This holiday shopping season comes with a shadow. The National Retail Federation says Los Angeles is the number one city in the country for organized retail theft.
Even though commercial robberies have only increased 13% in L.A. since 2019, and the effect on retailers’ bottom lines hasn’t changed much, some business owners are ramping up security in response to a string of high-profile smash-and-grab robberies.
Is organized retail crime actually a growing problem? If so, what’s behind it? And what can we do to stop it?
On Dec. 12, KNX News gathered a panel to discuss the issue at our town hall, “Smash & Grab: Stealing the Season,” and here's what the experts had to say.
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How big of a problem is the smash and grab phenomenon, really?
Charis Kubrin, criminologist at the UC Irvine School of Social Ecology. “This is a bit challenging, because we do not have good data on smash and grabs. In fact, we don’t have really any systematic data on smash and grabs … We need to step back and take a deep breath and figure out what is actually going on, we have to challenge some of the claims that are being made by the retail establishments, because clearly they’re having to walk back on some of those claims.”
The National Retail Federation recently retracted claims that organized theft was responsible for $94 billion in annual losses.
Do the numbers actually matter?
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer: “Honestly, I don’t really care. Because every single time an individual goes into a business and creates this level of havoc, they need to be prosecuted.”
Kubrin: “You can’t really get a handle on how to solve a problem until you know what the extent of the problem is, these are the numbers, how widespread it is, and all of that additional information which is not just noise, but a precursor to solving a problem, in my opinion.”
On whether L.A. County officials are being aggressive enough in prosecuting organized retail theft:
Marc Beaart, director of fraud & corruption prosecutions at the LA County District Attorney Office: “We’re aggressively pursuing organized retail theft in all manners. Now, we have to be appropriate in our response. Some people are receiving probation and they’re being supervised. Others are being held in custody, and some are going to prison. We have to deal with this problem appropriately and not create an assembly line that goes to prison, but we also have to effectively handle this problem.”
On the nuances needed to approach the problem:
Tinisch Hollins, Executive Director, Californians for Safety and Justice: “The root of the issues, not just retail theft and smash-and-grabs, but just what we see happening in the community overall, there are root causes that are being ignored when we only point to one system or only point to one approach in trying to deal with it, and I think what we’re dealing with right now is an exacerbation of that. A lot of systemic failures, a lot of broken approaches that are now playing out publicly, especially after the pandemic.”
On Prop 47, a 2014 measure that reclassified some low-level drug and property crime offenses as misdemeanors:
Kubrin: “Every study I’m aware of today, including by independent organizations like the Public Policy Institute of California, and other organizations have found that, in my own research has well, have found that it has found no impact on violent crime whatsoever and only very, very modest impacts on property crime for the crime of auto theft and larceny. So it is doing what it’s intended to do, I think it has absolutely nothing to do with the smash-and-grabs we’re talking about.”
L.A. County vs Orange County smash and grabs prosecution:
Beeart: “They've been able to identify people like that now with masks and they're wearing these capering outfits and in black sweats and black shoes and black socks and sunglasses and sometimes hoodies. It's hard to find them,” he said.” And these are crews that are traveling all over the state and even outside the state, this is a national problem. This isn't an L.A. problem.”
Spitzer: “These individuals are committing petty theft at under $950 multiple times a day,” he said. “You know, we're not allowed to accumulate that dollar amount in one day unless we can show that it was part of the same or similar act.”
Beeart: “We can work under 490.1 of penal code, the organized retail statute and aggregate and aggregate crimes. And we can also pull in juveniles on misdemeanors. So we are effective there now,” he said. “Is it worth it going after someone who's stealing a sandwich? That's a societal question.”
Kubrin: “These are trends that are being experienced well outside of California. So it certainly is something larger and more macro that is common rather than Prop 47 because other states don't have it,” she said. “The second thing is that Prop 47 was passed in 2014. We are seeing smash and grabs come on the scene in 2021. Why the seven year lag if Prop 47 is responsible for these crimes?”
How often do well-organized smash and grabs happen?
Lt. Sergio Perez coordinator of the California Highway Patrol’s retail theft task force: “It could be as simply as two or three people that are getting together and committing these crimes and they could plan to go up to Northern California or go anywhere and that's organized right there,” he said.
Perez: “Obviously, you never know exactly when they're gonna show up, right? Unless you have some kind of information, some kind of tip, someone decided to speak with you and provide information to you. Absent that, it does get a little complicated to try to identify when these groups of people are gonna target a specific location,” he said.
Spitzer: “We need an enhancement for those who go in and do the smash and grabs in large groups,” he said. “Now, you can file conspiracy. You can file a robbery, if they're using force or violence. But we need an enhancement when they go in a group.”
What about personal agendas?
Kubrin: “My agenda is simply to bring the numbers to people and let them vote on propositions how they feel I am here to conduct analyses, do studies. I think it's very important if we're going to implement criminal justice reform or any major policy that it is followed up with studies of data that speak to not just what is happening in one location or in one person's backyard, which is important don't get me wrong, but also that we supplement those individual stories and experiences with state level data that can tell us what's happening from 35,000 ft.”
Spitzer: “Of course I have an agenda. I'm elected to protect the public. I run a county, the third largest county in California, sixth largest in the country. L.A.'s first, I'm sixth and he [George Gascon] filed 30 cases. I filed 1200 in the last five years,” he said.
Beeart: “We filed 30 cases in organized crime alone in the last three months. We file 7,000 cases as an office every month,” he said.
