AURORA | In 2022, as shoplifting rates spiked in Aurora, and across the state and the nation, the Aurora City Council agreed to get tough on shoplifters, increase jail time and even make it mandatory.
In Chicago, the same thing happened. Making shoplifting $300 or more in merchandise a felony offense in 2023, lawmakers there, just like in Aurora, were convinced they would prevent store thefts.
Just the opposite happened in both cities.
Ironically, they both saw crime rates spike even higher than the previous five years after they attempted to crack down on it. And although experts say the harsh penalties were not the cause of the spikes, they do reflect how little tougher penalties deter people from committing crimes.
In Aurora, not only did the increased sentencing and subsequent increase in convicts sent to jail not affect the shoplifting rate, but the change appears to have cost local taxpayers more than $1 million in jail costs. The Aurora law, struck down earlier in December by the Colorado Supreme Court, may also have opened the door to a potential wave of lawsuits from people jailed.
“Mandatory jail sentences, regardless of their discretion, have been shown to have disparate impacts that are discriminatory in their results,” Councilmember Alison Coombs told the Sentinel, confirming that she intends to try to persuade fellow lawmakers to eliminate the mandatory jail minimums in Aurora.
The Aurora city council cracked down on shoplifting even further at the beginning of 2024, imposing some of the harshest penalties on its books, with the city council determined that mandatory minimum jail sentences would deter criminals. Now, almost two years later, shoplifting rates have fallen somewhat, but they have slowed at the same rate as many other cities that made no changes.
In most cities across Colorado, the theft rates have been creeping back to 2023 levels, regardless of whether they enacted harsher penalties, according to state and national databases.
Bradley Bartos, an assistant professor in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona, said that penalties like Aurora’s can sometimes show some change in crime; overall, but they are not worth the burden they impose on jails and the expense they impose on taxpayers.
Bartos said there are three considerations for deterring crime through punishment: certainty, swiftness, and severity. The biggest deterrent to committing a crime is the certainty that the culprit will be caught. Second to that is worry about how fast the punishment will come. Least important, he said, is the harshness of the punishment.
“Severity was the least important and the least manipulable component to reduce crime because increasing the severity of the punishment alone does not necessarily yield any crime reduction effects if certainty of punishment is low enough, or swiftness of punishment is low enough,” he said. “So it doesn’t matter if we impose the death penalty for shoplifting if the likelihood of being convicted and punished is perceived as being quite low.”
For years, shoplifting has been a troublesome issue for store owners, police and local courtrooms. But what had been considered a perennial problem became a crisis in Aurora and across the nation as the pandemic came and ebbed.
Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said the shoplifting patterns changed drastically in the city and illustrated a change from “complete social disorder.” He was referring to big changes in trends from the previous year, when headlines referred to people walking out of supermarkets with full shopping carts. That, Chamberlain said in October, is no longer the norm.
Aurora, the state, and the nation have spent a great deal of time over the past few years focusing on shoplifting trends and context.
“A CCJ analysis found that the median value of stolen goods per incident increased from 2019 to 2021 and that the overwhelming majority of reported shoplifting incidents involved one or two people, rather than the large groups seen in videos of ‘smash-and-grab’ episodes that go viral on social media,” the Council on Criminal Justice report said.
In 2023, the National Retail Federation issued a now retracted press release claiming that nearly 50% of retail theft was due to organized crime, and months later, they issued a retraction saying that only 5% of shoplifting was committed by organized groups. They are no longer considered a reliable source for data, according to the Council on Criminal Justice and many criminal justice data scientists.
The causes of inventory loss are difficult to track and include employee theft, shoplifting, administrative or cashier errors, damage and vendor fraud. Due to that lack of data, and the misrepresented data from policy makers and groups like the National Retail Federation, the Council of Criminal Justice, referred to as CCJ, began reporting on shoplifting in 2023, using data from cities that have consistently reported shoplifting data for more than the past five years, along with the U.S. Justice Department’s National Incident-Based Reporting Program (NIBRS).
The CCJ said they do not use data from the National Retail Federation because the 2021 survey was the last year the survey reported figures on the number of incidents and the value of stolen goods.
Shoplifting, according to CCJ findings, fell 12% in the first six months of 2025 compared to the first half of 2024, and shoplifting was down 4% in the first half of 2025 compared to the first half of 2019.
“The reported shoplifting rate in the first half of 2025 was 4% lower than in the first half of 2019,” the CCJ report said. “Because these data rely on incidents reported to police, and because reporting practices vary across the retail industry, they almost certainly undercount total shoplifting by a significant amount.”
