Special Episode: A Conference on Crime, Panel 1 – Retail Theft

CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: This Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast was recorded live at Capitol Weekly’s Conference on Crime, which was held in Sacramento on Thursday, March 21, 2024

This is PANEL 1 – RETAIL THEFT

PANELISTS: Asm. Rick Chavez Zbur; Eric Brown, Office of Governor Newsom; Cristine Soto DeBerry, Prosecutors Alliance; Rachel Michelin, California Retailers Association

Moderated by Lindsey Holden, Sacramento Bee

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

LINDSEY HOLDEN: Hi. Thank you all for being here. Yes, I’m Lindsey Holden, I’m the legislative reporter for the Sacramento Bee. And I’m excited to be talking about retail theft with you this morning.

I’m going to introduce all of our panelists, and then we’ll just jump right into the discussion. So we have Assemblyman Rick Chavez Zbur, who is chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Retail Theft; Rachel Michelin, who is president and CEO of the California Retailers Association; Eric Brown, who is deputy legal affairs secretary, secretary to Governor Gavin Newsom, and Christine Soto DeBerry, who is founder and executive director of the Prosecutor’s Alliance.

So I really want to start off today kind of by defining the problem of retail theft in a way. You know, I think we all see stores locking up more products and dramatic videos of smash and grabs. But then the National Retail Federation’s 2023 Security Survey also showed that businesses shrink or loss rates have not substantially increased during the past few years. And then the same organization in December retracted its claim that organized retail crime accounted for nearly half of all losses in 2021. So, I guess I’m going to start with Rachel here. Can you kind of talk a little bit about what exactly we’re all looking at? I’m sure everyone has a take on this, but, you know, maybe we could get start with you.

RACHEL MICHELIN: Sure, absolutely. Well, thanks for having me. You know. I think that the piece on data is a really difficult area to justify on either side. You know, we partner with NRF. That was their report. We’ve been trying and we continue to work on how do we figure out ways to do California-specific data. But I think more importantly, what I look at in particular as we talk about some of these policy issues, is what we hear from our employees and what we hear from our customers.

And really, it’s our employees who are driving this and saying that they are seeing increase in retail theft in their workplaces, their workplace… criminal activity coming in. They see it. They know who these folks are. You know, we’re working diligently on trying to figure out a package of legislation to really look at, how do we deal with serial retail theft.

“A lot of folks keep focusing on Prop. 47 as if that’s sort of the culprit. Obviously, that’s not the issue in other states across the nation.” – Asm. Richk Chavez Zbur

But when you see customers having to wait 45 minutes to get a tube of toothpaste, when you see, unfortunately, stores closing… That’s a really difficult decision. And more importantly to I think a lot of emphasis is placed on the national brands and maybe the big box stores, but more I hear from a lot of small retailers and they can’t they can’t accommodate all of this happening. And they’re the ones who are really saying, “we need some help, we need some relief.” And I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re we’re really starting to move in that direction in California.

LH: Yeah. I just want to ask you, Assemblyman, I know your, you know, select committee hearing that I attended in December, you know, there were witnesses who said they could not produce data. And I know that there were lawmakers who were not happy with that. And so how do you deal with this problem when you’re trying to make policy?

ASM. RICK CHAVEZ ZBUR: Well, you know, there is data. It’s not I think some of the issues, the data is mixed in terms of what it says. You know, we know that nationally. We also know that this isn’t just a California issue. So, you know, I know we’ll probably get into talking about Prop. 47 a little bit. But a lot of folks keep focusing on Prop. 47 as if that’s sort of the culprit. Obviously, that’s not the issue in other states across the nation.

But the data that we have from the Public Policy Institute basically shows that while shoplifting is below pre-pandemic levels by a bit, it’s actually been rising… 29% jump from 2019 to 2022. Commercial burglary has increased statewide. Commercial burglary commercial robbery is up in nine of the 15 largest counties in California. So while. And but then there’s some areas where we show that shoplifting has gone down. And so it’s hard to explain those things.

Conference on Crime, Panel 1, Retail Theft. L-R: Asm. Rick Chavez Zbur; Rachel Michelin, California Retailers Association; Eric Brown, Office of Governor Newsom; Cristine Soto DeBerry, Prosecutors Alliance.
Photo by Joha Harrison, Capitol Weekly

But, you know, I’ve probably met with every major retailer, a whole bunch of small businesses, and they’ve shown me their data loss files. And one of the things that was really, you know, which is data, right? One of the things that they… one of them shared with me was that. You know, three years ago, almost none of their stores had locked cabinets. And today almost all of their stores have locked cabinets. You know, they don’t have an incentive to sort of lock these cabinets up on their own. It costs them money. It costs them you know employee time and expense.

It results in a shopper inconvenience and anger and fear, and it results in losses for anything that’s locked up. I mean, they they have data that shows that when you lock up a cabinet, a proportion of folks will basically not wait and will decide to sort of leave the store and go someplace else, and generally are buying things online. So, you know, my big takeaway on all of this is that the data is mixed, in some ways.

I know that in my areas in, you know, in Hollywood in particular, and I’ve met with those retailers, that the shrink rates are way up. I mean, they’ve shown me the data in some cases, they’re reporting shrink rates as high as 20% in some of these stores in Hollywood. So, there’s also pockets that it’s a big issue. And so I, I know Oakland is one of the areas where we’ve got high levels… the reality is that it’s an issue. And so you know, we can spend a lot of time quibbling about, you know, these sectors of the data.

“One of the big problems with retail theft is the way it impacts… where people shop, how they shop, how they feel about their communities, the sort of breakdown of social order. And those things have real world consequences.”  – Eric Brown

But the reality is, I think the public perceives that there’s an issue. The retailers are acting in ways which I think document that there’s an issue. And actually and the data from the Public Policy Institute says there’s an issue. It’s not the kind of detailed data that we would like, but it’s enough to show that we need to sort of take some action on this.

LH: Eric and Christine, do you either of you want to weigh in on this?

