Shoplifting Challenges Retail Workers

New York, NY

“I was in the men’s section of the store when all of a sudden I saw a middle-aged man slide a bunch of shirts that were laid out, off of the table and into his bag,” my mother Maritza Munero recalled. She had been shopping in the Gap on West 66th Street and Broadway in Manhattan back in December. She heard the security guard call out to the shoplifter. ‘Hey!’ but the shoplifter simply ignored him and walked fast out of the store,” my mother said. What she saw seems to happen regularly, according to retail workers.

Shoplifting rates have skyrocketed in New York City. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) reported a 36 percent increase in shoplifting in 2020. According to CBS News.com there were 26,000 shoplifting complaints within the first nine months of 2021. Retail employees say that they see shoplifting happening in their stores and often their managers tell them not to stop it. They also explain that their stores will not call the police because managers do not think the police will catch the thieves or get the merchandise back.

Annisha Singh works at Dollar General on Jamaica Avenue in Queens. She said, “The store experiences shoplifting pretty frequently. Oftentimes we do not see it happening because there are so many people walking in and out the store, and we can’t watch people all the time.” She described a training course for new employees in how to deal with shoplifting. “We were told not to chase after a shoplifter or initiate anything with them…There was one instance where someone got their wallet stolen. The manager called the cops and to my surprise the police were actually helpful. Usually the police are not as helpful when it comes to these crimes because you can’t retrieve stolen items. But in this instance they showed that they cared.”

When Jace Ortiz worked at Modell’s in 2019, his manager handled the shoplifters if they saw them. “If we ever got shoplifters, we usually would tell the manager and they would confront them,” he explained. “Managers at Modell’s never called the cops but handled the shoplifting themselves. I think that my boss never thought to call the police because they wouldn’t take it seriously.”

We surveyed City College of New York (CCNY) students who work or worked in retail by posting a form to the City College Student Life app. Thirteen people responded via Google forms. Six said their store experienced shoplifting sometimes, and four said often. Nine said that store associates were instructed not to confront a shoplifter but to inform a manager. Seven answered that their store regulations did not help stop or prevent shoplifting from taking place.

A student who asked to remain anonymous shared a frightening confrontation with a shoplifter. She said, “I had an experience with this woman who was a repeat shoplifter at the store. She tried to use a fake receipt to ‘return’ items that she just took off the shelves. When I noticed the items she had did not match the ones on the receipt, I told her I would not process the return. She began screaming and threatening to have her husband beat me after the store closed.”

Another recalled, “A woman tried to hide a pair of socks in the shoes she was buying. Another was tossing them into her baby’s stroller. The store does inventory and when we checked, we had over a thousand dollars’ worth of items stolen from us. We sell Jibbitz for Crocs. They cost $10 to $15 for a pack of five. And we had close to 40 stolen from the store.”

Students also explained that the police often don’t solve the shoplifting problem.

“In most situations where I or someone else has called the police they either find an excuse not to come or come way too late for anything to be done,” an anonymous student shared. Another said, “One person comes every day and takes something freely and no one would do anything. The store didn’t feel the need to call anyone.

Najeh, who didn’t want us to use his last name, works at a small pharmacy in Harlem. “If I had to put a number to it, we probably get shoplifters once or twice a month,” he said. He explained that his manager hesitates to call the police. “We wouldn’t want to see someone get beat up over a toothpaste,” he said. “The main objective of having the police called is to de-escalate an issue, but they do the opposite. So we try to handle the shoplifting on our own to prevent that from happening in our store. Especially since the neighborhood is primarily Black and Hispanic. We’ve seen how the police handle people of color. We only call the police if there is a serious situation in the store that can cause harm to us or to others,” he explained. But the shoplifters make him uncomfortable. “Retail or working somewhere where you have to worry about shoplifting is definitely a crazy experience.”