Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho went public Tuesday with a new approach to retail theft.
The DA said he has had an organized retail theft unit working for the past two months exclusively on those crimes and has filed 35 criminal cases.
"We have a full-time investigator and a prosecutor who is assigned to prosecute those cases vertically,” Ho said. “Which means that they will handle the case from beginning to end, collaborating with our law enforcement partners in the investigation process, our business community, all the way to the prosecution and the conviction of the case."
The DA's office is cooperating with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, the Sacramento Police Department, the California Highway Patrol and several retail businesses and trade associations in this new crackdown.
Both Ho and Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper said they were frustrated to see everyday items like toothpaste and deodorant being locked up behind plastic at retail stores.
“We as Californians have to change that and obviously this is going to go a long ways to prosecute these folks and hold them accountable,” Cooper said. “Vertical from beginning to end makes a big difference. [Prosecutors are] vested. They know the case in and out.”
Speakers from various agencies described thefts ranging from $2,000 to one at Zanzibar Furniture on Broadway in Sacramento that cost around $100,000 in merchandise.
“These are not petty thefts,” Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester said. “They are not crimes of opportunity. There are planned and coordinated criminal acts which are often very serious felonies.”
CHP Chief Mike Dust said that the state is putting $373.5 million towards combating organized retail theft over the next four years. He said the CHP conducted 21 “retail blitz” operations in Sacramento, Placer and San Joaquin counties in the last quarter of 2023, leading to 116 arrests and the recovery of $325,000 worth of goods.
A recent PPIC study found that while statewide shoplifting rates are still below pre-pandemic highs, rates of retail theft and robbery have risen in recent years in California’s largest counties, including Sacramento.
In December the National Retail Federation retracted an often-cited figure that "organized retail crime" costs stores nearly $45 billion a year. In 2021 the NRF reported that stores lost around $94.5 billion to “shrink,” or total losses of merchandise, of which retail theft is a part.
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