The renewed focus on combating shoplifting recently announced by the NYPD is urgently needed by local businesses suffering from ongoing merchandise loss, says Assemblyman William Colton (D—Gravesend, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach and Dyker Heights).

“This is a major problem that has been plaguing our mom-and-pop stores for a long time, and that got considerably worse in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic,” says Assemblyman Colton. “It’s costing small businesses a lot of money that they can ill afford to lose. I have been advocating energetically for the merchants, whose profit margins are already small, as they have been struggling with this issue. It’s clear that when local officials and community members make their voices heard, we can achieve results. It has taken a while but it seems that the city has finally gotten the message that this can’t go on.”

Shoplifting in New York City is up some 64 percent since 2019, according to city statistics, though attention to the problem over the last year has begun to produce results. The city announced a shoplifting crackdown originally in May, 2023. According to Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri, in 2023, the NYPD made approximately 3,000 more shoplifting-related arrests than it had the prior year, despite the fact that there were approximately 4,500 fewer shoplifting complaints lodged. Overall, NYPD statistics reflect an overall 2.5 percent decrease citywide in grand larceny (over $1,000), a felony, and a 4.5 percent decrease in petit larceny (below $1,000), a misdemeanor, over the course of the last year.

One major issue that must be tackled is the fact that, since the 2019 bail reform law passed, misdemeanor shoplifting suspects are rarely subject to bail requirements, said Assemblyman Colton, though he pointed out that legislation passed in 2021 allows bail to be set for suspects who are believed to be repeat offenders as well as for individuals suspected of stealing more than $1,000 worth of merchandise from different stores that are near each other, who could be charged with a felony, even if the amount stolen from individual stores does not reach the grand larceny minimum.

The new NYPD strategy for combating shoplifting includes an enhanced police presence in shopping areas and a focus on identifying shoplifting patterns, as well as working more closely with merchants and merchant groups, according to Chief LiPetri, who said that, as a result of NYPD outreach, there’s been an overall 40 percent increase in merchants reporting shoplifting incidents.

One key issue that still needs to be addressed, Assemblyman Colton says, is the increase in shoplifting rings, whereby networks of individual shoplifters bring the merchandise they steal to a central organizer, who then resells the items online for less money than the stores charge.

“This hurts our community businesses in a variety of ways,” Assemblyman Colton stressed. “First, they must take a financial hit when their stock is stolen; then, as customers opt to buy merchandise online, because it’s cheaper, they lose business to the very people who have ripped them off. The NYPD needs to tackle this substantively, and they need to do it soon.”