The Associated Press in an interview. “We missed it.”

It’s unclear how much money retailers are losing because of organized retail crime.

Separately, the Council on Criminal Justice, a policy think tank, released a report last month on shoplifting data in cities across the nation. It showed shoplifting in Seattle dropped by 31% in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period last year.

According to researchers, after a big spike in Seattle shoplifting in 2022, the numbers settled back slightly lower than the years 2018-20.

The council notes that its data has limitations. Specifically, efforts made to thwart thieves have cut down on theft. “Retailers taking action to combat shoplifting (e.g., removing goods from the floor, locking items in cabinets) have undoubtedly prevented some crimes,” its report stated.

How many retail crimes go unreported is unknown, but contacting police takes time and insurance claims can drive up business costs.

Around here, law enforcement has ramped up on the state, county and municipal level.

Last month, Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the first criminal prosecution by his new Organized Retail Crime Unit.

The Attorney General’s Office charged Shawn Nanez, a 33-year-old from Bremerton, in King County Superior Court with felony first-degree organized retail theft. The criminal charges stem from 11 thefts totaling more than $50,000 in merchandise from Target stores in King and Kitsap counties.

Locally, the Seattle City Attorney’s Office and King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office collaborate on retail crimes.

“Anecdotally from what we see and hear coming in, it does appear that this is still very much a problem,” said Patrick Hinds, chief deputy of the Economic Crimes & Wage Theft Division at the King County Prosecutor’s Office.

In King County, felony retail crime case filings spiked from 52 in 2021 to 157 last year. As of Dec. 1, the office has filed 92 cases. That indicates an annual decrease.

However, retail crime dispositions — cases resolved by guilty pleas or taken to court — increased from 89 cases in 2022 to 102 so far this year.

When Target announced the closing of two Seattle stores in September out of security concerns, some advocates and others alleged that shoplifting was a smoke screen to hide other motives.

“This is a lie. When a retailer blames store closures on theft, they are always lying,” posted DivestSPD on social media at the time.

Mark Johnson, senior vice president of policy and government affairs at the Washington Retail Association, said that just doesn’t make sense. For one, there is no need to make up concerns about theft. Retailers shutter underperforming stores all the time. Investors typically consider that a good thing if the closures improve the bottom line.

“Millions and millions of dollars in Washington are spent on hiring security, putting in bollards to protect people from driving through the front of their store with a stolen car,” said Johnson. “This wasn’t the case five years ago. But these retailers are taking drastic measures, locking up their products, hiring off-duty police and security personnel, armed and unarmed, to protect their customers, to protect their workers and to protect their product.”

Is shoplifting and retail theft a legitimate problem? We can ponder that question while waiting for a clerk to open the display case so we can complete our purchase of razor blades or hair care products.

If we leave out the politics, the answer is obvious.

TNS