Lawmakers Criticize DOJ for 'Turning Blind Eye' to Retail Theft
Republicans urge Attorney General to crackdown on retail crime
Linking retail crime to organized crime and denouncing it as exploding across American cities, 16 Republican representatives wrote to United States Attorney General Merrick Garland this week, demanding a national strategy and fight against both.

"One of the essential functions of our government is to provide security to all citizens," U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (CO), one of the letter's co-signers, said separately. "Yet despite the continued increase in retail crime, the DOJ has turned a blind eye and refused to act. I urge Attorney General Garland to develop a strategy to reduce retail crime, maintain the rule of law, and protect our civil liberties."

The lawmakers cited news reports that retailers have faced around $45 billion in annual losses, despite efforts from state and local authorities. Likewise, last year, a National Retail Federation (NRF) survey determined that 65 percent of respondents indicated that theft was coming more from gangs, who were consequently showcasing more violence and aggression than in previous years. Still, that same report also noted that 18 percent of respondents saw the opposite: a reduction in threats from a year earlier. Further, a third of respondents said that employee theft was down, with similar figures reported for shoplifting.

The lawmakers' letter also pointed to the rise of online commerce platforms as a major driver of modern theft, causing multijurisdictional hassles that often cross state lines and causing a unique challenge for local authorities.

"Building on other Members drawing attention to this issue and the success of Operation Booster Buster, I urge the Justice Department to take action and develop a national strategy to address the alarming rise in organized retail crime," the lawmakers wrote.

Operation Booster Buster was a joint sting effort from the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office, Tulsa Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and IRS Criminal Investigation, targeting retail theft. homelandprepnews.com

Shoplifting Is Becoming More Violent & Aggressive
Retail theft on the rise & shoplifters are becoming more aggressive, CMPD says
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said that some criminals are shoplifting as a way to make a living. The agencies' detectives said they are cracking down on organized theft rings. CMPD said suspects often sell stolen goods from places like Lowe's, Home Depot and Walmart on social media sites, including Facebook Marketplace.

So far this year, CMPD said its Organized Retail Theft Task Force has investigated more than two dozen cases. In one recent joint operation with the Cabarrus County Sheriff's Office, CMPD said authorities caught a 33-year-old man accused of stealing more than $250,000 in power tools from retail stores across the Carolinas.

The man, Steven Vanderburg, and several other co-conspirators connected to the thefts, were arrested in the investigation, CMPD said. About $82,000 in cash, approximately $50,000 in new tools and three vehicles were seized by police. CMPD officers warned many of the alleged shoplifters are becoming more violent.

Last month, police say a shoplifting suspect assaulted a security guard at a south Charlotte Lowe's store. The guard then chased the suspects and shot at them. She has since been charged with shooting into an occupied vehicle. CMPD said it was checking to see if any of the recent investigations were connected to that theft ring. Many of the suspects are career criminals, police say.

"I'm all about giving second chances to people, but after 87 times, that becomes a career criminal," CMPD Detective Anthony Finocchio said. "How are they out still victimizing individuals and the retailers and all the other crimes that are occurring?" yahoo.com

Another State Proposes ORC Law
Minnesota bill aims to deter organized retail theft

One lawmaker wants Minnesota to join 34 other states that have statutes criminalizing organized retail crime.

Senate Bill 3487 aims to establish the crime of organized theft, which is when a person or a group coordinates looting merchandise from a retailer to resell or return to the retailer.

"This bill will have an important impact on distinguishing between common petty shoplifting and organized crime," Limmer said. "My hope is that this bill will provide prosecutors and law enforcement an updated tool to help address the theft going on at retailers of all sizes across Minnesota."

In addition, receiving stolen retail merchandise with intent to resell and possessing shoplifting-related devices with the intent to shoplift would be violations.

This bill seeks enhanced penalties for violations that create a reasonably foreseeable risk of bodily harm to others and allows aggregation of the value of retail merchandise stolen in six months for charging purposes.

The Minnesota Retailers Association and the Minnesota Organized Retail Crime Association support the bill. kpvi.com

Using Tech to Reduce Crime by 42%
South Fulton using technology-driven policing to reduce crime

Chief says CompStat helps department know where to put its manpower

While many cities across the nation are grappling with skyrocketing crime rates, one city in metro Atlanta is enjoying a three-year run during which its crime numbers have plunged more than 40%.