Across metro cities, the state and nation, reported shoplifting incidents mirror those reductions, according to state and federal reporting sources.
- Aurora’s reported shoplifting incidents went from 1,865 in 2023 to 2,460 in 2024 and 2,047 incidents in 2025, according to the Colorado state crime statistics.
- Denver’s reported shoplifting incidents rose from 2,177 in 2023 to 3,417 in 2024, then fell to 3,064 in 2025.
- Lakewood’s reported shoplifting incidents went from 1,515 in 2023 to 2,854 in 2024 and 1,992 in 2025.
- Colorado Springs reported that shoplifting incidents went from 2,934 in 2023 to 3,145 in 2024 and 2,798 in 2025.
In 2022, Aurora lawmakers agreed the city would crack down on shoplifting after reports of organized groups were said to be entering stores and walking out with large amounts of merchandise. City lawmakers created a mandatory minimum jail sentence of three days in jail for misdemeanor offenses of $300 or more.
Then, in 2024, the city council created even harsher punishments, reducing the amount of a theft that would “trigger” jail time from $300 to $100, and as low as $15 for people who walked out on their restaurant tabs. City council also added increased penalties for repeat offenders, including a mandatory 90-day jail sentence for the second shoplifting conviction and 180 days for the third.
Mandatory sentencing ended discretion for judges to tailor sentences to individual offenders for the crimes.
Such a move impacts several things in a community, experts say.
“In removing judges’ discretion, it’s probably going to reduce the plea rate, and it threatens to expensively overcrowd the jails,” Bartos said.
2024 saw the highest spike in misdemeanor shoplifting crimes across the state, especially in cities such as Denver, Aurora, Pueblo and Lakewood. Aurora and Pueblo are two of the only cities in the state that have mandatory jail sentences for certain misdemeanor crimes, which are stricter than state-level penalties.
The local imposition of harsh punishments for misdemeanor offenses prompted some state lawmakers who were critical of Aurora’s move to pass a bill in 2025 to prevent cities and counties from imposing jail sentences for crimes like shoplifting that are harsher than those under state law. State law currently allows a maximum of 10 days in jail for shoplifting convictions involving theft of up to $1,000, but does not call for a minimum, mandatory sentence.
“If citizens don’t like it, all the city councils are elected,” Pete Schulte, Aurora city attorney, said in defense of the city’s mandatory jail sentencing during Colorado State Legislature committee hearings earlier in 2025. “Just like all the representatives in the assembly, if someone doesn’t like what the city council is doing, there are remedies at the ballot box, and that is, again, why we are so firm against this because it is approaching our home rule authority.”
The bill did pass, but Gov. Jared Polis vetoed it, citing what he said was a composition on “home rule,” a concept that allows municipalities to write the laws they see fit.
Three of the staunchest Aurora City Council supporters of the “tough on crime” Aurora laws just lost their city council election campaigns on Nov. 4. While a politically progressive bloc of city council members took control of the city council this month, a few have stated interest in removing the mandatory minimums in Aurora, including Coombs.
And on Dec. 22, two Colorado Supreme Court Cases challenged municipalities that imposed maximum jail sentences higher than the state’s 10-day maximum penalty for petty misdemeanor crimes, including shoplifting of merchandise valued at $1,000 or less. This case is not linked to all Aurora cases with sentences of more than 10 days in jail, according to Aurora court officials.
Tickets, convictions and jail time tell the story of Aurora’s attempt to affect shop-lifting crimes
To understand the number of people jailed for misdemeanor shoplifting after the law change, the Sentinel, through open-records laws, requested the number of people charged and convicted of shoplifting between April 13, 2024, and Dec. 9, 2025.
City court records show that 361 people were charged with shoplifting for $100 or more, and 255 were sentenced and served jail time, according to court officials. Of those 255 sentenced, 86 were sentenced to more than 10 days, 20 were sentenced to 90 days, and nine were sentenced to 180 days in jail. One person was sentenced to the maximum of 364 days in jail.
Schulte and Aurora Chief Public Defender, Elizabeth Cadiz, said that between 250 and 500 cases were held up due to the Supreme Court considering the law, but not all of them were solely shoplifting cases.
Mandatory minimums and inflated maximums for misdemeanor and nonviolent crime penalties put a burden on court systems focused on addressing other, more serious crimes, Bartos said, which are now being gummed up by people going to trial rather than accepting plea deals to avoid this outcome.
That problem is also a factor Cadiz mentioned with the number of cases held for the Supreme Court ruling that will now need to be settled this coming year.
