By Ernesto Lopez, Robert Boxerman and Keley CundiffEErnes

Since shortly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Council on Criminal Justice has tracked changing rates of violent and property crime in large cities across the United States. The pandemic, as well as the social justice protests during the summer of 2020 and other factors, have altered the motives, means, and opportunities to commit crimes.

Prepared for the Council on Criminal Justice’s Crime Trends Working Group, this report focuses on trends in shoplifting, a subset of retail theft which, in turn, is a subset of overall larceny-theft. The FBI defines larceny-theft as the unlawful taking of property without force, violence, or fraud.

The report looks at shoplifting patterns from before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic through mid-year 2023. To date, attempts to measure changes in retail theft, including organized retail theft, have relied on retail industry data5 or have been limited to one state.

The city-specific data included in this report are drawn from open-data sources from 24 cities that, over the past five years, have consistently reported specific shoplifting data. Additional data come from the U.S. Justice Department’s National Incident-Based Reporting Program (NIBRS).7 The NIBRS data include a sample of 3,812 local law enforcement agencies. The analyses examine the changing frequency of reported shoplifting, trends in other property offenses, changes in the value of stolen goods, offenses that co-occur with shoplifting, and the number of people involved in each incident.

This report does not discuss in detail shoplifting data from the National Retail Federation’s Retail Security Survey.8 The 2021 survey (data ending in 2020) was the last year the survey reported figures on the number of incidents and the value of stolen goods. Because of this change, data from the survey could not be included.

Due to a lack of available data, this report does not examine factors that could be influencing the trends. Potential factors include changes in retailers’ anti-theft measures and changes in how retailers report shoplifting to law enforcement, which could be based on their perceptions of the extent to which local police or prosecutors will apprehend suspects and pursue criminal charges. Because these data rely on reported incidents, they almost certainly undercount total shoplifting. The findings presented here should be viewed with these considerations in mind.

Washington, DC: Council on Criminal Justice, 2023. 8p.

By Lucy Bryant

Figures from the UK Office for National Statistics (2021a) suggest that alcohol-related violence in England and Wales has been declining – both as a total figure (1,001,000 in 2009/10 to 525,000 in 2019/20) and as a proportion of all violent incidents (54% in 2009/10 to 42% in 2019/20). ■ This decline remains unexplained and generally unexamined – however, there are existing bodies of research that might offer insight into this trend. ■ This report examines possible explanations for the decline seen in alcohol-related violence – drawing on existing literature exploring: changing patterns in violence (e.g., Farrell et al. 2014), alcohol’s relationship with violence (e.g., Graham & Livingston 2011), and the measurement of violence (e.g., Reiner 2016). ■ Changing patterns in youth drinking might contribute to this violence decline. It is younger, rather than older age groups, who predominantly engage in violence in night-time economy settings (Finney 2004). Youth drinking in England has seen a recent downturn (e.g., Oldham et al. 2018), corresponding to some degree with declines in alcohol-related violence.

■ A steeper decline in alcohol-related violence relative to violence overall appears to be accounted for by shi s in alcohol-related stranger and acquaintance violence. Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) data show that the proportion of stranger and acquaintance violence incidents that were alcohol related fell between 2009/10 and 2019/20, whilst the proportion of domestic violence incidents which were alcohol-related generally remained stable. ■ It is possible data artefacts such as counting errors contained in national statistics form some part of the trend investigated here. While the CSEW is a widely respected data source (Tilley & Tseloni 2016), limitations in its capturing of violent incidents have been previously identified (e.g., Walby et al. 2016). It is important to consider the impact any such data artefact might have on alcohol related violence trends – investigation of the production of these National Statistics should be undertaken to assess this.   

London: Institute of Alcohol Studies, 2023. 21p.

BY Lyn Mikel Brown

For some time, reality TV, talk shows, soap-operas, and sitcoms have turned their spotlights on women and girls who thrive on competition and nastiness. Few fairytales lack the evil stepmother, wicked witch, or jealous sister. Even cartoons feature mean and sassy girls who only become sweet and innocent when adults appear. And recently, popular books and magazines have turned their gaze away from ways of positively influencing girls' independence and self-esteem and towards the topic of girls' meanness to other girls. What does this say about the way our culture views girlhood? How much do these portrayals affect the way girls view themselves?

In Girlfighting, psychologist and educator Lyn Mikel Brown scrutinizes the way our culture nurtures and reinforces this sort of meanness in girls. She argues that the old adage “girls will be girls”—gossipy, competitive, cliquish, backstabbing— and the idea that fighting is part of a developmental stage or a rite-of-passage, are not acceptable explanations. Instead, she asserts, girls are discouraged from expressing strong feelings and are pressured to fulfill unrealistic expectations, to be popular, and struggle to find their way in a society that still reinforces gender stereotypes and places greater value on boys. Under such pressure, in their frustration and anger, girls (often unconsciously) find it less risky to take out their fears and anxieties on other girls instead of challenging the ways boys treat them, the way the media represents them, or the way the culture at large supports sexist practices.

Girlfighting traces the changes in girls' thoughts, actions and feelings from childhood into young adulthood, providing the developmental understanding and theoretical explanation often lacking in other conversations. Through interviews with over 400 girls of diverse racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds, Brown chronicles the labyrinthine journey girls take from direct and outspoken children who like and trust other girls, to distrusting and competitive young women. She argues that this familiar pathway can and should be interrupted and provides ways to move beyond girlfighting to build girl allies and to support coalitions among girls.

By allowing the voices of girls to be heard, Brown demonstrates the complex and often contradictory realities girls face, helping us to better understand and critique the socializing forces in their lives and challenging us to rethink the messages we send them.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2003. 259p.

By Bruce A. Jacobs, and Michael Cherbonneau

Carjacking is a violent crime with a broad motivational landscape related to the unique opportunities that a motor vehicle, as the item targeted, makes available to offenders once it is stolen. Although carjacking is technically a form of robbery, carjacking is a hybrid offense because it draws from elements of both regular robbery and motor vehicle theft. Nuanced in its etiology and expression, carjacking boasts a structure and process that require offenders to navigate multiple challenges under considerable time pressure and uncertainty. The fact that carjacking is so often opportunistic yet simultaneously requires a fair amount of calculation makes the offense even more subtle in its complexity. The purpose of this review is to examine these nuances through the lens of official data and existing empirical research. Nascent but growing, this research provides insight into the scope of the problem, the method and manner of the crime's commission, and the challenges of curbing a clear urban menace.

Annual Review of Criminology, v. 6. 2023, 24pg