APD Chief Nishant Joshi Discusses The Effectiveness And Limits of Law Enforcement, Private Security And Criminal Law To Arrest Rise
Hear the full audio interview here:
Story Overview
By Larry Freeman
It’s all too well known by shoppers, retail workers and business owners that shop lifting takes a toll on the community and feeds an ever rising sense of frustration, feeling of helplessness or a even a kind of reluctant acceptance.
In the worst case scenario, retail establishment close due to the financial toll the crime takes.
Retailers in California lost $8.720 billion in revenue to theft in 2022 and California retailers lost $285.70 in sales per capita in the same year according to research from the Capitol One Credit Card firm.
A study by the Public Policy Institute Of California showed that shoplifting crimes rose nearly 30% after the pandemic years, as shoppers returned in force to stores.
In fact, according to Joshi, about half of property crimes in Alameda involve this form of petty theft where thieves walk in with near impunity, and march out with their grab bags as retail workers and customers typically stand back and watch.
One retail clerk in a store that sells office supplies and other merchandise said he sees four or five such events per day, and seemed both troubled and resigned to that as almost a new cost of doing business in the current legal and justice system environment.
In another instance, a shopper shared with APD a video he took of two teen girls striding out of The Walgreen’s at South Shore, with shopping bags stuffed with cosmetics and other goods within fast and easy reach. A clerk behind them scoldingly asked “Why are you stealing?” as the two thieves remained stone-faced.
The pair plowed out of the store, one slapping at the phone in a failed attempt to knock it out of the videographer’s hand. Just after exiting and hearing the taunt that they had distinctive tattoos that were “nice identifiers” one retorted, “ So what? No one cares anyway.”
As you will hear, Chief Joshi cares deeply, but also understands what the limits are on the effectiveness of both private and police security to achieve deterrence or prevention, the pros and cons of undercover officers, the current state of criminal law related to the act, and what more can be done to augment APD’s increase in arrests of perpetrators.
California now considers shoplifting crimes below $950 as misdemeanors, $550 above the prior threshold of $400 before the passage of Proposition 47 in 2014 in response to a State Supreme Court Order to lower the state’s prison population by 33,000.
It is not clear what percentage of shoplifting crimes in California are below $400 however, the raising the threshold for shoplifting to qualify as felony theft may or may not be a factor explaining the increased frequency of the crime.
That said, Capitol One found that California’s shoplifting rate is 17% lower than the national per capita rate and that the crime reduced state sales tax revenues by over $500 million.