Bartos said harsh penalties for misdemeanor crimes also can affect municipal and county jails, whose capacities and resources can be stretched thin, and that it can compromise the safety of inmates housed in those facilities due to “retrofitting units to fit more people.”
Both Adams and Arapahoe County sheriff’s departments told city officials that they would accept the additional extended sentencing, according to Schulte, during a city council meeting in March 2024, when the city council approved the law changes.
Despite information being provided to the Sentinel about convictions and jail sentences, it’s unclear how many people actually served all or part of their sentences in jail, and which ones.
When asked by the Sentinel, the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s office identified 34 people they received from Aurora’s misdemeanor shoplifting penalties, and Adams County identified 3. That’s out of more than 300 convictions.
Both counties said it was challenging to identify individuals who were jailed for the longer sentences due to Aurora’s misdemeanor shoplifting penalties. Neither county said they were aware of a noticeable burden from the sentencing, but the sentencing never hit full swing either.
Drawing from city records, it appears that if local shoplifting convicts were actually jailed, the bulk of them were detained at the city’s own detention center, which sometimes serves as a jail. Primarily, the small facility serves to hold suspects until they post bond or are transferred to a county jail.
The cost of putting shoplifters in jail is sizeable
Aurora Municipal Jail and both Arapahoe and Adams counties cited an average cost per inmate per night of about $250. These costs are calculated based on the budget, the jail’s average capacity, and reflect what the counties can bill to the state Department of Corrections for reimbursement in some cases.
The costs don’t include the time the officer spends arresting and transporting the person to jail, the money it costs courts to get the individual to a quick and speedy trial, the cost of transporting people from the municipal detention center to the county jails, and other added expenses, officials said.
Since many shoplifting cases were held up pending the Dec. 22 Supreme Court ruling, the shoplifting cases tried in 2024 and 2025 were not all prosecuted at the mandatory minimums.
Multiplying the number of jail stays per day for shoplifting in Aurora from April 2024 to December 2025 by the average overnight jail cost of $250 would roughly cost taxpayers across the region $1,706,750. During that time, individuals would have spent a total of 6,827 days in jail. In 2025 alone, 215 people were convicted of shoplifting and altogether received 3,652 days in jail. That would roughly cost taxpayers $913,000 in 2025 alone.
Bartos said that the costs of charging, convicting, and sentencing for each part of the system to harshly penalize misdemeanor crimes are likely greater than the value of what shoplifters typically steal.
To paint a rough picture of comparison, multiplying the average national theft rate of $250 by the total number of reported misdemeanor crime offenses in 2025, 2,047, yields only $511,750 in average theft costs for 2025.
Costs are just one problem for the city. Lawsuits may follow
Not only will the court system struggle now with how to move forward with cases affected by the Supreme Court ruling, but many of the requested records on shoplifting show individuals who were sentenced in the last two years may have been sentenced and jailed longer than the high court said they were allowed to be sentenced.
Critics of the enhanced sentencing laws say they fear lawsuits against the city by convicts.
According to the Supreme Court ruling, the city could not, and can not punish theft of $299 or less with jail exceeding 10 days, nor can it impose a jail sentence exceeding 120 days for any theft between $300 and $999.
After the misdemeanor reforms took effect, the requested records show that, of the 255 cases, between 10 and 86 sentences were imposed in excess of the state maximum penalties, with 10 exceeding the 120-day maximum, and 76 cases that were sentenced were between 11 and 120 days, which could be illegal if the dollar amount was between $100 and $299.
Cadiz said that generally, sentences imposed by any court without authority to do so are “illegal.” She said that in some circumstances, there may be an affirmative duty by the prosecution and/or the judge to correct an illegal sentence.
Because they are in excess of the state maximum, the court lacked authority to impose the longer sentences, rendering them essentially illegal, critics of the Aurora law said.
As of press time, no one had made clear to the city or county that they might bring suit.
For now, city lawmakers are charged with finding a way to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, and a council with a new political makeup will take a fresh look at tougher punishment as a way to prevent crime.
When Mayor Mike Coffman was asked by the Sentinel if he thinks mandatory jail sentences are what reduced shoplifting offenses in Aurora, he said.
“I think that tougher sentences are a part of it, but I also think that better security, along with a more robust police presence, probably plays a greater role,” Coffman said in an email.
Other members of the city council have implied that the jail penalties have a measurable effect on deterring people from shoplifting.
Councilmember Stephanie Hancock said during the November Public Safety meeting that she has also noticed signs at her local grocery store warning people they will go to jail if they get caught stealing.
But police give a mixed picture of how the get-tough philosophy has played out in Aurora.
