Shoplifting rose 24 percent this year; no end in sight
By Casey Harper
The Center Square
Shoplifting has soared in the U.S. in 2024, forcing many stores to leave cities and continuing a trend in recent years.
Shoplifting has risen 24 percent in the first half of 2024 alone, according to newly released data from the Council on Criminal Justice.
The White House cited the CCJ’s data to boast a drop in violent crime so far this year, but a closer look at the data showed that while violent crime has declined, shoplifting continues to rise. CCJ studied 23 U.S. cities.
Shoplifting has become a major problem in cities around the country, with some store owners announcing they had to close up shop because of the increased theft. Shoplifting and looting during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots helped spur on a new era of increased shoplifting.
Several major stores, including CVS, Macy’s, Target, Walmart and others have cited shoplifting when they closed down urban locations.
The Center Square spoke with a 38-year-old woman who goes by “Jones” who works at a CVS within eyeshot of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
Jones told The Center Square that shoplifters take from her store daily.
When Jones does see customers steal something, she doesn’t stop them.
“We don’t get paid for that,” she said.
She said procedure is not to notify police but to write a description of the thief and what was stolen down on a form on a clipboard. Jones’ clipboard has seemingly a hundred pages stacked, at least one for each day, many of them filled with reported incidents.
By 11:15 am Thursday morning when Jones spoke with The Center Square, the store had already been stolen from four times that day, at least as far as she knew.
Jones said she worked at a previous location in the same city that was even worse, where groups would come in and steal merchandise.
She said thieves are only caught if they steal from the same store every day, as some apparently do, and they are caught with the merchandise by police. However, if the merchandise is not a large quantity, police will often let them off with a warning.
A security guard comes into the store in the afternoon, Jones said the guard is there to protect employees, not merchandise, and does little to stop shoplifting.
“They are here to protect us,” she said.
California has been the center of the shoplifting spree.
Shoplifting further drives up prices for Americans as stores have to make up for the lost inventory by increasing prices. But prices have already soared over 20% since President Joe Biden took office.
Ironically, many shoplifters point to higher prices as their justification for stealing.
A new survey from LendingTree found that 23% of Americans admit to shoplifting, which doesn’t include those unwilling to confess to their crimes.
“Of those with a shoplifting history, 23% have done so within the past year, and 52% were older than 16 at the time,” LendingTree said. “Shoplifters are most likely to hide the items on their bodies (55%) or in purses or bags (36%), while 25% are bold enough to walk out with their loot in plain sight.”
Notably, shoplifters blame the recent spike in prices for their theft.
“An overwhelming 90% of recent shoplifters say they steal secretly due to inflation and the current economy,” Lending Tree said. “Over a third (34%) of shoplifters rely on five-finger discounts because prices have become otherwise unaffordable, while 30% say it helps make ends meet and 27% say it helps save a few bucks.”
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