ERIC BROWN: I do. If my throat will allow me to. Yeah. There is a real problem with a lack of reliable data in this space. I think the reality of the situation is that retail theft is probably both under and over reported. I think a lot of retailers don’t bother to report a lot of the low level shoplifting that they see. At the same time, you mentioned the the National Retail Federation retracting that number that they had put out last year that was widely reported that half of all shrink is due to retail theft.

So, I think there’s a lot of uncertainty here. I’ve also seen numbers saying we’re looking at relatively flat as compared to pre-pandemic levels, but there are huge regional differences. And I think there have been really big spikes in some big cities. I’ve also seen data showing that the per capita retail theft rates in California are actually a little bit lower than the national average of states.

Yet I think there is a perception problem in California. But I don’t want to I don’t want to suggest that the, the perception is, is misplaced or that that’s irrelevant. I think it’s really important: Perception matters.

Conference on Crime, Panel 1, Retail Theft. L-R: Lindsey Holden, Sacramento Bee; Asm. Rick Chavez Zbur; Rachel Michelin, California Retailers Association; Eric Brown, Office of Governor Newsom; Cristine Soto DeBerry, Prosecutors Alliance.
Photo by Joha Harrison, Capitol Weekly

You know, one of the big problems with retail theft is the way it impacts you know, where people shop, how they shop, how they feel about their communities, the sort of breakdown of social order. And those things have real world consequences. So, I think it’s important to look for better data, to look for more reliable data, to come back to that data and be grounded in the data, but also not lose sight of the way that perception really does have real consequences.

CRISTINE SOTO DEBERRY: So we do have opportunities to improve our data, have been advocating for this for more than a decade, but be virtually for the last several years. There is a budget opportunity right now for the state legislature to fund the data collection from prosecutor’s offices so that we can answer the question, what cases are being filed? What consequences are being meted out for people engaged in this activity, not just retail theft, but everything we care about. That seems to me foundational to any conversation and responsible for any conversation we want to have about crime and how we respond to it.

We also had a bill to require our law enforcement agencies in the state to report their data, so that we would know, are they actually responding and arresting people? That was opposed by law enforcement. We are the second worst state in the nation at reporting data from law enforcement agencies. We are only better than Florida. Everybody else is doing better than us on that. So those are some opportunities.

LH: Yeah. This leads into my next question perfectly. I think there and some panel members alluded to this a little bit. I think there are perceptions that retail theft is underreported, that law enforcement doesn’t adequately respond to incidents that are reported, and that prosecutors have a backlog of property theft cases. And so I’m actually going to ask Cristine this, you know, do you feel like that’s an accurate perception? And if so, what could be done to fix the situation from your perspective?

CSD: Yeah, I you know, I think the data question is a really helpful one to scale back on and ask ourselves, “what did the data look like before Prop. 47?” And it will tell us that there was more petty theft and theft [back] in the 1990s than there is now. And so what that tells me as a prosecutor is that the punishment scheme is not what changes behavior. Right? Because we used to make this conduct felony, even small amounts. You’ve all read them in the newspaper. “I stole a pizza and now I’m serving life. I stole a pizza and I got a five year sentence.”

Those consequences, unfortunately, do not deter crime. Or, maybe, fortunately, I don’t know. You know, we don’t even need to have an opinion on it. It just we know the data is it doesn’t work. And so the question to me then is since we have dozens of felony penal code sections currently on the books that are available to prosecutors in these cases; since we have the ability to detain people for retail theft currently on the books for police and sheriffs that make those arrests… it seems to me that we have adequate tools in the enforcement space.

The questions I think we have not been looking at are the solutions beyond the reactive punishment process, right. What are we going to do to actually stop the problem? Prevention is a much better game to be in in my work than reaction.

And so if what we can do is say, what’s causing people to go to these stores and grab 300 bottles of shampoo or 50 pairs of jeans, that’s obviously not for personal use? That’s to resell it. Where are you reselling it? Let’s shut down the opportunity to resell those goods to the fences, at the intermediate level, and ultimately to the online platforms where those goods all end up and where you and I are unwittingly buying. So, that to me is a bigger question then. Is there a backlog of cases and how do we respond with these kinds of tinkering within an existing system that we know doesn’t actually resolve the questions we’re asking here?

LH: Gotcha. I mean, Rachel, can you do you I feel like this has come up actually several times at events you’ve been at. Can you kind of speak to this perception about law enforcement and prosecutors, etc.?

RM: Sure. I do think there is a lot of finger pointing. You know, retailers don’t call the police because the police won’t show up. The police won’t show up because DA’s won’t prosecute, DA’s won’t prosecute because they don’t feel like they have the tools to do so.

Our number one priority from the retail industry is to deter people from doing the behavior in the first place, right? So we’re open to any ideas on how we deter it. We just want people to be able to come in and have a safe shopping experience. I mean, 80% of shopping is still done in stores, so people are still going into the stores. We want to make sure our employees are able to have a safe work environment, and we don’t… they’re not having to deal with people watching them walk outside the door stealing merchandise, which happens on a daily basis.

A lot is underreported because unfortunately, we’ve had instances where some of my members have been told they will be cited as a public nuisance if they continue to call law enforcement. So that’s another problem, is that, you know, retailers want to be good participants. We are actually an industry that banned the box, first. We hire people with criminal, you know, backgrounds. We want to be part of that rehabilitation process. But we have to figure out a way to deter that from from happening in our stores.

So I do think there’s a lot of finger pointing. We’re trying to do better in terms of getting, you know, retailers to report and to call. But I had one member company who called, the woman called the police, sat there for four hours waiting for law enforcement to show up. You know, that we have to figure out a different way to do this.

Now, I will say, you know, we worked with the governor’s office on his local law enforcement grants. And when you see that that funding, you know, and I wish, you know, we had a bunch of more money in the state budget, but we don’t know. So, but I think that when you when you did, particularly to local law enforcement, because we have done a good job, I will say, and the governor is really led on this issue around organized retail crime. You know, with the task forces through the CHP, the work that they’re doing, the collaboration that they’re doing with retailers and local law enforcement. And then the additional funding we saw…

“We know that actually adding prison time is not something that deters crime. It’s really the certainty of getting caught” – Asm. Rick Chavez Zbur

I pretty much checked in with every law enforcement agency that’s received some of this grant funding to see what they’re doing. And it’s amazing. And to your point, they’re adapting it to the communities that they live in. Because every community is different. But we do have to figure this out because at the end of the day, retailers want to keep their doors open. They want people to have a non friction experience in shopping. We want our employees to have the opportunity to feel safe, but we need law enforcement and we need DA’s because the more that we can show that there is going to be a consequence, whatever that is, our hope that deters it from happening in the first place, which is really our goal.

