California state lawmakers have been trying every possible solution to curtail organized retail crime, and they finally believe they’ve found one that might stick.
Late last week, Speaker of the California State Assembly Robert Rivas, along with chairman of the Select Committee on Retail Theft Rick Zbur and chairman of the Assembly Public Safety committee Kevin McCarty submitted a wide-ranging piece of legislation designed to deter repeat offenders and hold resellers of stolen goods to account.
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The California Retail Theft Reduction Act (AB 2943), put forward one day before the California State Assembly’s final deadline for new bills, takes a comprehensive approach to combating retail crime centered on instituting a new crime classification for possessing stolen merchandise with the intent to resell. Under the law, being caught with pilfered property intended for sale could come with a sentence as long as three years.
“Organized retail theft is having a chilling effect on our communities,” Rivas said, noting that “Crime, like everything, evolves.” According to the Assemblymember, whose district includes Salinas and Hollister, Calif. “Criminal enterprises are using new and different ways to get around current prohibitions.”
“It is our responsibility to ensure that our laws are addressing the situation at hand,” he added.
AB 2943 aims to take on “professional retail thieves”—those who have made a business out of boosting and fencing stolen products, according to Zbur. Because the intent to resell stolen property is tough to prove in court, evidence may include repeat offenses or the possession of an amount of stolen property that is “inconsistent with personal use.”
The law also includes a provision related to aggregation, which stipulates that the value of thefts from different retailers can be tallied up and prosecuted as grand theft—a felony charge. It also takes on the issue of online resale of stolen merchandise, requiring that web-based sellers maintain records to prove that their products were legally obtained.
Retail businesses “of a certain size” would be required to periodically provide theft-related data to law enforcement in order to strengthen laws and prevent stolen goods from being sold online.
The bill would also empower law enforcement to make arrests based on a sworn statement from a witness or video footage if a crime takes place when the officer is not present. “This bill would authorize a peace officer to make a warrantless arrest for a misdemeanor shoplifting offense not committed in the officer’s presence if the officer has probable cause to believe that person has committed shoplifting…” the text states.
While the law’s aggregation component would allow courts to impose higher penalties on repeat offenders, AB 2943 includes the option for some shoplifters to be routed into diversion programs instead of jail or prison.
The California Retail Theft Reduction Act is among the more robust and multi-faceted proposals to come out of the California State Assembly in recent months.
In January, Assemblymember James C. Ramos introduced AB 1772, which would see a person convicted of petty theft or shoplifting who has two or more prior convictions for theft-related offenses jailed for up to three years. Last month also saw the introduction of AB 1787, by Assemblymember Carlos Villapudua, which would define shoplifting as the act of entering a place of commerce during regular business hours to steal $950 or less in merchandise. Any other incident with intent to commit larceny would be defined as burglary, which often results in harsher penalties.
“We heard from law enforcement agencies that they need better tools to address the problem of repeat offenders and these professional crime rings. We heard that diversion programs should be should be part of a comprehensive approach to solving this problem, and that the best deterrence is not necessarily increasing imprisonment, but instead assuring that there’s enforcement and a certainty of consequences for breaking the law,” Zbur said at the California Select Committee on Retail Theft’s second hearing on Feb. 9.
Reporting from the Public Policy Institute of California indicates that while reported incidences of shoplifting are actually down from pre-pandemic levels, the issue is rising disproportionately across the state’s most populous cities and counties, including the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, making retail crime feel like a crisis for many retailers and communities.
“There seems to be a gap between some of the data and the on-the-ground experiences of so many businesses, workers, residents and law enforcement agencies in our state,” Zbur added. “Numbers on a spreadsheet can only tell us so much. Our constituents have told us that there’s a serious problem with retail crime, and have asked us for help. I want to assure you that we are listening.”
