Stream Episode 6 Now!
'Retail Crime Uncovered' Podcast Presented by Sekura Global

Prof. Adrian Beck on self-service checkouts: efficiency, effectiveness and loss

In this episode, Emmeline Taylor, Professor of Criminology, talks to retail crime guru, Professor Adrian Beck, who has over 30 years experience researching and consulting on retail crime, security and loss. In a week that has seen one British supermarket announce it’s giving up on self-service machines (“rather than artificial intelligence, we're going for actual intelligence”) and the Chairman of Marks and Spencer stating that the middle classes are increasingly stealing when using SCO, Emmeline and Adrian discuss the effectiveness, efficiency and losses associated with self-service across the industry.

Stream all the episodes here

NRF's ORC Data Update Makes More Headlines
Target, Walmart, and other retailers get shocking crime news

A major report has changed and that raises questions about Walmart, Target, Walgreens and other retailers.

Theft numbers are part of what the industry calls shrink. Some shrink is shoplifting, some is organized retail crime, some comes from employee theft, and items also can be lost in less nefarious ways. An April report from NRF, showed that organized retail crime was a massive part of overall shrink for retailers.

"In the original report, dedicated to organized retail crime and conducted with risk, compliance, investigations and monitoring firm K2 Integrity, the group had said that shrink was $94.5 billion in 2021, 'nearly half of which was attributable to" organized retail crime, Retail Dive reported.

The problem is that the data used also included shrink from process errors and inventory loss that had nothing to do with crime as well as theft. So, after Retail Dive questioned the data, the NRF updated the report.

Basically, while no actual new numbers have been provided, the data show that organized retail crime does not account for anywhere near half of all shrink.

"According to its most recent report on shrink, about 29% is lost because employees steal merchandise or money and another 34% is lost to process errors or for unknown or other reasons. The remaining 36% is from external theft, of which organized retail crime is a subset," the website reported. thestreet.com

Click here to read the D&D Daily's initial report on the NRF's report update

RELATED: US retail lobbyists retract key claim on 'organized' retail crime


Canada Also Seeing Historic Levels of Retail Theft
Industry consultant says retail theft is the worst it’s been in 40 years
Retail theft is the worst it’s been in four decades, according to an industry consultant. Stephen O’Keefe of Bottom Line Matters told 680 CJOB’s The Start that, despite some perceptions, it’s not a victimless crime.

“The nature of the theft has an increased level of violence that’s taking place,” he said. “So it does affect the consumer. They’re in harm’s way, from a safety standpoint, when they’re in a store and pepper spray is being deployed.

“It also has an effect on the staff — who are your neighbours, your parents, your kids, who are working in the stores.”

Over the past month, Winnipeg police have arrested more than 150 people as part of a wider strategy to slow down rampant shoplifting.

At a news conference Monday, police said the new initiative — in partnership with the Retail Council of Canada and the city’s business community — comes at a time of increasing violence at local businesses.

According to police statistics, nearly 4,000 incidents of shoplifting for items under $5,000 occurred between January and August, representing a 44 per cent increase over the same period last year.

O’Keefe said there’s often an organized crime element to retail theft, although that term can be easily misinterpreted.

“It’s where one or two or more people are organized in the efforts to steal, and they generally steal like items,” he said. “They’re not stealing one or two items from a store, but they’re stealing 10 of the exact same unit and they’re using them for the purpose of resell.”

The people stealing the items typically give them to another group that sells them online, or in some cases, right back to the original retailer.  globalnews.ca


SF Police Step Up ORC Blitzes
San Francisco police cite data indicating retail theft crackdown is working
San Francisco police have been promising to crack down on retail theft this holiday season, and recent results show their strategy appears to be working. The City has become notorious for videos showing thieves running out of stores with armfuls of merchandise and often getting away with it.

In addition to stepping up the police presence in Union Square and other popular shopping areas, the efforts have included what the SFPD has termed a "blitz" on retail theft.

On Thursday, police offered details on an operation that netted 17 suspected shoplifters at a single store on Mission Street near the SFMOMA and Yerba Buena Gardens earlier this week. Residents say they have noticed an improvement.

"We're not saying that this is over," Chief Bill Scott said Thursday. "We know that this is a challenge that we have to sustain this effort. But we believe that our city has gotten off to a great start."

San Francisco Police say the city is, in fact, seeing less of the rampant theft that has made international headlines for several years. They point to one set of data suggesting a 35% drop in the first six months of the year.

For that, the chief credits the department's so-called "blitz" operation targeting everything from high-end boutiques in Union Square to corner pharmacies.

"These are retail theft abatement operations," Scott explained. "Where our officers are inside of retail establishments, from Walgreens to some of our bigger retail outlets." cbsnews.com


UK Retailers Launch ‘Stop Shop Theft’ Campaign
Retailers launch anti-theft campaign as crimes hit record
A coalition of business groups and industry trade unions have come together to launch a new campaign calling on the police and crime commissioners (PCC) to act on retail crime.

Groups including the Association of Convenience Stores, the British Retail Consortium and the British Independent Retail Association have backed the campaign that calls upon the PCC to commit to the Retail Crime Action Plan in their local areas.

It also urges the PCC to inform businesses on how they should report incidences of theft and urges them to share a single point of contact for businesses that are a victim of crime in their area.