LH: Sure. Yeah. Assemblyman, Eric, do you have anything to add?

EB: Okay. Well. Yeah. Are you sure? It sounds like everybody does. Yeah. I mean, just plus one to everything that’s been said.

I do think just to emphasize, I don’t think it’s an either or. This question of deterrence and sort of breaking down demand cycle that the resellers are causing versus law enforcement, I think it’s a both and right. You need both both pillars to hold this up. The governor has done a lot and I appreciate the shout out there. We’ve tried to…. the governor has been very up front that he thinks the tools are largely there. I think there are some sort of loopholes and ambiguities that can be addressed, which is part of the rationale behind the package that he suggested a couple of months ago. But largely the tools are there, and our focus has really been on resourcing local law enforcement and prosecutors to make sure that they can make efficient use of those tools.

But, you know, the enforcement piece is you know, I it has to happen. And the stories like what you describe are just not acceptable. They’re not. Yeah.

RCZ: Yeah. I mean, I would sort of say in terms of the hearings and the, you know, the conversations that that we’ve had in the Select committee. You know, we know that actually adding prison time is not something that deters crime. It’s really the certainty of getting caught and the certainty of there being some consequence.

So, you know, it’s I think one of the issues that we’re still grappling with, and I think we’ve started to in the package of bills that’s going to be headed towards the legislature, is sort of how we sort of do more to focus on misdemeanor enforcement in our communities. We have the tools there, right? I mean, you know, a misdemeanor theft can result in up to six months jail time in county jails. But the issue is that we don’t have police resources to address those in many jurisdictions.

So then I guess the other thing, too, is I think we need to sort of focus our energy on where most of the retail theft is occurring and you know, [I] really applaud the governor in his set of proposals that came out a number of months ago where we’re really focusing on trying to disrupt these professional retail rings, criminal rings. If you talk to many of the retailers and it is anecdotal, but some of them will tell… one of them told me at one point that, you know, they keep records based on their data loss stuff and that they had determined that there were about 200 people that had resulted in almost 80% of the thefts in all of their stores in LA County.

Conference on Crime, Panel 1, Retail Theft. Asm. Rick Chavez Zbur and Rachel Michelin, California Retailers Association.
Photo by Joha Harrison, Capitol Weekly

So, you know, some targeted approaches I think are important. And that is actually one of the focuses of the bill that the speaker and I have advanced. That includes a number of the recommendations that came out of the governor’s office, including you know, sort of new tools to focus on these professional crime rings.

LH: Sure. I mean, I know we’re talking about Prop. 47 later in this conference, but I did want to bring it up, obviously, because it’s been a big part of this conversation. And everyone has different opinions on it. Obviously, the governor has been pretty clear he doesn’t want to see substantial changes to it. And, you know, the Public Policy Institute of California numbers that you mentioned, Assemblyman, you know, reported that 2222 shoplifting rates were 8% lower than from before the pandemic.

So I feel like that prompts me to ask, would changing Prop. 47 actually impact retail theft, given that so many of like, the bigger cimes we see are already felonies? So I don’t know. I mean, anyone on the panel can answer this one, but yeah.

RCZ: I guess I mean, I’ll start by saying that, you know, one of my focuses has been to look at what we can do to really you know, plug these gaps where there’s difficulty in law enforcement and DA’s enforcing the laws that we have, based on what small businesses and retailers and folks from the unions are telling us. Without actually having to go back to the ballot on Prop. 47. And I don’t think we have to do that to solve this.

And if you look at the package that is in Speaker Rivas’s and my bill, there are significant enhancements that don’t require going to the voters and that if we can get this through the legislature and signed by the governor, we can actually have real reform happening by January of this year.

If you look at that, you know, we’ve got the governor’s proposal to focus on the professional retail thieves. It specifies that evidence of intent can include repeated conduct or possession of a quantity of goods that’s inconsistent with personal use. We have really robust changes to the aggregation provision, so it allows someone that is doing repeated thefts to actually be prosecuted together. We actually allow for more for more use of videotape evidence and affidavits to allow a peace officer, law enforcement to proceed against folks without actually having a police officer present in every case.

“Prop. 47…  We reduced our prison population without increasing crime. That is very hard to achieve. It is very… I’ve been at this work for almost 30 years. It is really hard to pull both of those levers at the same time” – Cristine Soto DeBerry

we require more reporting, more data reporting from the large retailers which is something that will sort of help us with sort of the data that’s moving forward. It’s… we also look at trying to get to the root cause of theft by expanding diversion and rehabilitation programs. And so, you know, when we… and then on top of that, in the Assembly side, we’re working on additional bills that do not require going to Prop. 47 that focus on that the Speaker’s office is working closely with, with the governor’s office and with the pro Tem that include making sure that we’ve got more tools to deal with the smash and grabs, where people not only come in and steal, but sort of, you know, cause, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to the store.

We’re looking at provisions that allow enforcement across jurisdictions. We’re looking for some additional stuff related to cargo theft. When you look at the package of things, that is going to come out of the Assembly and complemented by what happens in the Senate this year, we have a very robust package that I think is going to be more effective at dealing with this issue than any of the proposals that focus on going back to the voters on Prop. 47 and unraveling criminal justice reforms, that while in some cases, there have been gaps, have been largely good because they basically have prevented us from putting someone in jail for stealing a pizza.

And so, you know, we we want to do this in a balanced, effective way where we’re basically trying… listening to our law enforcement partners, to our retailers, to the unions, and looking, listening to the things that actually they need to sort of enhance enforcement of the laws that we have out there without unraveling the good things about criminal justice reform that have helped keep our community safe.