South Fulton recently announced a 17% drop in serious crime in 2021. It was the third year in a row the city has seen a double-digit drop, according to police statistics.

The city's serious crime rate, which includes murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, larcenies and auto theft, fell 16% in 2019 and dropped another 17% in 2020. Since 2018, the year the police department was established, South Fulton has seen an overall 41.5% reduction, according to statistics.

Officials in South Fulton's police department attribute the success to the use of "CompStat," a metrics system introduced by the New York Police Department in 1994 that relies heavily on statistics. The computerized model became a cornerstone of the Big Apple's drastic decline in crime in the 1990s.

New tools for police

The way it works in South Fulton is an officer crunches the crime stats and gathers analytics each week, looking for trends in criminal activity that police can use to anticipate patterns. The officer puts together a weekly CompStat report on calls and results that allows command staff to track details like the time of day, day of the week and street address where incidents occur.

The data is shown on maps to illustrate hot spots and peak times, which police leaders discuss in weekly meetings. They use the intel to deploy manpower for the week. Many law enforcement agencies around the nation have adopted the process. ajc.com

Comparing Progressive DA Crime Policies
Is San Francisco's Chesa Boudin really the most 'radical' DA in America?
San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin is lumped in with a cohort that includes George Gascón in Los Angeles, Kim Foxx in Chicago and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, a group called the "Soros-funded DAs" by critics.

But is Boudin really more radical than the other three? SFGATE dug into the policy records of each of the four district attorneys and found that while the four are quite similar, subtle differences do exist.

Chesa Boudin - Chesa Boudin took office in January 2020, and his primary policy initiatives have been eliminating cash bail and reducing the city's prison population. He has sought to achieve the latter goal by diverting more offenders to mental health and substance abuse programs instead of pursuing convictions and incarceration. An analysis from the San Francisco Chronicle found that Boudin has increased diversion rates for assault, robbery and drug cases and decreased convictions of the same crimes.

George Gascón - San Francisco's recent trend of increased diversion rates and lower conviction rates began under George Gascón, who served as San Francisco's district attorney between 2011 from 2019 before taking the same position in Los Angeles in 2020.

Kim Foxx - A Chicago Tribune analysis showed that Foxx is dropping felony charges at a higher rate than her predecessor, and that unlike Boudin, Foxx is pursuing conviction for violent crimes such as murder and aggravated battery less frequently than her predecessor did. It's worth noting that generally, district attorney charging rates in Cook County are higher than they are in San Francisco, so Foxx's office dropping more violent crime charges than her predecessor does not necessarily mean she's "softer on violent crime" than Boudin is.

Larry Krasner - Krasner assumed office as district attorney of Philadelphia in January 2018, and like Boudin, Gascón and Foxx, has sought to reduce his jurisdiction's jail population by pursuing diversion and shorter sentences. On several policy areas, however, Krasner contrasts from all three DAs. Krasner campaigned on abolishing cash bail, and while he is now requiring cash bail in very few cases, he technically has not ended the practice, putting him closer in line with Gascon than Boudin. chron.com

Where is Crime & Violence Surging Most? Not California & New York
California & New York under fire for soaring crime - but southern states have highest murder rates in the country
Republicans have repeatedly blamed progressive policies in big cities for a rise in murder rates during the pandemic. But the cities and states that get the most crime coverage - namely California and New York - aren't actually the places where violence is surging the most, according to data from Third Way.

Critics have repeatedly pointed to Democrats' supposed "soft-on-crime" approach, bail reform laws, and "defund the police" rhetoric from left-wing activists for fueling a surge in violent crime. But the Third Way report shows that the highest murder rates were found in states like Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina and Arkansas.

Mississippi had by far the highest murder rate at 20.5 murders per 100,000 residents, followed by Louisiana at 15.79. Alabama, Kentucky and Missouri all had murder rates higher than 14 per 100,000 compared to a national average of 6.5.

New York's rate was 4.11 murders per 100,000 residents and California's was 5.59. According to the study, Mississippi's murder rate was 400% higher than New York's and 250% higher than California's. salon.com

This Database Stores the DNA of 31,000 New Yorkers. Is It Illegal?
A database used by the New York Police Department violates state law and the Constitution, the Legal Aid Society contends in a lawsuit.

