New York Times columnist Pamela Paul wrote Thursday on the variety of problems caused by shoplifting in a piece headlined “What We Lose to Shoplifting.” In 2021, she wrote, an estimated $94.5 billion nationwide was lost to shoplifting and other forms of “retail shrink” (which includes damaged or lost goods and employee theft).
But the consequences go beyond the financial loss. As she wrote,
“…there is also an undeniable quality-of-life impact from the real or perceived increase in shoplifting. It is felt by shoppers, store employees, security personnel, store owners and our communities…The most obvious effect is a sense of increased danger. Stores simply feel less safe.”
Paul used Wirepoints’ data on Chicago crime to point out that arrest rates for shoplifting are falling:
For a variety of reasons, police now seem less inclined to arrest shoplifters. In Chicago, for example, overall arrests for reported thefts dropped from a rate of about 10 percent in 2019 to less than 4 percent in 2022, according to Wirepoints, a right-leaning watchdog group. Of the nearly 9,000 reported retail thefts in Chicago in 2022, only about 17 percent resulted in arrests, Wirepoints said.
Crime data shows that the retail theft arrest rate dropped from 43 percent in 2019 to just 17 percent in 2022. The NYT articles doesn’t discuss why, but we know the reasons: prosecutors like Kim Foxx refusing to bring charges; the increased threshold of felony theft to above $1,000; low police morale; risk-averse corporate policies. All contribute to shoplifters going unstopped, unarrested and unpunished.
Read more from Wirepoints:
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
MSM equates shoplifting as justifiable action of “poor person needing food for family”, a false narrative. Most shoplifters are stealing for specific resale purposes, whether as organized-crime gang, for bulk resale, or for individual online resale postings. Notable number of internet-sales are from sourced as fencing operations. Folks shoplifting in-bulk at Dior, Burberry, MAC, Apple aren’t “stealing to feed their kids”, not feeding a drug habit. It’s just another gig in 21st century economy, a “job” tacitly endorsed by politicians dismiss retail theft.
When Democrats decriminalize theft, society rots from the inside out
“The church receptionist was pushed down the stairs at the Fullerton Red Line station on March 28, by a man fleeing the scene after stealing another passenger’s iPhone. Katona-King took a spill and fell down the concrete steps, and later died from her injuries.
“We believe he tried to jump over her, and he knocked her over backwards…”
I’m sure it wasn’t the intent of the thief to kill an old woman for a phone, but it happened. You never know how innocent bystanders are going to react to unlawful behavior.
I wonder if the NYT writer realizes that she’s on the slippery slope to Broken Windows Policing. Once her Pravda Media colleagues connect the dots, she will be canceled and out on the street faster that you can say Bari Weiss.
While the underserved help themselves to what their LINK/SNAP cards won’t hand them on a silver platter, Comrade Johnson stands there beaming in his Mussolini stance and warns us not to demonize his acolytes.
Shoplifting was a big issue when I worked for a major retailer in uptown in the ‘80’s. Most issues were taken care of internally and didn’t involve CPD. Most scumbags knew not to rip off the store I worked at. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work today.
Much of Illinois media continues to blacklist us despite frequent citations like this in major, national publications.
Mark, keep up the good work. Wirepoints is one of the few websites I can rely on for accurate information and enlightened commentary.
I forgot to add that they needed a Wirepoints website in Detroit in the 70s but Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet until much later.
Spot on. Wirepoints, CWB Chicago, Second City Cop (its back), HeyJackass and Chicago Contrarian are the only truthful news sources remaining in the city.
Seems IPI is blacklist by media as well…one would think readership at Crains, trib, st, etc would get bored with same-old perspective? I can’t imagine their market share is growing or maybe im wrong? Or, maybe they don’t care about market share?
It seems ST, WBEZ, WTTW, Blockclub, Ill Answers Project are in reality one big, all the same, non-profit /dem funded news entity focused on progressive social justice talk 24/7 supposedly aimed at hip young folks and upper income lib types market? Is this news cabals market share growing? is anyone reading? or do they care?
Big advertisers have a place to virtue signal to a disappearing audience. Conservative radio has the opposite problem – millions of listeners but no mainstream advertisers.
Right over the target Mark.
With the no cash bail and Foxx’s refusal to prosecute why waste time arresting the offenders? The new Mayor even supports the offenders as well so to think things are going to get any better in the near future is pretty much hopeless.
Why risk your health and livelihood to arrest these thugs who are released to do it all again?
“Hopeless” pretty much sums it up.
Congrats… and THANK YOU for telling the truth…!!!
Congrates—YOU GO WP!!!!