Shoplifting Rose 24% This Year, No End in Sight

Shoplifting has soared in the U.S. in 2024, forcing many stores to leave cities and continuing a trend in recent years.

Shoplifting has risen 24% in the first half of 2024 alone, according to newly released data from the Council on Criminal Justice.

The White House cited the CCJ’s data to boast a drop in violent crime so far this year, but a closer look at the data showed that while violent crime has declined, shoplifting continues to rise. CCJ studied 23 U.S. cities.

Shoplifting has become a major problem in cities around the country, with some store owners announcing they had to close up shop because of the increased theft. Shoplifting and looting during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots helped spur on a new era of increased shoplifting.

Several major stores, including CVS, Macy’s, Target, Walmart and others have cited shoplifting when they closed down urban locations.

The Center Square spoke with a 38-year-old woman who goes by “Jones” who works at a CVS within eyeshot of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

Jones told The Center Square that shoplifters take from her store daily.

When Jones does see customers steal something, she doesn’t stop them.

“We don’t get paid for that,” she said.

She said procedure is not to notify police but to write a description of the thief and what was stolen down on a form on a clipboard. Jones’ clipboard has seemingly a hundred pages stacked, at least one for each day, many of them filled with reported incidents.

By 11:15 am Thursday morning when Jones spoke with The Center Square, the store had already been stolen from four times that day, at least as far as she knew.

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