An Aurora attempt to reduce shoplifting in local stores looks and sounds much more like a frothing talk-radio show than a deliberative city council.
Over the last week, conservatives on the Aurora City Council have once again taken a ready-fire-aim approach to governing. This time, lawmakers shot themselves in the feet over a scheme that promises to send more convicted shoplifters to jail.
Last year, city lawmakers agreed to jail anyone convicted of shoplifting merchandise worth $300 or more. This week, lawmakers pushed to lower the limit to $100. The state limit for felony theft is $2,000.
The scheme is grounded in right-wing talk-radio hysteria, disinformation, half-truths and fallacy.
It isn’t that retail theft isn’t a serious problem, it’s just that it deserves serious attention and fact-based solutions that make a difference. Aurora conservatives are treading in nonsense.
The only fact in this “go-directly-to-jail” ruse is that evidence shows there was a marked increase in retail loss from theft over the past few years, nationally, regionally and locally.
That data — from reliable sources such as the National Retail Federation, Statista, Retail and Trade, and the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention — is backed by a slate of other retail and retail insurance studies that reveals that Colorado retailers lost $1.289 billion in revenue to retail theft in 2022, but the bulk of that was not from shoplifting.
Among the things this conservative cohort of Aurora city lawmakers aren’t telling the public:
• Retail theft per capita in Colorado is 19% lower than all states.
• Only about one-third of the losses are attributable to shoplifting. About 29% of the retail theft loss is due to employee or internal theft. Another 26% of retail theft loss is attributed to internal process and control failures. Another 9% is loss attributable to “other” causes — not shoplifting.
That’s just the beginning of this bogus city-council campaign to “get tough on crime.”
Shoplifting is far from new and far from being at the forefront of the mind of retail owners. In 2014, shoplifting became a top concern for Aurora business owners. Another ill-fated attempt to get tough on shoplifting involved city courts handing out jail sentences and posting pictures of those arrested for shoplifting on Facebook.
It did nothing but risk due process lawsuits and eventually petered out.
At the root of this ruse is a fairy-tale belief that increasing threats and jail punishment reduces crime.
It does not. The sustained evidence shows that threatening worse punishment for stealing cars, toothbrushes, tires or trampolines does not measurably move the needle — except in costing more to taxpayers.
While repeated studies have backed this up, famous among them is a 1997 Urban Institute review. During the 1980s when jails and prisons were filled with three times as many inmates, crime went down about 9%, according to research in the Urban Institute study.
What does increase is the ratio of Black men put in jail compared to their convicted white counterparts, the study revealed. Incarceration of Black men “above the poverty level increased from 21 to 37 per 1,000 of these men in the general population. These rates are eight times those for a comparable group of white men.”
Just as importantly, 1 in 4 shoplifters is under the age of 16, immune from the threat of jail, even if they were arrested, and the vast majority of shoplifters are not.
Here’s more information from National Association for Shoplifting Prevention that city council members didn’t reveal to the public:
• Shoplifters say they are caught, on average, just 1 in every 49 times they steal.
• Chronic offenders say they are arrested 1 in every 100 times they steal.
• Each time an offender enters the criminal justice system, the cost to taxpayers is upward of $2,000, and that’s before the cost of incarceration
Like a loopy right-wing talk radio jock, tough-talk believers can wish and promise all they want. The evidence is unequivocal that increasing jail time does not prevent nor “reform” criminal behavior.
Not only did a city council committee of conservatives leave out these critical details about the issue, they exaggerated or made up narrative to support their folly.
During a city council public safety committee meeting last week, city council members Stephanie Hancock and Danielle Jurinsky both said that an Aurora Goodwill store was closing because of a pernicious shoplifting problem.
Juninsky called the Goodwill problem “beyond embarrassment.”
When the Sentinel checked out their story, it was bogus.
“Goodwill of Colorado spokeswoman Stephanie Bell later said the organization’s decision not to renew the lease on its Mississippi Avenue outlet store at the end of May was ‘not related to shoplifting in any way, shape or form,’ and was instead part of a planned consolidation of the store into a location in Westminster,” according to a Sentinel report by Max Levy.
Hancock said in a later text message to the Sentinel that she did not remember who informed her about the Goodwill store closing.
