DEB’S RETAIL DISH AND DEALS: SAFETY IN NUMBERS

My only stint as a model was when I wrote a cover story for my first retail magazine about shopping center security. The image: my right arm holding a handbag being grabbed by the art director’s arm. That was in the early 1990s, so the current concern about organized retail crime is nothing new. (Later in the ‘90s, a ring targeted stores along a path from Philadelphia through Dallas.)

Debra Hazel President

Debra Hazel Communications

North Las Vegas, NV

201-618-5247

What is new is the industry acknowledging it and working to do something about it. Previously, individual owners hired security experts and ICSC held a couple of conferences, largely concentrated on diverting shoplifters. Post9/11, terrorism was briefly a focus. Now, there is a coordinated effort to combat a growing and increasingly violent problem. This isn’t your regular shoplifter.

Organized retail crime (ORC) is defined as an act that involves a “criminal enterprise employing a group of individuals (two or more) who steal substantial quantities of merchandise from a retailer(s),” according to an ICSC brief. The rings can be small and local, or even international, and sometimes can be linked to human trafficking as they bring immigrants over the border illegally, David Johnston, National Retail Federation’s (NRF) vice president of asset protection and retail operations told Business Insider late last year. Frequently, the thieves specialize in a merchandise category to resell the items online.

The result has been a huge, expensive and sometimes tragic problem. The NRF conducted a survey that revealed ORC had spiked by 26.5% in 2021. Eight in 10 retailers in the survey said those crimes have become violent, with a couple of workers killed last year.

Inventory loss in 2022 reached $94 billion and 75.9% of retailers reported ORC resulted in the physical assault of an employee, according to ICSC.

In March, ICSC held its first-ever event addressing the impact of ORC on the industry in partnership with the Loss Prevention Research Council at the University of Florida Innovate Hub, the NRF, the Retail Industry Leaders Association and Louisiana State University’s Stephenson Security Program Institute. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a sponsor of the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2023, spoke.

The measure establishes a coordinated multi-agency response, including allowing federal judges to order forfeiture after convictions of organized retail theft crimes; strengthens federal money-laundering statutes so investigators and prosecutors can target the illegal proceeds of ORC groups; ensures investigation and prosecution of ORC groups that use the internet, interstate or foreign commerce and allows for federal prosecutors to utilize an aggregate total value of $5,000 or more over a 12-month period to charge the transportation, or sale or receipt of stolen goods and establishes a Center to Combat Organized Retail Crime at Homeland Security Investigations.

Bravo to all of these organizations for acknowledging the truth and working to fix it.