The Loaded Question
“Why is retail theft spiraling out of control and destroying American cities?”
You’ve seen the viral clips: masked figures sweeping shelves into trash bags, security guards standing by helplessly, and headlines screaming about a “shoplifting epidemic.” The premise is visceral and terrifying, the social contract is breaking down and our urban centers are descending into anarchy!
The Hidden Premise
This question assumes two things as absolute facts:
1. That retail theft is historically high and rising everywhere.
2. That the primary driver of store closures is unchecked crime, rather than corporate strategy or economic shifts.
The Reality Check
When we look past the viral anecdotes and examine the data, the “epidemic” narrative crumbles.
• The Data: According to a comprehensive analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice, there is “no nationwide spike” in retail theft. In fact, in most of the country, theft rates are actually lower than they were pre-pandemic.[¹]
• The Corporate Walk-Back: While the National Retail Federation (NRF) originally claimed that “organized retail crime” accounted for nearly half of the industry’s $94.5 billion in losses (shrink), they were forced to retract that claim in late 2023. The actual number was closer to 5%.[²]
• The Real Culprit: A 2024 review by the New York Times found that while “shrink” (inventory loss) has remained steady at around 1.4–1.6% for years, many store closures cited as “crime-related” actually aligned with long-planned corporate restructuring away from lower-profit physical locations.[³]
The “lawless city” narrative is a Firehose of Falsehood tactic: it uses high-velocity, emotional video clips to override statistical reality, creating a permission structure for draconian policy responses.
The Better Question
Instead of asking “Why is theft destroying our cities?”, we should ask:
“How can we distinguish between localized spikes in organized crime and standard inventory loss to implement targeted solutions that don’t criminalize poverty?”
Why It Matters
The original question invites fear and demands a crackdown. The Better Question invites precision. It acknowledges that while organized retail crime does exist in specific pockets (requiring intelligence-led policing), it is not a nationwide apocalypse. This shift prevents us from supporting policies that erode civil liberties based on a phantom crisis.
Footnotes
[1] Ames Grawert and Ram Subramanian, “Myth vs. Reality: Trends in Retail Theft,” Brennan Center for Justice, 2024. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/myth-vs-reality-trends-retail-theft
[2] “US retail lobbyists retract key claim on ‘organized’ retail crime,” Reuters, December 6, 2023. https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/
[3] German Lopez, “Is Shoplifting Really Surging?” The New York Times, November 29, 2023. https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20231129&instance_id=108849&nl=the-morning&paid_regi=2&productCode=NN®i_id=99620667&segment_id=151231&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F1f04c76c-04e5-5b51-b73e-164ec469f78a&user_id=3dff07f36bd6711da8c63e3c4ddbf196