Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) posted on the social media network X (without citing a data source): “New York retailers lost $4.4 billion due to organized shoplifting in 2022. Store owners say there’s no end in sight. Democrat leaders have abandoned them.”
New York retailers lost $4.4 billion due to organized shoplifting in 2022.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) November 27, 2023
Store owners say there’s no end in sight.
Democrat leaders have abandoned them.
In Jordan’s state of Ohio, Gordon Gough, president and CEO of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants, estimates that theft translates into losses of $2 billion to $3 billion for Ohio retailers. Gough refers to a 2022 survey by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce which found that “62% of Ohio businesses say rising crime has kept them from expanding.”
[Note: According to the National Retail Association, there are 162.6K retail establishments in the state of New York and 139.7K retail establishments in the state of Ohio. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2017 Economic Census), annual retail sales in New York State exceeded $291 billion; annual retail sales in Ohio exceeded $174 billion.]
In February 2023, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) introduced H.R.895 – Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2023, a bipartisan bill that proposes to expand federal enforcement of criminal offenses related to organized retail crime and “establishes a center—the Organized Retail Crime Coordination Center—within the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate the federal law enforcement activities related to organized retail crime.”
Eighty-seven members of Congress have co-sponsored the bill: 44 Democrats and 43 Republicans including a single Ohio congressman, Republican Rep. David Joyce.
The bill’s next stop is the House Judiciary Committee which is led by Jordan, who might object to the idea of establishing a center within the Department of Homeland Security as Jordan has accused DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “of everything from treason to doing the bidding of drug cartels.”
.jpg){kind=link}