As businesses across the country flee from areas where rampant theft makes operating difficult, Florida is making changes aimed at preventing theft in the state.
The governor bemoaned the fact that theft forces retailers to raise prices and lock down items, passing along higher costs and more inconvenience to law-abiding shoppers and decreased profits for businesses.
He pointed out how theft is rising in locations such as New York, Los Angeles, and Washington.
“You go in and you want to buy toothpaste and it’s like Fort Knox because it’s all under lock and key,” he said.
Meanwhile, shoplifting in Florida has dropped by 30 percent since he took office, he said. He gave examples of legislation elsewhere that allows criminals to steal up to $999 in merchandise and face no significant consequences.
The new Florida legislation makes it a first-degree felony—punishable by up to 30 years in prison—if the person committing retail theft has two or more previous convictions or carries a firearm while committing the crime.
Under the new law, a person committing retail theft with five or more people can be charged with a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
If social media is used to solicit the participation of others—and five or more people are involved—the crime becomes a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Thefts organized on social media are becoming increasingly frequent, expensive to businesses, and dangerous to retail employees and other customers around the country, the governor said.
Also increasingly common is theft by “porch pirates,” Mr. DeSantis added during the press conference.
It’s a nationwide problem, state Attorney General Ashley Moody confirmed.
Across the country, “44 percent of Americans have had a package stolen from their porch,” she said. “Just last year, $8 billion was lost in stolen merchandise from porches.”
Under the new Florida law, it will be a third-degree felony if the contents of a stolen package are valued at $40 or more. It’s a first-degree misdemeanor if the stolen property is worth less than $40. A thief’s subsequent violations can be charged as third-degree felonies.
The legislation aims to prevent organized retail crime (ORC), defined by the National Retail Federation as “the large-scale theft of retail merchandise with the intent to resell the items for financial gain.”
“We’re not talking about kids that make bad decisions,” Florida Retail Federation president Scott Shalley told The Epoch Times. “We’re talking about theft for profit, and this bill really speaks directly to that, to the repeat offender, and to the organized groups that are causing or committing these crimes.”
Thankfully, he said, organized theft has not been a big problem in Florida. And this legislation, he said, could prevent the nationwide trend from spreading to the state.
“Most concerning is that we’re seeing more and more violent theft [across the nation], which puts the consumer and the employees at risk,” Mr. Shalley said.
The National Retail Federation estimates that retailers across the country lost $112.1 billion in inventory because of theft in 2022. That was an increase from a nearly $94 billion loss to theft in 2021.
The organization also found that 81 percent of retailers who responded to their survey reported that ORC offenders have become more violent.
Organized thefts—sometimes called smash-and-grabs—have drawn attention in recent years because of videos that circulate on social media, often posted by perpetrators or onlookers. Mr. Shalley recalled a theft in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2021, when thieves who organized through social media stole nearly $1 million in designer handbags from a store.
Viral videos on social media have shown groups descending on businesses around the country, boldly snatching large amounts of inventory, leaving behind shattered windows and damaged property, and fleeing with the stolen goods.
The thieves committing those crimes, “leave knowing that they’re not going to be held accountable,” Mr. DeSantis said.
But in Florida, he said, “If you do the crime, you’re going to do the time. We care more about protecting public safety and the rights of law-abiding citizens than we do about coddling criminals or making excuses for them.”
The state’s chief legal officer praised the governor and Florida Legislature for the new law.
“We have the original OG—the Original Governor—who knows how to lead and be proactive,” Ms. Moody said. “And that is what a state needs in an executive leader.
“Heck! That is what our country needs in its executive leader!”
Mr. DeSantis dropped his bid in January to be the Republican nominee for president. Ms. Moody has sued President Biden and members of his administration repeatedly.
Earlier in the day, she and a coalition of six other state attorneys general filed suit against the Biden administration’s move to forgive student loans, a move she says “forces Americans to pay someone else’s debt.”
The lawsuit targets what the federal government calls the SAVE Plan. It will cost Americans $475 billion, Ms. Moody wrote in a press release.
She’s also been focused on putting thieves behind bars in Florida.
In February, her office filed criminal charges against three people who worked together to steal more than $100,000 in merchandise from Home Depot, she announced in a press release.
The suspects allegedly worked together to switch barcodes on a roof sealer priced at $248-$445 per bucket. They replaced those barcodes with pricing stickers for a floor patch that sells for $9.98, Ms. Moody said. The thieves hit 2-3 stores per day, she said, with 4-16 buckets per transaction.
Over three years, the group allegedly stole 281 buckets of the roof sealer in more than 25 theft incidents from Home Depot stores throughout 11 counties in South and Central Florida.
“Florida is a law-and-order state, and we are dismantling organized retail theft rings,” Ms. Moody said after their arrests. “Now, this group faces our statewide prosecutors and time in prison, where I can promise there is no self-checkout line.”
Organized retail crime is a growing problem for all retailers and is one that Home Depot is “fighting on all fronts,” Evelyn Fornes, a spokeswoman for the company wrote in an email to The Epoch Times. “The bill is another ’tool in the toolbox' to crack down on organized retail crime.”
The new law could be a great help to retailers, shoppers, and taxpayers, Mr. Shalley said.
“You have the loss of goods which can be as much as 2 or 3 percent a year for a company. And of course, that is no doubt going to impact the consumer, as well,” with higher prices.
Additionally, theft of goods shortchanges communities that miss out on the benefit of collected sales tax, he added.
“It’s nice to see the Legislature being proactive in taking steps to prevent something, rather than dealing with a problem down the road.”