LH: Cristine, did you want to?….

CSD: I think what the Assembly member says is exactly right. And I’m challenged to think of a problem where we’re like, you know what we should do? We should do what we did decades ago. That will be the way forward.

And I don’t think criminal justice is any different. Why are we looking at failed solutions from the past and believing that they will be different in 2024? We’re all smart people. We’re all paying attention. It just defies like, human progress and evolution at a minimum, ideologies entirely aside. And so, I think what the Assemblymember says is so critical is we will lose some really important gains we have made. Like Prop. 47… not just change that structure. We reduced our prison population without increasing crime. That is very hard to achieve. It is very… I’ve been at this work for almost 30 years. It is really hard to pull both of those levers at the same time.

Not only that, we reduced racial disparities. First for Black men. I’m gonna tell you, like, pulling all three of those levers. Hitting on all three of those is like the trifecta in public policy. I’ve done it literally once in my career. It is Prop. 47, and we shouldn’t unravel all of that because we have a current modern problem. We have a problem with theft. We should address it with modern solutions. We should look at shutting down those markets, not opening the prison gates and sending tens of thousands of poor Black and Brown men into prison situations that we know don’t solve the poverty that may be motivating that and their life opportunities when they return home.

LH: Yeah, and Rachel, do you want to talk about this a little bit? Because I know you may have a different perspective, and yeah, I know there’s a ballot measure going around Prop. 47. I think you support if I’m not incorrect?

RM: So we support, all options are on the table for us. We have some members who think that that’s one path to go. I will say that it is a bit of a paradigm shift in how you think. I think a lot of rhetoric has been the only option is either or. And I will say that in the conversations, you know, I’ve been, you know, working on this issue for four years from a retail theft perspective. And this is the first time that we are having real, I think, substantive conversations about how to move forward. And it’s a lot of different stakeholders at the table.

And I think that looking at what the speaker has done and and really giving a lot of credit to Assemblymember Zbur, who took the time to go out and really meet with retailers, meet with all the stakeholders, was do his due diligence. Even back in the fall before we got to really the heat of the legislative session. Having those hearings, having really diverse perspectives coming in and talking, I think it is changing the conversation in that we could do something through the legislature and, you know, and we’re active participants in this. You know, we are trying to work with all different stakeholders to find solutions.

But, you know, we really need to have something substantial that, to me is a disruptor that really says to individuals in California this type of behavior of going into stores, filling up the garbage bag of product and walking out and making gestures to an employee as they’re standing there is no longer going to be tolerated, nd there will be some consequences. And I think I’m very cautiously optimistic in the direction that, you know, a package of bills is headed.

“We don’t want to go back to mass incarceration – but we also want to make sure that these particularly serial shoplifters understand that they’re going to be held accountable.” – Rachel Michelin

And, you know, right now we support in concept what the Speaker and Mr. Zbur have proposed. And we’re we’re going to continue down that path. You know, companies make their own decisions. I’ve got a diverse group of members in the Retailers Association, and I will say 95% of them are very cautiously optimistic that we can work collaboratively with the legislature and the governor’s office on finding real solutions to this.

LH: Yeah. Eric, did you want to add anything, any of the like I mentioned, the governor has said he’s not in favor of Prop. 47 changes, but…

EB: Yeah, I’m not I’m not going to say anything other than that. But I mean, I think Cristine was so eloquent in explaining why that is, and the progress that has been made in part by Prop. 47 and sort of an unwillingness to go backwards.

That being said the status quo is also unacceptable. And so we’re looking for ways forward. And you know, I think the governor is excited to see what’s happening in the legislature right now. And, you know, we’ll see what the final product is. But right now, it’s positive. And I know that that came from a lot of conversations with stakeholders from across the spectrum and is really aimed at addressing some of the concerns that were raised, especially by folks in law enforcement, by police, by prosecutors who identified hurdles to prosecution. Some of the reasons, some of the things that Rachel was pointing to before, the reasons why police are hesitant to show up and prosecutors are hesitant to take cases. So really trying to remove some of those obstacles so that, again, folks can make use of the tools we have without going back to the days of you know, let’s throw everybody in jail and throw away the key.

LH: Yeah, I kind of wanted to get into this issue, a little bit, of store closures, because I think that’s been pretty high profile in this space. And obviously, you know, retailers have cited crime as a reason for closing stores. But then you also see, like Walgreens’ former CFO in an earnings call last year, said the company may have overemphasized retail theft as a problem after they closed several stores. And I think at the same time we’re having this conversation. Obviously the retail environment has changed significantly since the COVID pandemic. So, I mean, when you talk about these store closures, I mean, I feel like there are there other factors contributing to them besides just crime? I mean, I’m not sure who would like to take that.

RM: I mean, there’s a lot of I mean, the, the hardest and worst decision a retailer has to make is closing a store. And there’s a lot of factors that go into this, you know. And again, I want to also, you know, while we spend a lot of time focusing on national brands, we forget that there are a lot of small retailers, independent retailers that are just as impacted by this, who have also had to close their doors for various reasons. But I think that, you know, again, that’s why we are trying to be so active in these conversations with the legislature and the governor’s office, because we want to change the narrative in California that we can have – we don’t want to go back to mass incarceration – but we also want to make sure that these particularly serial shoplifters understand that they’re going to be held accountable.

And I think once we can start changing that narrative, I think that will help. Because we do want to see a robust retail economy in California, retail in in general, nationally, we are the largest private employer. And when you extrapolate that to California being the, you know, largest state retail market in the nation, retail is a great sales tax revenue for our local cities. We are big employers. We employ people in their first job. We employ people who decide to go back into the workforce. People come in and out of the retail industry. We need a vibrant retail environment in California.

And so while I, you know, you hear things that, you know, the CFO made, I mean, he was one CFO who made that comment. You hear reports coming out. I want to get to a point where we don’t hear stores closing because it is a robust economy in California. We have safety for our employees and they feel like… you know, it breaks my heart when I hear friends of mine saying to me, you know, I have a 15 year old who’s getting her first job. And they’ll say, “I don’t want my kid working in a retail establishment because I’m afraid for my child.”