Kubrin: “Crime is caused by many different things. Homelessness is caused by many different things and we have to do studies and evaluations. We can't just look at what crime is doing after a policy is enacted because that policy may or may not be responsible for that uptick,” she said. “What's interesting about prop 47 is that it only comes into discussion when crime is going up, not when it's going down.”
How much of a difference does the District Attorney leadership make?
Hollins: “Going back to Prop 47, the intention behind this in addition to reducing incarceration in the state was also to tap into the $50 billion a year that goes to just the criminal justice system in California. To move those funds to prevention so that our students can have after school programming and job opportunities so that we can interrupt folks from having to go to jail and prison just to get substance abuse treatment or mental health,” she said.
Hollins: “If our prosecutors and the folks who are in the system don't have enough options to prevent people from going into the system in the first place. What we get is the outcome that we have right now. This is a very nuanced issue. You can break down the different types of crime types and understand where they all show up differently,” she said.
Spitzer: “We need to treat our fellow men and women with humanity, but we have to have expectations in our community about behavior,” he said.
Has anyone seen something new in retail theft prevention that has given them hope?
Hollins: "I think a lot of what we are trying to do at the legislative and systemic level sound good, but it's the implementation that trips us up." "The intention is to increase safety... But the approach that we use has to change."
"All the things that impressed me the most are community-based," she said. "Those are the things that impress all of us the most because they are immediately responsive to the issue."
Spitzer agreed, saying there is a need for more community-based programs involving those with personal experience to help successfully reintegrate individuals coming home from prison, but said, "Do not tell me that I've got to give up on enforcement in order to engage in a dialogue to build more community-based support."
Is it a matter of underreporting crimes?
Perez: "Well, obviously, I can't speak for all the store owners, but I can tell you, we do respond. Since the inception of our task force, the California High Patrol, this year alone, we have 221 proactive investigations, we've responded to over 2,100 actual retail theft investigations that we've completed, we've recovered over $33 million worth of product to give it back to the retailers. So we actually go out there."
Kubrin: "There is some issue with under reporting but it's not as dramatic as everyone seems to think it is. But the PPIC did a study of shoplifting in California, and while commercial burglary is up, commercial robbery, is up, and organized retail theft is a concern, shoplifting rates have been lower than they have been ever in the 12 years prior to the pandemic." "So I do think this isn't to say that we can't be vigilant and we can't find solutions. But we also have to be very clear about what is happening and where it is happening, and that is why we tailored community-based responses, not overarching policies that ratchet up punishment as if one size fits all."
To that Spitzer said, "Professor, you're missing the major point. How in the world does PPIC quantify these statistics when it's not reported?... none of this data, your data, any of the professors, all you academic people in your ivory tower that this stuff is inaccurate because it's not being reported. You can't study something that isn't being reported."
Kubrin responded with, "Disparaging a profession does not make your point anymore correct. The reality is that there's a lot of information in the study about how this is classified and reported. There is some questions reporting not being perfect, but in fact, challenges of reporting have always been in existence. So if we're comparing over time, which is what they're doing, we can make those comparisons. Reporting of low-level shoplifting has perpetually been a challenge for law enforcement. This isn't anything new."
What do we tell the people who don't feel safe?
Hollins: "So we have an issue with data across the board and then when we do look at the data that we have, we do see that you know, the tone to your point that folks feel in community about feeling unsafe, right? Because of what they're seeing, that's a real thing, right? People do feel unsafe, whether the data says that crime is down or up." "But I do wanna come back to the tone because I think the tone that we're setting right now, even in some parts of this conversation can be very dangerous because we cannot rely just on law enforcement to instill values in our community...Now, when people commit crimes, there should be an accountability system that we're able to tap into. Right now, the system we have doesn't create enough options for us. It's very limited and it's given us bad outcomes."
According to Spitzer, "As long as you live in Los Angeles, you're not gonna feel safe. That's the fact of the matter. As long as George Gascon is DA, you're not gonna feel safe."
Beaart replied: "So, so first off when you're a prosecutor, the Hallmark is, homicides, homicides have decreased in L.A. county and that is crucial." "Number two, organized retail theft is a multifaceted problem. We cannot solve it here. We can take evidence based decisions into our communities and as prosecutors and law enforcement, we can go after the problem. Part of the solution is retailers." "If you go to high end stores like Prada Gucci, Louis Vuitton, they ask you to stand in a line outside and I've spoken to these retailers and they've told me the irony is the people who wait in line for 10 to 20 minutes, buy more than the person who used to be able to just walk into the store." "I don't want to mention a specific retailer, but I'll say Dollar General, they'll have one cashier on duty. No security guard late at night, all alone, 23% of workplace deaths take place when an employee is alone."
Kubrin: "I think in terms of media reporting on this, I think it's really important to talk about some of the success stories and change the narrative a little bit because right now it's all doom and gloom and fair enough, we have problems that need responding to, I never want to minimize crime. But we just heard from Sergio about all the amazing things that are happening, task forces that are being created as well as community-based programs that are making a difference. It'd be nice to hear more about those successes and give a more balanced picture about what is working."
Guests included:
Todd Spitzer, Orange County District Attorney
Marc Beaart, director of fraud & corruption prosecutions at the LA County District Attorney Office
Lt. Sergio Perez, coordinator of the California Highway Patrol’s retail theft task force
Charis Kubrin, criminologist at the UC Irvine School of Social Ecology
Tinisch Hollins, Executive Director, Californians for Safety and Justice
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