Washington retailers lose $3 billion each year to theft. Here's what Gig Harbor is doing to stop it

There are people who come to Gig Harbor to settle. Others come to sail. And some come to steal.

Shoplifters come from “everywhere,” Gig Harbor Police Chief Kelly Busey told The News Tribune. He listed a long list of cities: Port Angeles, Bellingham, Portland, Yakima, Spokane, Tacoma. Police conducted a statistical analysis of the origins of their criminals and could not identify a pattern, he said.

The department launched a program called “Business Check” in fall 2021 to help curb retail theft. Three years later, it appears to be working, he said, although the success is difficult to quantify because of the way it works: An employee who notices suspicious activity in or near a store can call 911 and get a ” Request a business check. ” Depending on availability, an officer will be on site in hopes of deterring would-be criminals from taking action once they see police nearby.

If there is no crime, no police report will be made. Therefore, there is no precise data on how many crimes may have been prevented by corporate controls.

The News Tribune recently rode with a Gig Harbor police officer to learn how police look for suspicious activity, reviewed examples of police reports from business stops in cases where an alleged crime has been committed and found out how the program works .

Shoplifting in Gig Harbor

According to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, crime rates in Gig Harbor fell in the middle of Pierce County police districts in 2023. With an overall crime rate of 58.6 crimes per 1,000 residents, it ranked eighth among the 19 Pierce County jurisdictions listed in the Crime in Washington 2023 Report.

Among crimes committed in Gig Harbor this year, theft crimes led the way with 26.8 incidents per 1,000 residents, according to the report. Theft includes shoplifting and other types of theft and, according to the report, refers to “the unlawful taking, carrying, carrying or ridding of property from the possession of another.” The second highest crime rate in Gig Harbor was 5.6 per 1,000 for motor vehicle theft.

Data from the Gig Harbor Police Department also showed that the stores most affected by shoplifters are large retail chains. The five Gig Harbor stores with the most shoplifting calls from January 1, 2023 to September 16, 2024 were Albertsons, Target, Famous Footwear, Safeway and Rite Aid.

Busey provided an excerpt from a Sept. 17 police report that illustrates how a corporate audit works. An officer responded to a business check request at the Albertsons at 11330 51st Ave. around 8:11 a.m. in Gig Harbor, where he learned that a man wearing a bucket hat was acting suspiciously as he pushed a cart containing several cases of Tide Pods – a commonly stolen item – and two cases of beer.

“He left the shopping cart in the store after observing us in the store,” the officer wrote in the report.

When asked by an employee, the officer told the man that the business would like him to enter, which the man confirmed before leaving the parking lot, the report said.

According to reports from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, the reported number of thefts in Gig Harbor fell to 350 in 2023, the lowest annual number of any incident reported between 2019 and 2023.

During an annual crime report at the City Council meeting on Sept. 9, Busey gave several reasons why he believes retail thefts – calculated as part of theft crimes – declined from 2022 to 2023. Compliance with company policy may have led to a decrease in shoplifting calls, he said. Retail theft focus patrols, which are regular operations to concentrate arrests over a short period of time, and business checks may also have contributed, he said. And the easing of prison booking restrictions following the COVID-19 pandemic has made it easier for officers to get suspected shoplifters into prison “on day one” and prevent repeat offenses, he told the council.

Store policies can make it difficult to stop shoplifters

Busey told The News Tribune that the department invented the business check program in part because it believed loss prevention policies were too weak for some larger, company-owned stores.

“Most employees can’t confront shoplifters, which isn’t a bad thing,” Busey said. “We don’t necessarily want confrontations. That’s how people get hurt, right? But we also found that most employees couldn’t even call 911 to report the shoplifting.”

Retail theft contributed to a 1.6% “shrink rate” at retailers nationwide in fiscal 2022, according to a survey report from the National Retail Federation. According to the National Retail Federation, shrinkage measures the inventory that companies lose through theft by employees and non-employees, administrative or operational errors, and other causes. As a percentage of their total revenue in 2022, retailers lost $112 billion, with external theft accounting for 36% of that total, the survey found.

Violence in retail stores has also increased, prompting more retailers to support a “hands-off” approach to shoplifters, the release said. 41% of respondents to a retailer survey said that “no employee has the authority to stop or arrest shoplifters,” an increase from 38% last year.

“Like many in the industry, we are seeing higher levels of brazen shoplifting and organized retail crime,” Rite Aid spokeswoman Michelle McEnroe told The News Tribune via email on Oct. 17. “We are taking an active role in assisting law enforcement. We prosecute shoplifters and continue our efforts to educate community leaders about the impact of retail theft and advocate for solutions.”

Busey said he thinks the reason for such policies could be fear of litigation or negative publicity if the business gets the wrong person. That's why the police decided to make an agreement with their control center. South Sound 911 provides emergency services to jurisdictions throughout Pierce County.

When an employee calls 911 for a “business check,” the dispatcher will not ask them any questions beyond the employee's name and company name and location, according to a letter explaining the program, according to Busey was distributed to various dealers. When officers are available, they respond to that location knowing that something suspicious may be going on – but they don't know who they're looking for or what the situation is.

“We think it's probably a shoplifter, but we're not sure,” Busey said. “But our presence alone reassures the employees. If the suspect is still at that location, he generally leaves without stealing anything and the crime has been averted.”

Their goal is to prevent crime in the first place and not to react after the fact, he said.

Busey said some companies have even banned employees from requesting business checks. That was disappointing, he said.

“It’s really a non-invasive way to address a potential crime,” he said. “We don’t profile anyone. We do not falsely accuse anyone. We don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

He declined to name the specific businesses that are no longer using the program, but said the department knows about it because employees at those stores have said they can no longer call when speaking to officers conducting routine inspections.

A national problem

Mike Johnson, senior vice president of policy and government affairs for the Washington Retail Association, told The News Tribune that they welcome Gig Harbor's Business Check program. But not every jurisdiction has the law enforcement, prosecutors and jail space necessary to crack down on retail theft in the same way, he said.

He also stressed that retailers' biggest problem is organized retail theft, not petty shoplifting. Organized retail theft occurs when criminals make profits by selling stolen goods. They often use that income to finance other criminal activities such as human trafficking, illegal drug use and prostitution, he said.

“This is what’s killing us financially,” he said.

Each year, Washington state's retail industry loses about $3 billion to theft, and organized retail crime accounts for a significant portion of that, according to Johnson.

Busey said store checks help prevent both organized retail theft and petty shoplifting. Police sometimes see cars acting as “lookouts” in the parking lot during shoplifting, which Busey said is more commonly associated with organized groups.