Increase in U.S. Retail Theft Could be Tied to Organized Crime
Retailers lost more than $37 billion to theft last year, according to an annual survey recently conducted by the University of Florida with a funding grant from ADT Commercial, a security systems integrator. The National Retail Security Survey (NRSS) preliminary results show an increase in theft by nearly $4 billion, from $33.5 billion in 2009 to $37.1 billion in 2010.
"It is possible this increase is due to the prevalence of Organized Retail Crime (ORC) where items are stolen in quantity and then resold to consumers on the Internet or at flea markets," said University of Florida criminologist Richard Hollinger, Ph.D., who directed the survey. "The National Retail Federation just completed its own survey showing an increase in ORC activities with more than 95 percent of retailers saying they had been victims and almost 85 percent indicating that the problem had gotten worse over the last three years."