I don’t want that. I think the retail industry is a great industry. It offers a lot to folks and we just need to work collaboratively, and that’s why we’re full stakeholders in the process. Working with Mr. Zbur, working with the speaker, the pro Tem, the governor’s office on how do we really find solutions that are going to move us in a different direction so that the retail industry can thrive in California..

RCZ: I was going to say, you know, I think some of what’s going on with retail theft has to be viewed in the context of what’s happening in the retail industry more broadly. So, you know, retail theft is probably not the only reason why stores are closing, even the ones that have closed. But, you know, we all know that there has been a movement from brick and mortar retail sales to online sales, and that is putting pressure on these retailers. And so when you actually have increases in shrink, that’s even pretty modest, if you’re actually one of those retailers that’s at the brink, right, That small amounts of changes will result in those stores potentially closing.

And when a store closes it’s not something that, you know, if you have one national retailer close that you just substitute and bring another one in that sort of.. and we’ve talked to the property owners, right. The lessors of these shopping centers who basically say once the store closes, it’s almost impossible to re-lease those properties to people that are sort of at with the same sort of kind of foot traffic. I mean, you’re basically going from, you know, a CVS to a t shirt shop and then that has the impact of, you know, reducing the foot traffic into the shopping center. And then it has an impact on this, on this, you know, the smaller businesses in those areas.

So, you know, when I’ve seen these reports about the impact of shrink being overstated, you know, I think that’s probably true. That is pointed to by a lot of the retailers as being, you know, a big reason. But I think when the way I’ve interpreted that, as I’ve learned more about it is that it has gone up. I mean, the national statistics show that shrink has gone up, not by huge amounts, not like by the amounts that like, I think we’re experiencing in some areas of my district, but by small amounts.

But when you look at that in the context of the fact that we’ve got a movement away from brick and mortar retailers, and you add that on top of it, you know, the margins aren’t that large for a lot of these retailers. And that can be the difference. So that is, you know, a factor that I think we just need to recognize. And so, you know, none of us want retail theft to be there. So we should be focusing on it for that reason.

CSD: I think that’s right. And I would say you know, Rachel and I’ve been, now to many of these things now together? And I think we always have a really valuable conversation around this. And, and, and I’m appreciative of retailers leaning in on the solution set here. And I think a really tangible way for retailers, particularly big retailers, to assist in this is to have more staff.

Conference on Crime, Panel 1, Retail Theft. L-R: Lindsey Holden, Sacramento Bee; Asm. Rick Chavez Zbur; Rachel Michelin, California Retailers Association; Eric Brown, Office of Governor Newsom; Cristine Soto DeBerry, Prosecutors Alliance.
Photo by Joha Harrison, Capitol Weekly

Assemblymember Zbur said at the beginning, the biggest deterrent is the belief that you’re going to get caught, right? We’ve all been teenagers. Everybody’s had a moment in your life where you’re like, “oh, no, never mind.” Right? And that is because somebody is standing there watching you. Somebody is at the door, you know, the police are coming. Those are the things that keep people from crossing a line around taking a small thing or a big thing.

And we’ve seen, unfortunately, so many retailers move away from staff in the stores and we’re all going through self checkout lines all of the same industry data shows us that fact that the self checkout lines is higher and should be something that we’re factoring in here.

But for the conversation we’re having that is a really unacknowledged deterrent that currently we’re moving away from that, right? Large retailers are shrinking their staff. And then that is falling to police who are not responsive. And so we have no response there at the moment that something happens. Right, so you walk in the store, there’s no staff walking around the aisles as you’re looking at items.

When you’re walking out of the store with the thing in your pocket, there’s no security guard standing there. When the store clerk calls the police, nobody shows up in the parking lot. And then when you leave the place, nobody’s doing a follow up investigation to figure out who you were or what this was connected to.

“I live in downtown Oakland, and a couple of years ago I had three drugstores within walking distance of my house, and today I have none.” – Eric Brown

All of those things are missed opportunities at deterrence for the people that you’re talking about here, Rachel, that are not deterred just by like, “oh, I shouldn’t cross that line.” That needs some additional external thing. And so I think that that’s a really important piece of the puzzle here, particularly the large retailers, is to lean in with us on this and restaff the stores and move away from the self-checkouts. There’s legislation that we’re working on with labor on this, and I think would really help us. That in addition to some of the other solutions we’re talking about, it’s going to be, as Assemblymember Zbur says, it’s going to be a jigsaw puzzle there.

You know, crime is a complicated thing. It’s affected by the economy. It’s affected by people’s so many things that we can’t think that there’s one button we’re going to push, Prop. 47 or any other thing. You label it and fix it. It’s going to be all of us really thinking like, “what are the drivers of this? What are the incentives and disincentives, and how do we put the right ones in place?” So I’d love to see more of that.

RM: And I don’t disagree. The challenge we have, we can’t get people to come work in a store. So until we change the narrative and I think I the self-checkout is interesting. If you notice a lot of retailers are rethinking self-checkout on their own. You know, before there’s legislation. They’re already looking at that to figure out ways… Again, our goal is to have safe shopping experience in a safe work environment for our employees. But to your point, I don’t disagree. But because of the perception right now… And that’s why I’m excited about where we’re going with the legislative package… because to show Californians that the legislature and the governor were really trying to clarify and provide more tools and ability to make people feel safe. I hope that feeds into the fact that then we can get more people wanting to come in and work in a retail store.

But it is getting hard, just like a lot of other industries in California. We’re trying. I mean, they’re paying more money. They’re trying they’re constantly out there with signs trying to recruit people to come in. I think you’re right, but we have to show that we’re going to make some changes to make sure people feel safe in that environment. But I don’t disagree with you. I think it’ll be the… self-checkout is a really interesting conversation that I’m sure we’ll be having over the next few months.

LH: Yeah. Oh, go for it.

EB: I just had a personal story. So I live in downtown Oakland, and a couple of years ago I had three drugstores within walking distance of my house, and today I have none.