Police attorney Pete Schulte joined in the faux-fact committee hearing by stating that Arapahoe County Sheriff Tyler Brown was essentially on board with this scheme to fill one county’s jails with shoplifters.
Not quite, said Arapahoe County Sheriff spokesperson Ginger Delgado in an email to the Sentinel after being pressed for confirmation.
“Brown is aware of the ordinance but wants to learn more about the potential impacts on capacity at the county jail and the City of Aurora’s budget before making a commitment,” she said.
The rest of the county has never been interested in subsidizing Aurora’s boondoggles.
Everyone but this city council wants more and accurate information. How many people have already been arrested and potentially jailed, or could be, is unclear. Even as the city council debated the measure in study session this week, neither council members nor lawyers presented any data about the cost or impact of the previous jail boost and this one.
When the measure’s supporters were called out by other council members, they defended that lack of data about the previous push for jail time.
“I understand what you’re saying about getting the data, but I don’t think it changes the intent of the ordinance,” Councilmember Francoise Bergan said Monday.
Facts-and-reality-be-damned philosophies makes for bad legislation and bad government. Frosting all this with fantasy and exaggeration further undermines the city council’s credibility in Aurora and the region.
There wasn’t even mention of Adams County jail, which has been sideways in the past with the city over efforts to fill that jail after city “reforms.”
The ACLU has filed notice that they think the $100-theft-for-jail scheme has a host of legal issues, similar to a plan the town of Rifle tried and backed away from last year.
Schulte said that Aurora has far more tax-payer funded lawyers at its disposal than Western Slope Rifle, and, essentially, the city attorney’s office is ready to fund a fight against the ACLU.
Still, unlike previous city governments, there is no fiscal impact data as lawmakers move the plan ahead.
Everyone agrees business theft and shoplifting are serious problems. But no one is asking for a useless, expensive and inequitable go-to-jail scheme. Businesses want results, not shock-jock talk from city hall or the local AM radio channels.
Retail experts say that clearly marked video surveillance camera systems, mirrors, signage and police or guards visible at the entrance and inside stores really do work in thwarting shoplifters.
The National Association for Shoplifting Prevention says that jailing some convicts reduces recidivism by about 40%, but jail time often leads to other crimes. Educating convicts, as rehab, however, reduces recidivism to 0.3%.
The biggest challenge isn’t the lack of harsh punishment, it’s catching, stopping, holding and turning shoplifters over to police for prosecution.
Rather than waste taxpayer time and money on a proven talk-radio boondoggle, the city should provide grants and low-cost loans for retail security camera systems, signage and mirrors. The city should subsidize police and guards in retail stores, which actually thwarts shoplifters.
But end this bluster over the farcical fantasy that “getting tough” on crime actually reduces crime, or homelessness, or speeding or cheating on taxes.
The answer here is more police, visible in a city that has tragically come to expect them only when they’re called and only for the most dire of situations.
“At the root of this ruse is a fairy-tale belief that increasing threats and jail punishment reduces crime.
It does not.”
Actually, the 90s are pretty eloquent proof that putting more criminals in jail reduces crime.
“Everyone agrees business theft and shoplifting are serious problems.”
Really? Because you spent the earlier paragraphs in the article down-talking shoplifting as being relatively uncommon, while begging the question that punishment for those crimes is unfair because they don’t get caught most of the time, anyway.
So besides the motte and bailey nature of this editorial, it appears that the main concern of the Sentinel staff is that shoplifters continue to not actually suffer the consequences of their actions, due to non-sequiter reasons like “equity.”
“The ACLU has filed notice that they think the $100-theft-for-jail scheme has a host of legal issues, similar to a plan the town of Rifle tried and backed away from last year.”
Yes, the left loves using lawfare to protect their political allies, and loves seeing business owners being ripped off because they think anyone practicing “capitalism” is an oppressor. The mistake Rifle made was actually backing down, instead of simply going through the motions for the inevitable ruling against them by the rad-left Colorado Supreme Court, and then ignoring the court’s ruling in order to actually put the safety and well-being of their community above left-wing social maladaptation.
It is if some folks are living in an alternative reality. There are reasons for the increasing problems we are seeing in our society. Increased permissiveness and an “anything goes” attitude by so called progressives are one of them. I would offer the following considerations:
•” Retail theft per capita in Colorado is 19% lower than all states.”