The Great Retail Disruption: Decades in the Making?
Op-Ed: How Retail's Bad Practices Weaken the West

Geopolitical events have disrupted retail, but retail has also contributed to geopolitical disruption, writes Doug Stephens.

The early days of the pandemic provided the retail industry with a brutal lesson in the dark side of free trade. As Asia reeled from Covid-19, retailers in the West wrestled with a tangled knot of supply chain disruptions and empty warehouses. In a matter of weeks, 40 years of offshoring production by Western companies came screaming back to bite them and the consumers who depend on them.

How big is the issue? In February of 2020, former Macy's chief executive Terry Lundgren told CNBC, "Something like 90 percent of all footwear under $100 at retail is coming out of China, and we all need to diversify that strategy." And this, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg. 75 percent of new sellers in Amazon's top four markets - the US, the UK, Germany and Japan - are based in China, according to a 2021 report by e-commerce intelligence firm Marketplace Pulse.

And then of course, there's Walmart. According to estimates from organisations like the Alliance for American Manufacturing, 70 to 80 percent of Walmart's current non-food assortment is sourced from China. In a world increasingly prone to disruption, such dependencies on single-source supply are becoming increasingly risky. But frankly, supply chain disruptions are the least of our worries.

As Russia's attack on Ukraine has shown, such enormous trade imbalances create problems far greater than mere supply chain woes. They foster dangerous geopolitical insecurity. Case in point: as intelligence mounts that Russia is looking to China to aid its war effort, NATO allies, looking for any possible leverage, find themselves painted into a difficult corner. Could intense sanctions, tariffs and embargoes on Chinese goods by the West wipe out 30 years of China's economic growth in a heartbeat? Sure, they could. But consider the consequences for Western businesses. Imagine the empty shelves, decimated revenues and the resulting store closures and layoffs.

In essence, our addiction to cheap goods has put us in a position where any retaliatory economic action puts our own economies at as much risk as those of foreign adversaries. Never a good position to negotiate from. businessoffashion.com

'Retail Arms Race'
Experience Is Key: The Crazier The Better For Growing 'Retailtainment' Concepts
After years of being cooped up at home, consumers want to try something new. This realization, combined with a resurgence of the "retailtainment" trend, has prompted business owners to level up in unprecedented ways, as an arms race to provide the most epic customer experience unfolds across the U.S.

If there is one thing retailers took away from the pandemic, it is that consumers have options, said Katherine Cullen, senior director of industry and consumer insights for the National Retail Federation. It is no longer enough to be the most convenient, the fastest or to have the broadest selection. Experience matters, and business owners are racing to one-up each other in an attempt to prove their concept is the one worth trying.

"Consumers have more choice than ever before," Cullen said. "You have to be able to compete on all fronts, and experience is part of that."

"Retailtainment," or businesses focused on providing customers with experiences rather than goods, predates the pandemic. A 2019 study by NRF called the trend "2018's winning formula," and found that nearly half of consumers attended at least one retailtainment event that year. Among millennial shoppers, the share jumped to two-thirds.

Retailtainment was placed on hold during shutdowns but Cullen said it has since resurfaced as the country reopens and social gatherings resume. Americans want to spend more of their time away from home, she said, and retailers are responding accordingly. bisnow.com

'Reinventing the Shopping Experience'
Kroger and Nvidia partner to 'reinvent the shopping experience' with AI and digital twin simulations
Nvidia and Kroger today announced a "strategic collaboration" designed to bring more AI-powered applications and services to the grocery realm. Kroger and Nvidia revealed plans to build an AI lab and "demonstration center," to improve its shipping logistics and in-store shopping experience.

As the largest supermarket chain in the U.S. by revenue, Kroger needs little introduction. But as with many "traditional" brick-and-mortar retailers, Kroger has had to move with the times and embrace technology to connect with consumers where they prefer to transact - today, Kroger claims third spot in terms of online U.S. grocery sales, after Walmart and Amazon.

