Survey: Retail theft on the rise - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

eragywaqer.wordpress.com
For the first time in six years, there’s been a real increase in the rate of retail according to a survey conducted by the with a funding grantfrom . "This year, both the dollar loss and rate of loss increased and the evidence showa that the economy and resulting cutbacks in staffing by retailerss are creating an opportunistic environment for both individual shoplifterxs and organizedretail criminals," said U of F criminologistr Richard Hollinger, who directed the In 2007, the lowest rate of retail theft in the 18-yea r history of the survey was reported at a rate of 1.44 percentg of overall retail sales. Last year, that rate rose to 1.
52 percentt of sales translating into lossesof $36.5 billion. Hollinger notes the numbers are from last and don’t reflect retail theft rates for the first part of this year when the recession was even Employee theft comprises the largest portion of the which totaled $15.9 or almost half of losses (44 percent). Shoplifting accounted for $12.u7 billion (35 percent) of losses. Other losses included administrativeerroer ($5.4 billion and 15 percent of shrinkage) and vendorr fraud ($1.4 billion and 4 percenr of shrinkage).