The new campaign, ‘Stop Shop Theft’, comes as retail crime figures hit a record high.

Data from 1200 retailers surveyed by the Association of Convenience Stores’ Voice of Local Shops Survey showed that 38% of independent retailers have reported theft levels to have increased over the last year, compared to just 8% who claimed it had decreased.

This figure represents this highest increase since the survey started in 2012, with the previous record set earlier this year in May.

ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “These shocking figures show that shop theft is still getting worse for independent retailers across the UK, despite millions being invested in crime prevention and detection measures. Prolific offenders are stealing on a regular basis without fear of being caught because they know that the police are unlikely to be able to attend.”  grocerygazette.co.uk


Behind the Scenes of Oakland's Retail Theft Funding Flop
Emails, texts reveal how Oakland missed out on millions to fight retail theft
Waiting until the last minute, a citywide 911 outage, and a lack of a centralized leader all contributed to Oakland's failure of getting in on millions of dollars from the state to combat organized retail theft, according to details revealed by a public records request.

KTVU obtained communications in the form of emails and text messages between city employees and others involved in preparing an application to the California Board of State and Community Corrections, the agency in charge of handing out millions of dollars in grant money to combat retail theft – which Oakland missed out on this fall.

Those messages show a gap in action between when the application opened and its deadline. Despite knowing about it in April, messages show Oakland employees did not put their heads together until late June, a week before the deadline.

That time crunch made editing documents difficult and didn't account for an unexpected power outage at the last minute, preventing police officials from uploading necessary documents to complete their application. It's unclear if the power outage actually affected submitting the grant, but city employees suspected as much, revealed in text messages. ktvu.com


'Drive-Through Burglaries': The New Crime Wave Literally Hitting Stores
'Ram raiding' is a new violent burglary trend targeting brick-and-mortar businesses
It is an example of a crime wave targeting brick-and-mortar stores around the country. The crime, referred to as "ram raiding" and also "crash and grab," depending on where it happens, involves driving a vehicle through a store's front window to break in and loot.

The Wall Street Journal highlighted the issue over the weekend, calling them "drive-through burglaries." Targets have ranged from small boutiques like Rush Hour to luxury outlets and big box chains.

"SPD has been seeing this type of tactic of utilizing a vehicle to ram a business' entry in order to steal merchandise from within occurring in multiple incidents," Seattle Police Public Information Officer Juddina Gulpan told Fox News Digital. "It is unknown if these incidents are related."

The crimes tend to occur in the early morning hours, leaving shopkeepers showing up to work to find devastating damage. Last Wednesday, a crew hit an Oakland, California, Trader Joe's store around 4 a.m., the San Francisco Times reported. fox5dc.com


Dollar General Accused of 'Lax Security' in Lawsuit Related to Racist Shooting
After racist shooting that killed 3, families sue Dollar General firms and others over lax security
Family members of three Black people fatally shot at a Dollar General store in north Florida by a racist gunman have sued the store’s landlord, operator and security contractor for negligence, claiming lax security led to their loved ones’ deaths.

The 21-year-old gunman had attempted to enter another store and the campus of a historically Black college, but he was stopped by the presence of security guards at both places. The probes by Ryan Palmeter took place in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Jacksonville last August, ending in the fatal assault at the Dollar General.

The lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of the families of Angela Carr, Jerrald Gallion and A.J. Laguerre.

“While Palmeter was deterred from harming the public at his two preceding stops, at this Dollar General, there was nothing in place to again deter Palmeter from attacking and killing innocent persons,” the families’ lawsuit said.

Better security measures should have been in place by the store operator and landlord before the shooting last August since the area around the store had seen a rash of shootings, assaults, burglaries, robberies and drug dealing, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit was filed in state court in Jacksonville. Palmeter killed himself at the scene of the attack, leaving behind racist writings and a suicide note.  capitalgazette.com


U.S. Reaches Grim Mass Shooting Milestone
Mass shootings in US with four or more deaths hit highest level since at least 2006
There have been more mass shootings with four or more deaths in 2023 than in any year since at least 2006, according to The Washington Post’s gun violence database.

There have been 38 such mass shootings this year, up from last year’s high of 36. The record extends back to at least 2006, the oldest information in the Post’s database.

A pair of shootings in Dallas and Vancouver, Wash., on Sunday broke the record and pushed the number of deaths in such shootings to 197 — excluding the gunmen. Mass shootings with at least four deaths have been on the rise in recent years, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 21 in 2020, 31 in 2021 and 36 in 2022.

The country is on track to fall short of the record for the number of mass shootings, which are incidents that injure at least four people. There have been 630 mass shootings in the U.S. so far in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Last year’s total was 645, and 2021’s mark of 690 is the record.

American fears about crime are at decades-long highs, despite violent crime falling in 2022 compared to the year prior — the most recent data available from the FBI.

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) was joined by Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and others this month in introducing a new gun control measure to limit firearm magazine sizes and purchase restrictions.

The White House also founded the Office of Gun Violence Prevention in September, with the exclusive aim of reducing the number of firearms deaths in the country.  thehill.com


Oakland boosts efforts to curb retail crime wave

Mass shooting survivor, victims' families meet with lawmakers in Washington, D.C.