Kroger has been investing heavily in its modernization efforts, which has included partnering with robotics company Ocado, and teaming up with Microsoft to develop data-driven grocery stores. And its latest partnership fits neatly into those other recent initiatives. venturebeat.com

Inflation Finally Hitting Retail Sales
Study: Inflation cutting into in-store, e-commerce spending
A new study reveals the details of exactly how inflation is affecting consumer online purchase behavior.

Nearly all consumers (72%) are spending less due to recent inflation, significantly cutting out "fun" or "impulse buys," according to the new Q1 2022 Consumer Trends Report from selling platform JungleScout, a quarterly study of 1,000 U.S. consumers. Almost four in 10 (38%) respondents are spending less overall, and more than one-third (34%) are spending less online, the highest reported figures on decreased consumer spending in at least one year.

Close to half (47%) of respondents buy from their favorite brands due to affordability, which is ranked as the leading driver of brand loyalty over quality, familiarity, and sustainability. More than half (53%) of respondents make a purchase when presented with a deal, coupon or discount code; and 47% only purchase products that are on sale or discounted. chainstoreage.com

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Dallas, TX: 3 accused of stealing over $10K in merch from Allen ULTA store, leading police on chase
Police arrested three people after stealing more than $10,000 in merchandise from an Allen ULTA Beauty store and leading police on a chase through east Dallas on Saturday. The Allen Police Department said officers responded to a call about a theft in progress at the ULTA store located at 190 E. Stacy Rd. Suite 2680, where three suspects took multiple baskets of boxed perfume. Police said the suspect's vehicle was spotted traveling southbound on U.S. Highway 75 near Bethany.  During the police pursuit, Allen police dispatch said it received a call from a woman who identified herself as the mother of an occupant of the suspect vehicle. Police were able to convince the driver - through communication of the woman - to pull over at the Circle K gas station at Interstate 20 and Trade Days Boulevard in Canton, Texas. The police pursuit lasted more than 85 miles, police said. All occupants of the vehicle subsequently surrendered to police and were taken into custody.  wfaa.com

Vancouver, Canada: Two men allegedly stole over $16,000 in merchandise from Lululemon
Two men who allegedly stole more than $16,000 in merchandise from a Kitsilano clothing store have been arrested by Vancouver Police. On Wednesday (March 23) around 4:20 a.m., a 35-year-old woman who lives close to the store called 911 after she woke up to the sounds of glass being smashed and a security alarm going off near Arbutus Street and West 4th Avenue, explains a news release. When police arrived at the scene, the suspects were already gone but an "alert VPD officer acting on a hunch tracked them down after spotting a taxi leaving the area with no lights on," state the VPD. The officers pulled the taxi over to investigate and discovered the two suspects inside, along with more than $16,000 in stolen goods. dailyhive.com

Matthews, NC: NC police ID 2 women accused of spending $37,000+ using stolen credit cards; 2 men also sought
Two women who are accused of spending more than $35,000 using stolen credit cards have been identified and North Carolina police say two young men are also part of their theft ring. The women made "fraudulent purchases" at a Lowe's home improvement store at 2115 Matthews Township Parkway on Feb. 3, according to police in Matthews, which is south of Charlotte. Matthews police issued an alert with two photos of the women on March 8. The women are also suspected of using stolen credit cards while making other purchases in the area that exceeded $37,000, police said. Earlier this month, Matthews police announced they figured out the identity of the two women thanks to "numerous tips we received." Police also said their investigation led to two other suspects. Police said the four suspects face 22 arrest warrants. cbs17.com

Radnor, PA: Police asking for help in identifying suspects in theft from the Micro Center store
Radnor police are asking for the public's help in identifying the three people captured on surveillance photos, suspected of theft from a computer store in Wayne. On Tuesday, March 22, around 1:45 p.m., the three subjects entered the Micro Center at 550 E. Lancaster Ave. in Wayne. They removed several items from the store and concealed them into a duffel bag. The value of the missing items was unknown at the time the report was made to police. mainlinemedianews.com

Bellingham, WA: Theft suspects reportedly drive off with 2 people hanging onto getaway vehicle
Two Bellingham men are suspected of stealing more than $3,000 worth of merchandise from Whatcom Electric and Battery and then driving off with two people, who were trying to stop the theft, still hanging onto the getaway vehicle.  bellinghamherald.com

Horsehead, NY: Three Elmira women arrested for stealing over $1000 in merchandise from Horseheads Walmart