Shoplifting spikes in Chicago after new North Side hot spot emerges in 2023, study finds

A small retail area of ​​less than half a square mile on the North Side emerged last year as a hot spot for theft in Chicago, according to a new study.

A report of the Criminal Justice Councila nonpartisan political group in Washington, says the annual rate of shoplifting per 100,000 residents dropped significantly in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. And the city’s retail theft rate in 2023 was lower than in 2018, the report said.

But that rate rose 46 percent in Chicago this year through October, compared with the same period in 2023, the report said. This year’s burglary rate is also higher than the same period in any of the past six years in the city.

The researchers, who also focused on theft trends in Los Angeles, found that new theft hotspots have developed in both cities since the pandemic.

In Chicago, an area that includes parts of Lake View and Lincoln Park became a new hot spot for retail theft in 2023, the Council on Criminal Justice found. The city center, including the Gold Coast and the Loop, remained the No. 1 location for shoplifting. These two areas had the highest rates of theft in the city by far.

Unlike Los Angeles, where theft hot spots are spread throughout the city, Chicago’s other large retail centers in far-off lakefront neighborhoods have seen a much lower rate of theft than downtown or the Near North Side from 2018.

Business groups see shoplifting as a costly problem in Chicago and the state. The Illinois Retailers Association cites a Capital One report that said Illinois retailers could lose more than $2.9 billion in revenue in 2022 due to retail theft.

At the beginning of this year, Illinois Organized Retail Crime Association was established to provide a free computerized platform for retailers, law enforcement agencies and loss prevention professionals to share information about the criminal enterprises behind organized retail theft.

State officials said organized theft rings are a big factor in recent shoplifting trends.

Some say a change in the way theft is prosecuted it may also have contributed to an increase in theft by encouraging thieves. In 2016, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx instructed his attorneys not to charge people with felony shoplifting unless it involves a loss of more than $1,000 or the defendant has at least 10 felony convictions. Foxx’s office said the change allowed prosecutors to focus more on gun crimes.

In a 2024 report, the Illinois Retail Merchants Association said it opposes any effort in the General Assembly to raise the felony threshold for charging someone with shoplifting above the state’s current $300 level. But the association advocates keeping people in jail until trial when charged with retail theft of less than $300.

The Criminal Justice Council cautioned that its study was based largely on monthly incident totals from cities’ online data portals.

“Because these data are based on incidents reported to law enforcement, they almost certainly undercount total thefts,” the report said. “Potential factors influencing the count include changes in retailers’ anti-theft measures and changes in how retailers report shoplifting to law enforcement, which could reflect their perceptions of the extent to which local police or prosecutors they will apprehend the suspects and criminal charges will follow.”