And the way that that impacts the community, sort of the feeling of just livability, how many people you see just out and about on the street? It’s dramatic and it’s not all retail theft. I’d say retail theft is a probably a small reason for those closures. But it is part of the reason and as the Assembly member said the margins matter for a lot of these businesses. And so this is part of the equation, but not the only one. And I do think the effect is overstated sometimes, but I also wanted to come back to something that Cristine said earlier that I really wanted to emphasize and realized I didn’t earlier, which is the importance of focusing on the sort of larger ecosystem that is creating this problem.

So you know, the visible things, the things we see on social media, the smash and grabs and you know, what you may see in the checkout line, people just walking out of the front of the store, I mean, that is one… that’s the front end of the problem. But that in large part exists because there are chains, there are networks. There’s a market. People know that when they steal these goods, that there is going to be someone that they can resell them to, who in turn is going to put them on Amazon or eBay or something like that. There’s an entire, you know, ecosystem for these stolen goods. And that’s really what the governor has tried to target. I know what the Assembly member is trying to target as well.

“If you make that phone invaluable, once it’s stolen, it’s basically a paperweight. Nobody is going to steal them. And so after about two years… we finally passed a bill. There’s now a kill switch. You probably all have it enabled on your phone that if your phone gets stolen, it shuts down. It’s worthless. That crime dropped by 50% when that legislation passed. Nothing we were doing in enforcement came anywhere close. – Cristine Soto DeBerry

So no, there is no one single button that we can push, but there are some buttons that are more efficient than others. There’s some levers that are more effective than others. And, you know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense from my perspective, and I’m speaking only for myself, but I know the view is shared widely – doesn’t make a lot of sense to go after sort of what we think of as the subsistence-level folks, the person who’s walking out of a store with a tube of toothpaste because they want to brush their teeth, as opposed to the person who’s going to the, you know, four Walgreens around downtown and stealing ten tubes from each one because they know that they can resell those. So it’s the organized retail theft. It’s the networks. It’s the folks who are actually in it at a profit motive that I think are the most efficient levers the places that we can really push.

LH:  Yeah, I think that kind of leads into probably my last question is, you know, I think retail crime, shoplifting, etc. has existed for probably as long as retail stores have been in business. And so I’m curious, you know, what do you think is different about this moment that is, you know, this conversation has been such a big deal at the capitol and obviously to retailers, all of you involved. What do you think is different about this moment is like the organized nature? Is it people being able to resell online in a, you know, new way? Like what do you think is different about this moment?

CSD: Yeah, I think, you know, crime goes like this, right? Something pops, it catches on. People do it for a while, and then we respond effectively, or we don’t, or people move on from it. I’m so passionate about the response at the top end of this because I’ve seen it work, right?

So when I was in the San Francisco DA’s office in 2014ish, we had a really huge problem with theft of iPhones. Like it was a pandemic. It was an epidemic, right? Everybody was coming in, “my iPhone got stolen.” And worse than some of the things we’re talking about. People were getting punched in the face, getting pushed down, getting dragged with their purse, right, like a significant amount of violence in it.

And as many of you probably know, robbery is a strike, right? So we’re prosecuting those cases as strikes. We’re getting significant jail consequences and prison consequences for people. And the crime is continuing. So I’m sitting down with D.A. Gascon, who is in San Francisco at that point. We’re saying, like, what can we do? We’re prosecuting these cases. We’re making no dent in this problem in our city. We’re now hearing it’s happening in New York. It’s happening around the country. And so we went to the cell phone companies and we said, you need to help us. You have to work with us on this problem. We can’t solve it with an enforcement tool. It’s not working. We’re not having any impact on it. And they said, “oh, we can’t. It’s so expensive. It’s impossible if we do it in California, what would that mean for Japan and Indiana” and everything else?

And, you know, we just kept talking. We said, there’s a solution in here. If you make that phone invaluable, once it’s stolen, it’s basically a paperweight. Nobody is going to steal them. And so after about two years of really, like back and forth, back and forth with them, we finally passed a bill. There’s now a kill switch. You probably all have it enabled on your phone that if your phone gets stolen, it shuts down. It’s worthless.

That crime dropped by 50% when that legislation passed. Nothing we were doing in enforcement came anywhere close. We weren’t even moving the needle. Those are the solutions that solve these problems.

“I can tell you that when I go back to my district, the two things that I hear about the most are the homelessness crisis and the unhoused crisis, and retail theft.” – Rick Chavez Zbur

We know this from the drug trade. We can chase people around this country and around this globe for selling small amounts of drugs until the end of time. We have done it for over 50 years in this country and not solved the problem that way. The way you solve these problems is at the top, not at the bottom. You can’t chip at the bottom of the pyramid and think you’re going to topple it. You have to go from the top down. Retail theft is no different than any of those, and I hope that we will embrace those solutions instead of continuing to try things we know don’t work in this or any other realm.

RCZ: So yeah, I mean, I think some of what’s happening is also still an outgrowth of the pandemic. I mean, the pandemic, I think, you know, changed a lot of things about our lives., right? And when you look at the statistics related to retail theft, you know, you can look at a lot of different ways. It’s okay. What does it look like compared to before the pandemic? What does it look like since the end of the pandemic? Right?

Carmen-Nicole Cox of ACLU California asks a question at A Conference on Crime, Panel 1, Retail Theft. Photo by Joha Harrison, Capitol Weekly

I mean, and when you look at different sets of numbers, you come to sort of different conclusions. But the reality is, you know, basically we all remember we walked into stores and there was nothing on the shelves, and people stopped going to retailers completely because of the safety issues, now. And then people are sort of coming back and, you know, we’re seeing really, I think more in the last year and year and a half – just the locking up of so much of the stores.

And so, I mean, I can tell you that when I go back to my district, the two things that I hear about the most are the homelessness crisis and the unhoused crisis, and retail theft. And retail theft has almost become as great, if not more, more in the mind of the public than anything else because everyone is experiencing it. So, you know, that’s I think one of the things that’s different, I think the public is focused on it because of their own experience on a day to day basis. And also just the fact that they, you know, what’s happening in the world: the way we work, the way we shop, all of those things have been transformed to a certain extent since the pandemic. And I think you know, people are uneasy generally about sort of where we’re headed. And so this is just another one of those factors and is something that they can point to very easily.