Is the suggestion here that we should wait until the problem balloons to that of other states before we address the problem? If we ignore it, it likely will.
•” Only about one-third of the losses are attributable to shoplifting. About 29% of the retail theft loss is due to employee or internal theft. Another 26% of retail theft loss is attributed to internal process and control failures. Another 9% is loss attributable to “other” causes — not shoplifting.”
Internal theft is still a form of shoplifting and the laws apply to them as well. The only relevant statistic here is the 9% attributable to other causes.
“At the root of this ruse is a fairy-tale belief that increasing threats and jail punishment reduces crime.”
“It does not. The sustained evidence shows that threatening worse punishment for stealing cars, toothbrushes, tires or trampolines does not measurably move the needle — except in costing more to taxpayers.”
Not sure you are interpreting the studies correctly here. What the data shows is that increasing punishment from say 1 week in jail to 10 weeks in jail does not reduce crime any further. This is not to say that giving any jail time does not reduce crime more than giving none. We have already seen auto thefts in the Denver metro area decrease by toughening up the consequences.
“What does increase is the ratio of Black men put in jail compared to their convicted white counterparts, the study revealed. Incarceration of Black men “above the poverty level increased from 21 to 37 per 1,000 of these men in the general population. These rates are eight times those for a comparable group of white men.”
Most would agree that the causes for these disparities are complex, but they are definitely not genetic. As long as the laws are equally applied and administered, this should not be the issue. We cannot socially engineer our way out of these disparities.
“The biggest challenge isn’t the lack of harsh punishment, it’s catching, stopping, holding and turning shoplifters over to police for prosecution.”
And what is the purpose of prosecution if not for the application of some consequence.
It is true that there are going to be some financial and other costs to implementation of this policy. But it has to be given time to work. Costs should come down over time as individuals re-assess the possible likely consequences they could incur and alter their behavior accordingly.
So when I regularly see groups of teenagers stroll out of the local King Soopers or Walmart without paying for their stuff, I should simply ignore it? The facts as they appear live before me, aren’t true because why again?
You say “the city should provide grants and low-cost loans for retail security camera systems, signage and mirrors. The city should subsidize police and guards in retail stores, which actually thwarts shoplifters.”
With what funding exactly? The City of Aurora can barely pay its bills as is. The retail tax base is chronically in the toilet (Objectively, an F grade among Colorado cities — 14% below the per capita average). Shall we close the libraries and pools to pay for this giveaway?
Do you honestly believe giving away cash will actually solve anything? Or are you just looking for a feel-good solution and nothing else came to mind? And how will this be any more of a solution than what’s currently on the table, exactly?
As a rabidly moderate Independent, I say let the punks spend a couple of weeks in a cold jail cell. Word would quickly get around.
And do you think that paying for the additional prosecution and incarceration will be a lesser burden? A good place to, as the editorial calls for, provide some data.
The costs of enabling your shoplifting allies are both tangible and intangible, Gene-o. Stores that are continually ripped off end up going out of business, costing the city tax revenue and harming employment. Meanwhile, social trust deteriorates in the interest of preserving your side’s belief that business owners should just suck it up and take it.
In short, doing the exact opposite of what your side wants is best for the health of any functional society.
Funny how all three of these letters have the scent of fine whine. Not one of them proposes anything new or effective.
Oh, and Mr. Brown? “Moderate” people don’t fantasize about “the punks” being tossed in “cold jail cells”.
Though you do have the “rabid” part right.
Funny how you whine about the lack of any “new or effective” proposals, Jeff, when following your side’s philosophy has resulted in what we see currently. Your circular reasoning and fetish for policy fashion, though, certainly remains evergreen.
Shame on the Aurora Sentinel for an editorial not only implying but stating that this criminal activity should not be punished. Especially when this activity gets worse year after year. Shame on you Dave Perry. What does your not for profit money lenders think of this type of editorial? I’d like to have an article on that.
This proposal shows respect for the thousands of hardworking Aurora families that actually pay for products before leaving the stores. The proposal proves to shopkeepers that Aurora has their back. It also, rightly, tells anyone stealing in Aurora that they will be prosecuted.
Myself and my neighbors are ready to pay to support this additional justice enforcement. Crime must be nipped in the bud and prosecuted…otherwise it will grow more brazen, widespread, and violent and it will reduce the quality of life for all the citizens of Aurora.