Democrats’ next crime fight: Retail theft

ALBANY, New York — Democrats want to talk tough on crime in an election year. Their target — shoplifting.

Successfully pursuing retail theft could rob the GOP of a winning message on criminal justice and give Democrats a national roadmap for addressing the issue.

Now New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is waging her own war on shoplifters through a mix of tougher criminal penalties and funding in her $233 billion budget proposal. She wants to create new police teams to address the matter, while offering a tax credit for businesses to help bolster security measures.

Hochul’s move comes as Democrats look to flip five U.S. House seats in New York in the narrowly-divided chamber this year, while Republicans press on with the anti-crime message that has helped them clinch electoral victories throughout the country.

“It’s a perception because it’s happening right in front of their face,” state Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, a Democrat who represents heavily Republican Staten Island, said in an interview. “You walk into a store and everything is locked up.”

The GOP has effectively linked Democrats to spikes in crime, and tackling shoplifting makes political sense: Voters see everyday items under lock and key or social media videos of thieves picking shelves clean. In New York, Republicans in suburban House districts like Reps. Anthony D’Esposito and Nick LaLota clinched victory in 2022 with a focus on crime and are both facing reelection challenges this year. Across the country, California could be in for a change of direction, with many officials there citing retail theft as a breaking point for the state. Getting tougher policies on crime would be a departure for the state after years of rewritten sentencing laws favored by the left.

And with 213 seats up in the New York State Legislature, competitive House races throughout the state and a fierce fight underway for the White House, party leaders believe it is crucial for Democrats to reclaim ground on the issue of crime — particularly since they are often divided over other law enforcement matters.

“I think this is really smart politics from the governor,” Democratic consultant Alyssa Cass said. “It’s taking away a big talking point for Republicans. They talk about this retail stuff all the time.”

But Republicans are signaling they’re not going to relinquish this potent message, no matter what Hochul does.

“Violent crime is still up and the fact is when you have grand theft auto, when you have retail theft happening all around us and people still seeing that violent criminals are getting off and being released, yeah, it’s still going to be a major issue,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who is facing a competitive challenge, said in an interview.

He’s skeptical that the efforts to address retail theft will be successful.

“When you’re dealing with $4 billion in retail theft last year, the way to crackdown on it is to actually enforce the law,” Lawler said.

As election season accelerates, some GOP lawmakers in New York are fueling a view that crime, as well as the influx of thousands of migrants a week, is part of a series of spiraling problems caused by Democrats.

And while Hochul views it as a winning move for her party, she will face familiar opposition to her left.

Some Democrats on the left have long questioned whether tougher penalties can be effective crime-fighting tools. Over the last five years in New York, Democrats have successfully won changes to the criminal justice system favored by progressive advocates.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, whose signoff is critical for any deal in New York, has already questioned the governor’s approach to a problem that has popped up in other areas of the country.

“We keep trying to come up with a New York solution to a national problem,” said Heastie, who has pushed back against Hochul-led efforts to change a law that ended cash bail requirements for many criminal charges.

Other liberal Democrats have been reluctant to support tougher criminal penalties, worrying that could lead to a further backlog in the courts and more people in jail. They have instead pushed for more mental health services and alternatives to incarceration.

“I think all of us want to see a world and a state in which no retail theft is happening,” state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat, said. “But penalties have not served as deterrence for wayward behavior.”

Retail theft, in part, could be sustaining the concerns that voters have consistently registered with crime as Democrats in blue states have spent years trying to scale back tough-on-crime laws to expand rights to defendants in low-level infractions.

Retailers in big cities like New York and Los Angeles have seen a sharp uptick in shoplifting over the last five years — a problem that coincided with the pandemic. The problem has been most pronounced in New York City, where retailers saw a 64 percent largest uptick in shoplifting between 2019 and the middle of 2023, according to a study of 24 cities released by the Council on Criminal Justice. Los Angeles reported a 61 percent increase during that same time.

Hochul is sidestepping broader fights with her own party over the state’s controversial cashless bail law, which New York Republicans have used with success in recent campaigns up and down the ballot.

Hochul has said voters remain worried about safety and has tried to shore up her own crime-fighting bona fides at home after winning the closest governor’s race in two decades in 2022 against a Republican who hammered on crime.

She has also touted additional money for the State Police in a direct challenge to Republican claims Democrats want to defund law enforcement. This year, she is calling for a measure meant to expand hate crimes offenses.

She has pointed to the drop in murders last year as a sign that her policies are working.

“But what has popped up are the quality of life issues,” she told the New York State Sheriffs’ Association earlier this month. “I don’t know what’s happened. People are just walking in and stealing things off the shelves.”

She wants a $3,000 tax credit meant to offset the cost for small businesses upgrading their security. District attorneys’ offices would receive $10 million to create teams geared toward prosecuting retail theft. And the State Police would receive more than $25 million for a statewide task force to counter shoplifting.

Hochul is also backing new criminal penalties for online retailers and third-party sellers that offer stolen goods for sale. Assaulting a retail worker would lead to a stiffer criminal charge under a separate proposal.

And yet Republicans are doubtful her plans will have a noticeable impact.

Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), a freshman Republican who like Lawler is facing a competitive reelection, called Hochul’s approach a half measure.

“I support more funding for law enforcement,” he said. “But until and unless we get rid of bail reform and have tougher penalties for criminals, the governor is just slapping a band-aid on a gaping wound.”

Jason Beeferman contributed to this report.