For tens of millions of Americans, shopping or filling a prescription at their local pharmacy has changed dramatically this decade.  Organized retail crime and opportunistic shoplifting have reached unprecedented levels, forcing retailers to adopt measures like locking up products or hiring private security. While intended to deter theft, these practices create barriers for customers and degrade the shopping experience. The result: reduced sales, limited access to essential goods, and overburdened employees.

Organized retail crime continues to harm communities nationwide, with incidents like a Nashville attack where suspects used bear spray on a security guard and bystanders, a San Francisco theft ring that brazenly filled bags with merchandise, and a New York City heist where masked individuals openly carted stolen goods out of a store.

In response, affected retailers have instituted theft prevention measures like locking up products, body cameras, and private security. The National Retail Federation reported that 98 percent of small retail business owners have adopted anti-theft measures, with the most common being price increases and the second security cameras. Aisles full of locked plexiglass cases have become common at many CVS and Walgreens stores, where consumers must wait for an employee to unlock them. These remedies deter sales, degrade customer experiences, and fail to tackle the root cause of retail crime.

Weak laws on retail crime embolden organized theft networks, disrupt trust and safety, and damage local economies. This increase of retail crime is concentrated in large cities controlled by progressives with lenient prosecutorial policies, where prosecutors have neglected their duty to hold criminals accountable and the local population has little confidence in the police. In some of our largest cities, liberal prosecutors have used their prosecutorial discretion to decline charging shoplifters and organized retail crime participants.

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