Nearly 95 per cent of retail companies polled in a recent survey indicated that they have been victims of organized retail crime in the past 12 months. The seventh annual Organized Retail Crime survey, conducted by the National Retail Federation (NRF), provided some damning statistics on a crime problem that simply isn’t getting any better.

Not only are incidents of retail crime increasing, with the highest level reported to date, but retailers surveyed said that thieves are becoming more brazen, and that 13 per cent of apprehensions lead to violence.

“Organized retail crime affects virtually every single retailer in America, impacting everything from the bottom line to the safety of people in the stores,” said NRF senior asset protection advisor Joe LaRocca, in a press release.

Easy Money

The survey also revealed that organized retail crime extends far beyond the store level. Nearly half of retailers surveyed had been victims of cargo theft in the past 12 months.

“The economy is tough, and retail items are relatively easy to fence and receive money for quickly,” says Liz Martinez, criminal justice professor, retail security trainer, and author of The Retail Manager's Guide to Crime and Loss Prevention. “One bottle of Tide detergent looks pretty much like another, and there are very few ways to distinguish in which store a specific bottle is intended to be sold,” she says.

“Hand-in-hand with that, the market is excellent for the resale of stolen retail goods. There are open-air markets that sell everything from clothing to cosmetics, fences who resell goods to mom-and-pop stores (who may not even know the items are stolen), and online opportunities for almost-anonymous sales of higher-dollar products.”

Slap on the Wrist

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Martinez also attributes the increase in organized retail crime to the lax penalties that amount to a slap on the wrist. “Terrorists have been known to use organized retail crime to finance their enterprises precisely because jail time for shoplifting is nonexistent to short, as opposed to the severe penalties that accompany other lucrative crimes, such as drug- or gun-dealing,” she says.

Understand the Problem

The first issue that should be addressed, says Martinez, is education of law enforcement and legislators about the depth and breadth of the problem.

“Many people - including police, prosecutors and lawmakers - if they think about retail crime at all, take the attitude, ‘Who cares if Sears (or Kmart or Walgreens) loses a couple of bucks to shoplifters?’ They fail to realize that not only is there a terrorist component at work, there is tremendous damage to the economy in the form of lost revenue (which equals lost jobs and lost sales tax), as well as health concerns,” she says, citing high-demand items, such as baby formula, as examples of goods that can pose health issues, when thieves change expiry dates and don’t store them properly.

Training and Awareness

Martinez also feels that training and awareness programs for employees can help to deter retail theft.

“Employees who have been trained properly have been able to ‘customer-service’ criminals right out the door. Thieves do not want to be identified, and their goal is to be in and out of a store in record time. By offering assistance and talking to the bad actors, employees demonstrate that they will not give the thieves the privacy they need in order to carry out their crimes, and they will be able to identify them after any crime takes place,” she says.

While Martinez agrees that locking up popular stolen goods is a good option, she also points out that in order to sell the items there must be enough staff to unlock them. Since most stores strive to keep payroll as low as possible, this can pose problems. “A better option is to put a deterrent into place, such as a clear plastic shield in front a shelf containing frequently stolen products, so that thieves cannot simply ‘sweep’ an entire shelf clean in an instant and then take off. Again, the longer they are forced to spend in a store, the more likely it is that they will be identified, and because they don't want to be locked up for any length of time, they are likely to move on to another store with unprotected product,” she says.

Of course, this just moves the problem on to the next victim, but the more deterrents, training and education the industry undertakes, the better the chance of next year’s survey showing a decrease in this far-reaching crime.