Aurora Police Deputy Chief Mark Hildebrand told city lawmakers in November that many of the people police are arresting now are actually repeat offenders and previously jailed.
“What we’ve seen is an ebb and flow, and it’s the same actors that are getting put away,” Hildebrand said. “We had the ones that were hitting Nike; we had some groups that were hitting some other locations. We actually put some good cases on them. We got some time, like a year, incarcerated for up to a year, and then they’re getting back out. And now we’re seeing some more shoplifts.”
Police are taking a proactive approach to deterring shoplifters, Hildrebrand said, such as assigning each district a person dedicated to retail theft who works with store owners, conducting operations at locations and having Aurora’s Police Area Representatives and the Direct Action Response Team officers work together in investigations.
Other suggestions for reducing crime say there should be a mix of punishment and services, never just one or the other, according to Criminologist and Professor, Jonathan W. Caudill, at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.
“So the idea is that we use the carrot and the stick, if you will,” Caudill said. “The stick, the threat of punishment, to try to get them to take advantage of the carrot and to do the things that will benefit them.”
Hildebrand and police spokesperson Agent Matthew Wells-Longshore said that the Homeless Abatement Relocation Team has also helped reduce shoplifting offenses by clearing homeless encampments located close to retail stores.
Specific data linking homeless camping sites and a reduction in theft at specific locations was not provided to city lawmakers.
Police said some progress in reducing crime could be linked to a larger police department.
After years of staffing shortages and recruitment struggles, Chamberlain said in October that APD is on track to be fully staffed in January with its authorized 748 officers.
He said attrition fell from 12% in 2023 to 9% in 2024, and now it’s down to 5% year-to-date, as more officers choose to remain with the department. Academy classes that once drew only five recruits are now filled at roughly 35, he said.
Police, however, have not addressed how almost every city in the metro area, and across the state, reports similar or the same shoplifting rates regardless of what city lawmakers or police have done.
As Bartos said, one consideration for deterring crime is ensuring that it will be punished, and having a police force that communicates and builds strong relationships with the community is one reliable way to do so.
“The Police Department has been building relationships with local businesses, including through round tables organized by the Havana BID, the Town Center at Aurora, and other business leaders, which has created greater trust among businesses that people stealing from their establishments will be caught and has led to higher crime reporting,” Coombs said.
Bartos appears to be contradicting himself with his approach after talking about the certainty of punishment, speed of punishment and severity. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that crime will get worse if there is no real punishment. It doesn’t have to be very severe, but it needs to be certain. Mandatory and minimum punishments create some certainty of punishment.
I should just give up, w this weather . Go homeless, steal everything I want and get my fentinayl on. Easy life right.
” Councilmember Alison Coombs told the Sentinel confirming that she intends to try to persuade fellow lawmakers to eliminate the mandatory jail minimums” That was predictable so the council will undo that ordinance, to which the perps will appreciate. Now, the other side of the equation. The productive business owner trying to make an honest living – Aka the victim and their challenge.
The Texas businesses have a little different attitude on criminals that come to rob. And when business owners in the city will now be forced to accept, Aurora leaders’ feelings – oh- so sorry we don’t do much with law breakers, especially shoplifters and robbers. This brings and produces the Texas style of The-law of the street. Texas does not like thieves and robbers and gives the business victim a greater freedom to protect their stuff. The link below explains a little different culture how these perps in Texas, where street- justice takes its course and is recognized as somewhat acceptable. https://abc13.com/post/houston-store-owner-shoots-robbery-suspect-posed-police-video-shows/16857433/ Will we see more businesses armed to fight back Texas style when the city waters down the law? What will the records show then?
The city spent a lot of time and money and came out no different than cities that didn’t go down this route. I recall a lot of people warning that this exact thing would happen. My condolences to the Cassandras of the world.
Lot’s of statistics in this not so necessary news article. If you are going to compare city to city shoplifting, you need one stat to make your case mean anything, that is never mentioned and probably not possible to know. What is the number of probable shoplifting criminals that live in your City.
What if you have five times the number of criminals in your City and your crime numbers stayed the same. Didn’t you do an excellent job in halting crime? Like five times over!
On another note and even though I don’t understand the comment with very little understanding of grammar, Heywood’s fake name above is in the All-Star category.
Crime statistics are interesting and may or may not reflect the amount of criminal behavior. It is entirely possible that more shoplifts were reported under the mandatory punishment as store owners may have found prosecution worth the trouble, while previously maybe they did not bother to prosecute or report as they may have thought it not worth their time. What the true state of affiars is, and was, I do not know, and nor does the Sentinel, though that does not keep the Sentinel from opining.