As The Appeal wrote in June, data does not back up claims of a nationwide shoplifting “surge.” According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data, the number of reported shoplifting offenses dropped 18 percent between 2019 and 2020, the last year for which full data is available. That decline may be an aberration due to the COVID-19 pandemic — though supporters of the “crime wave” narrative say retailers have stopped reporting theft to police because prosecutors aren’t punishing it harshly enough. But there is perhaps a simpler explanation than an unreported shadow-wave of stealing: While the average value of shoplifted items has ticked up over the last decade (likely due to a confluence of factors), the actual number of shoplifting incidents in America is falling. The FBI reported in September that overall larceny rates across the U.S. have plummeted to lows not seen since the 1960s.
This contradictory data hasn’t stopped big retail chains and their law enforcement allies from pushing the theft-surge narrative. Stories about shoplifting are generally sourced from major retailers themselves. And while media outlets tend to treat these corporations as neutral arbiters of information, retailers have a vested interest in the policy debate that stems from these stories. Many of these companies have long lobbied to keep people locked up for as long as possible. Safeway, one of the multiple companies that has complained this year about a shoplifting surge, also backed a California ballot initiative in 2020 that would have locked up people who shoplift for longer periods of time.
Cops also benefit from this narrative of supposed lawlessness. How could we defund police or lessen the U.S.’s harsh penalties for retail theft when there’s a crime wave afoot?
One such targeted media campaign came to Arizona in May, when Home Depot fed shoplifting footage to the Phoenix CBS affiliate in order to push state lawmakers to pass House Bill 2383. That legislation would have created a statewide “organized retail theft task force” with its own full-time prosecutor and multiple investigators, but the bill died in the Senate after making it through the House.
Efforts in other states have been more successful. In September, Illinois created an Organized Crime Task Force that partners directly with major corporations. And in California, a recently enacted law is set to bolster the California Highway Patrol’s existing retail crime task force, after receiving unanimous support in the legislature. That bill comes as shoplifting rates across California are at their lowest levels since the state officially began tracking the statistic in 1975.
Perhaps most notably, San Francisco Mayor London Breed this year expanded an “organized retail crime initiative” and beefed up the number of city cops assigned to retail theft issues — seemingly in response to claims that a shoplifting wave was sweeping her city. The issue came to a head in October when Walgreens stated that rampant shoplifting had forced the multibillion-dollar international corporation to close five stores in the city. Predictably, the specter of widespread crime in left-leaning San Francisco set right-wing media ablaze: Here again, they said, was a Democrat-dominated city with a “woke” prosecutor falling into supposed lawlessness and decay.
But Walgreens’ own statements have since been called into question. Last month, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that some of the Walgreens stores slated for closure had reported fewer thefts than city averages. The data did not support Walgreens’ explanation that the closures were due to “organized, rampant retail theft,” the Chronicle wrote, later concluding that they were more likely due to other factors. (As others have also noted, the press was not similarly enraged when Walgreens agreed to pay $4.5 million in November 2020 to settle claims it had been stealing employees’ wages for years.)
Any such context was entirely absent from the hearing on Capitol Hill last week. Instead, Dugan’s testimony served as the crowning achievement of a years-long push by major retailers and local police to manufacture a narrative that crime is increasing when it isn’t.
In his testimony, Dugan painted a dire picture of the threat CVS Health faces from $200 million in losses due to shoplifting each year. What Dugan didn’t mention is that his company still sold $91 billion in goods and posted a $7 billion profit in 2020 — an increase from the year before. While everyday Americans are hurting after two years of a crushing pandemic, CVS seems to be doing just fine.
“We have not done nearly enough to address this crisis. We are going to have to do more. Whether that happens or not to a large degree is going to depend on you.”
Who precisely is “we” in this scenario? The young people who were children when Obama took office did not clear the way for a 750% explosion in crude oil exports, as he did just a few days after the Paris agreement was brokered in 2015. Nor did they boast proudly about it years later, as ever-more research mounted about the dangers of continuing to invest in fossil fuels. Speaking at a Houston, Texas gala in 2018, the former president proudly took credit for booming US fossil fuel production. “Suddenly America is the largest oil producer. That was me people,” he boasted jokingly to an industry-friendly crowd. “Say thank you.”
Young people also didn’t use the US Export-Import Bank to direct $34bn to 70 fossil fuel projects around the world. Neither did they deploy the National Security Administration to surveil other countries’ delegations at the climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009. And they have not joined other wealthy nations at the UN Framework Conventions on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks to keep conversations about the enormous climate debt they owe the rest of the world off the table.
To hear Obama tell it, if enough people come together to raise awareness about the climate crisis and consume smartly, they will change enough hearts and minds to keep warming below 1.5C. That would be a lot easier if Obama, in his time as leader of the free world, hadn’t made the task so much harder for all those inspiring, passionate young people.
“Presidents Are Not Kings” - Judge Rebuffs No. 45’s Claim To Executive Privilege - The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
County roads
Full of holes
On the route
I need to go
Road construction
Lane obstruction
Let me go
County roads
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