Ho Ho –Hey, come back here, thief!
Amid the holiday shopping season, a new study from the Pennsylvania Courts system reports the Delaware Valley has some of the highest retail theft numbers in the state.
Montgomery County ranks second in Pennsylvania for retail theft arrests, accounting for nine percent of the state total, according to Administration Office of Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC) statistics. Philadelphia County ranked third at six percent, while Delaware and Bucks Counties were tied for fourth with Erie County at five percent. Chester County was next at four percent.
Allegheny County topped the list at 13 percent.
AOPC data showed almost 162,000 arrests happened in Pennsylvania between 2019 and 2023. They involved more than 82,000 people and resulted in a 42 percent conviction rate.
Surprisingly, the defendants weren’t necessarily young adults just out of high school or in college. Nearly 30 percent of the suspects were between the ages of 26 and 35. Those between the ages of 36 and 45 made up 21 percent of all suspects, while 22 percent were over 46. Seventeen percent were between 19 and 25.
Police arrested almost the same percentage of women as they did men. Male suspects made up 50 percent of arrests, while females were 48 percent. Two percent were of an unknown gender.
Shoplifting and robbery, including gang-related organized retail theft, have surged across the country since the COVID-19. Here in southeastern Pennsylvania, the statistics are not shocking to Delaware Valley residents or retailers who continue seeing products like medicine and laundry detergent behind locked cases at stores.
“We have been hearing from retailers for the last several years,” Pennsylvania Retailers Association (PRA) Executive Director John Holub told DVJournal.
What seems to be most troubling is the dramatic jump in theft offenses in Montgomery County, where arrests have almost doubled in five years. In 2019, 2,791 suspects were taken into custody. In 2023, it rose to 4,002.
Holub said some of those arrests can be connected to the King of Prussia Mall where high-end retailers like Burberry, Gucci, and Lululemon are located.
There’s another factor to the crime increase, according to Holub, organized retail theft groups. “These are highly organized criminal enterprises, that have focused a lot of their efforts on Philadelphia and the collar counties,” he said.
Law enforcement arrested the 19-year-old suspected ringleader of a smash-and-grab robbery crew that stole more than $75,000 in merchandise from the King of Prussia Mall and several Philadelphia shops. Police say the thieves would burst into stores with trash bags or large bags, grab whatever they could, and then escape. Some thefts dated back to November 2023.
Those robberies cost Pennsylvania businesses big bucks. A Forbes survey released last year found the average value of stolen goods in Pennsylvania was $430 – the highest in the U.S.
Nationwide, the National Retail Federation said businesses lost $112.1 billion in 2022 due to organized retail crime. The robbery losses caused Macy’s to shut down its San Francisco flagship store, costing 400 people their jobs.
Other retailers started pilot programs putting body cameras on loss prevention associates or locked merchandise.
Retailers are teaming up with law enforcement to clamp down on thefts. The Retail Industry Leaders Association and International Association Chiefs of Police announced a new partnership in August to provide more training, best practices, resources, and guidebooks on retail crime topics. The groups promised the training would enhance collaboration between businesses and police.
In Pennsylvania, Holub praised state and Delaware Valley governments for their work in tackling crime.
He said Philadelphia police and prosecutors became “true partners in addressing this issue. That hasn’t always been the case.” Holub thanked the Delaware and Chester County district attorneys for being engaged with retailers. The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office recently launched its Office of Deputy Attorney General for Organized Retail Crime Theft that’s also helped.
“It’s very encouraging the amount of cooperation and coordination we have gotten in the last year from law enforcement, prosecutors and policy makers in Harrisburg,” said Holub. “I think it is just a matter of time until the statistics reflect these efforts.”