I will say that, you know, the last thing I’ll say is that I do hope that when you look that when that both the law enforcement or law enforcement partners, our retailers when they look at this that they will see that the governor is serious about this. The Speaker is serious about this. The pro Tem is serious about this. The retailers are serious about this. The criminal justice reform folks, I think, have been at the table with us to try to find good solutions that are going to be effective without really unraveling things that we don’t want to unravel.

And so you know, when you look at when you’re sort of talking about, like, we need something to sort of jolt those people and make the make folks understand that we’re serious about this. We’re going to have a package of bills before the legislature that is going to be very, very, very comprehensive. And… but it’s also not going to be something where we are just throwing out all of the good things that we have that have resulted in us reducing our prison populations, reducing inequity in our criminal justice system. And, you know, and it allows us to sort of focus on really what’s really effective, is going to be effective in trying to give law enforcement the tools where they’ve identified the specific things that have made it difficult for them to enforce against, especially against these, these professional crimes.

EB: Yeah, I think I mean, your question was sort of why now? And again, this is just me speaking personally. I see three real things driving the conversation now.

One is just the availability of online marketplaces make it so much easier to resell very large quantities of goods. And so, again, it goes back to that demand cycle we talked about. When folks know that there’s a place to go to resell the stuff, they’re just going to commit the crime much more often. Two, I think social media. I think the really high profile incidents that we’ve seen, the smash and grabs at, you know, Apple Stores around the Bay area the other incidents, sometimes violent incidents, that are happening in retail stores really have captured the public imagination in a way that they they just didn’t before.

And then the pandemic was the third thing I was going to say. I mean, yeah, just dramatically changed the retail experience and all sorts of ways. And also, I think pushed the margins a lot smaller. There’s fewer folks going in person to shop. And so it matters a lot more. The shrink that does happen.

“I do think what has changed, at least from a retail perspective, is it’s coming from our employees. They’re the ones that are saying, ‘we’ve had enough.’” – Rachel Michelin

So I mean, a couple of those things are sort of perception based. But I want to go back to what I said at the outset, which is that perception does matter. I don’t mean to be dismissive of the problem by saying that part of the conversation now is driven by, like the high profile social media stuff. That is a problem because it means people are less willing to go to work in retail stores. It means people are less willing to come to downtown Oakland to shop. And it means that folks go after the effective reforms that we’ve managed to achieve in the last couple of decades. So there’s no one single answer to this, as we’ve said, but I think there is sort of a confluence of different factors at this moment that has really brought things to a fever pitch.

RM: Yeah. You’re right. I mean, there’s not a silver bullet. We’re not going to like, you know, reform 47 doesn’t fix the problem. A great legislative package is not going to suddenly change, and we’re not going to have it.

I do think, you know, it’s not just online marketplaces. I go to swap meets myself now, and I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying stolen goods. I think that there are things in this package that will also help where people are still doing old school, at a swap meet, at a flea market. They’re going to stores, they’re stealing. They’re selling it.

So I think there’s a lot of things that we could be working on. But I do think, you know, there are some really there are online marketplaces that are trying to be good actors. But as soon as you get these good actors, you get these off sites that just pop up all the time. You see an advertisement I recorded this new website come from? So I agree we need to figure that out.

And I do think we’ve made some progress. You know, the governor signed in 2021, right? Was that SB 301? The INFORM Consumers Act that that actually went on to become a model federally. There’s a federal bill on organized retail crime that that that we’re supportive of, that we’re looking at to try to, again, that information sharing that you’re talking about.

But I do think what has changed, at least from a retail perspective, is it’s coming from our employees. They’re the ones that are saying, “we’ve had enough.” They’re the ones that are saying, you know, “we don’t want to be in a work environment where we have criminal activity coming in constantly.” And again, to Mr. Zbur’s point. We know who these people are. They’re serial offenders who think they can get away with it because they’re not going to be held accountable. And I think that’s what’s so promising about what’s in this legislative package, is we don’t want someone going to to jail or prison for stealing a tube of toothpaste that they need. We actually want to be part of the solution on how can we work collaboratively with law enforcement, with things like the CARE Court and with the mental health on how can we be part of that eco structure to help those folks to get the services that they need.

But then the folks that we know that are constantly coming in that are part of these, you know, crime rings or organized groups. Or more importantly, what we’re seeing more and more unfortunately, our vulnerable populations are being preyed upon by these crime rings, and they’re sending them in to do the stealing, and then they’re sitting there. “Okay, here’s 100 bucks. Great. Thank you.”

We need to stop that cycle as well. And so I think that for us though, why it’s hit this fever pitch is it’s less about it’s this is not about shrink really, I mean yeah that’s important. It’s about we’ve had employees harmed. We’ve had employees pushed. We’ve had them yelled at. We’ve had them, you know, we we want them to be safe. And we know by having some guardrails around the criminal activity coming in the store will make a big difference. So I think to us, it’s a human problem and it’s, it’s our it’s our customers.

I mean, I’ll get on a zoom call to talk about, you know, environmental sustainability issues. And everyone starts with, “let me tell you about what I just saw in the store, Rachel.” I mean, our governor witnessed it in a store. So, I mean, it’s out there. And I think that you’re right on social media that, you know, the viral videos and all of that. But there is a real human factor to this. And I think for us, it’s about making sure our employees have a safe place to work and our customers continue to have a safe place to shop.

LH: I think we’re going to take some audience questions.

CAPITOL WEEKLY: If anyone has a question, we can bring them to the microphone. And I do want to say we are going to have to end right at 10:30 because the Assemblyman has to be back on the floor. So here we go.

CARMEN-NICOLE COX: Good morning. Good morning, Carmen-Nicole Cox with ACLU, California, ACLU California Action. I appreciate that we’re having this conversation. And what I heard you all say, everyone out there used the word stakeholders several times. And then followed by stakeholders. I heard reference to cops, DAs and retailers. And so I guess when I think about stakeholders, I think about the youth who are being puppeted, I think about their parents, I think about the community members.

And so I am super interested in, One, the stakeholders that we care about beyond the cops, DAs and retailers. And, not just care about, but that you intend to talk to, because it sounds like we haven’t maybe gotten there yet – and that will actually have influence over how we respond to what we’re calling like this huge problem. So that’s one. Who are the other stakeholders?

You all talked about barriers. I didn’t hear any conversation of like discrimination, transportation, workforce development, the school to prison pipeline you talked about and… So would love to hear about what other barriers we see that aren’t related to cops, DAs and retailers.

Because people who have jobs and whose lights are on and whose children have full bellies, they ain’t out here stealing tubes of toothpaste. So super interested in hearing about the other barriers that you all care about removing. You talked about investing in resources, but I didn’t hear anything about, like quality education, affordable housing, again, making sure people have a seat at the table.. folks other than cops, DA’s and retailers, things like full employment and pay because wage theft. I didn’t hear anybody talk about wage theft.

You know, when the retail when the employees are stealing, it’s not because they want to be part of organized retail theft. They’re having their wages stolen. They’re underemployed and overworked. So these… we didn’t talk about inflation. We didn’t talk about mental health. And so I’m just super interested in some of these other things that I know you all care about. But we didn’t yet hear you talk about.

RCZ: So first of all, I mean, I think we’ve met with almost every stakeholder that we can identify. I mean, we’ve met with criminal justice reform advocates, we’ve met with members of the unions. We’ve actually had two hearings now where we allowed… had members of the public invited in if you were in our the one that we held in Santa… in West Hollywood – very, very broad group of folks that sort of came to that hearing and we followed up with everyone who asked for additional time on that. That included, I think, a lot of the the folks that you’re sort of talking about, people on the street, people that were nervous about Issues related to law enforcement and over policing. We’ve we’ve talked to folks in those areas.

And so… the process isn’t over. We’re continuing to listen to everyone. And, you know, and obviously we want to. We don’t view the stakeholders as only being the DAs and law enforcement and the retailers. You know, I’ve met with folks in the criminal justice reform folks I’ve met with sort of the the DAs and the more progressive DAs. I mean, I can’t think of I have not taken a single meeting that someone has basically asked for, and we’ve done a lot of outreach on our own, including to also you know, folks in  small cities, large cities, large mayors, small mayors… so, you know, I but I think, you know, your point is well taken.

The stakeholders are not just those three groups. And obviously, I’m committed to meeting with everyone that has a point of view. It is  hard I can tell you, to identify all of the various folks that actually have views that represent the public. And so we are going to have some additional hearings as well.

This isn’t just also a one year project. The Speaker has basically is has indicated that, you know, this is sort of the first year on this. We’ve got I think we do have to do more. I’m thinking about sort of root causes, as I think your question implies. And I think that’s something that is an area that we do need to focus on more. And we’ll continue doing that over this legislative session.

But you know, I’m very focused on making sure that we can actually do what the Speaker has asked us to do, which is put together a bill package this year that actually will have a meaningful impact on this issue that both addresses the issues, but at the same time doesn’t result in unraveling the good things about criminal justice reform.

CW: We literally have like one minute. If someone’s got a really quick question and a really quick answer.

CLAIRE SIMONICH:  I’ll be very brief. Claire Simonich, Vera Institute of Justice. Really appreciated this conversation. I appreciated the conversation about thinking about what does and does not deter crime. Appreciated thinking about getting at the root causes that we heard about going on online marketplaces and retail staffing minimums. I’d like to hear one more root cause idea that I think might get at that, which is Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion.

I think that diversion programs can help us get at even those repeat actors that that I’ve heard some concerns from. The program in Los Angeles County does a great job at returning to stores, following up with store owners to to come back to known quantities who may be coming back to the same store. And I’d love to hear how these programs can help address the problem as well. Thank you all.

RM: They’ll say from a retail perspective, we are huge supporters of diversion programs. In fact we tried a year or so ago to bring a national program to California specific for shoplifting. So, you know, again, it goes back to my point that we view ourselves as active participants in this and that we want to be part of the solution.

I think that there’s a lot of opportunity there. I think we’re ready, but we need help on understanding how we can be an active partner. And we’ve been having those conversations. You know, I’ve been having those conversations with the governor’s office about, you know, some of the things the governor has pushed with, with, you know, some of his initiatives and how… Because we’re on the front lines, right? People are coming into our stores on a daily basis.

So we’ve always been about diversion. We want to figure out how we can be more active in that space. I think there’s some great programs that are working statewide. I’ve looked at a number of them. But we also need to then make sure that we have the ability to get people into those diversion programs. And then we offer them a step further – not just then a diversion program… My ultimate goal is once they go through diversion, then we have job training programs, and we have a lot of our members who hire people who go through those programs.

So I think there’s a lot of opportunity. I think we need to get through some of these policies and again, change the conversation in California that we’re going to be holding these serial offenders accountable. But we want to provide that carrot and the stick. And the retail industry is ready to be part of really investing in diversion and then job training, then hopefully getting those folks employed in some of our stores throughout California. Which then goes back to your point about having more people on the store.

So there’s a lot of opportunity there. And I will say I’ve spoken with a lot of stakeholders.  I sit down and talk with anyone who calls me and wants to have a conversation. I don’t think I’m an expert. I learned from a lot of other folks. I’ve really valued my conversations, particularly with folks on the criminal justice side. I’ve learned a lot, and I think that’s how we’re going to get better policies that are going to, again, make sure we have safe work environments for our employees and safe shopping experiences for our customers.

CW: Which is a fabulous place to end. We’re going to have to teleport Assemblymember Zbur back to the floor here in just a moment. Thank you all very much. We’re going to take a quick break here, and then we’ll be back with our next panel.

Thanks to our Conference on Crime sponsors: THE TRIBAL ALLIANCE OF SOVEREIGN INDIAN NATIONS, WESTERN STATES PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION, PHYSICIAN ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA; KP PUBLIC AFFAIRS, PERRY COMMUNICATIONS, CAPITOL ADVOCACY, THE WEIDEMAN GROUP, LANG, HANSEN, GIROUX & KIDANE and CALIFORNIA PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS