The writing is on the wall for Dallas and Los Angeles. They will be the next Portland and San Francisco with their businesses disappearing. That is a domino in a line that leads to ruin, and it's not the first domino, which means the collapse has started.
Dallas' and Los Angeles' problem is that shoplifting has skyrocketed, according to the Council on Criminal Justice. This is a result of a shortage of police officers, which itself is a result of leftist policies being imposed on police, the defund the police movement, progressive prosecutors who won't prosecute criminals, and leftist judges who won't sentence criminals with serious penalties.
The Council on Criminal Justice looked at data available from 24 major U.S. cities. Its nonpartisan analysis found that Los Angeles saw a 109% increase in retail shoplifting for the first half of this year, followed by Dallas, which saw a 73% increase.
The value of the items stolen has also been increasing. According to the report, the value of stolen goods in shoplifting incidents in 2021 was $756 or less, a $184 increase from 2019. They have also grown more violent. Between 2020 and 2021, the number of news stories reporting smash-and-grab incidents nearly doubled.
Retail businesses can't absorb losses like this. When profit disappears, businesses close.
The Dallas Morning News reported that businesses in the city have started taking additional precautions to try and prevent shoplifting. Walmart has flashing lights around cameras on aisles that have locked cases of underwear, socks, and wallets. Target has put electric razors in locked cases. Kroger has security gates that can stop — or at least slow — shoplifters trying to leave the store with carts of merchandise.
While this is good news for Dallas citizens, it comes with a cost. The cost of those additional security precautions will also reduce profit, which might not be sustainable.
Once businesses start to close, people will follow because they need to find work, or they don't want to live in a crime-ridden city. This reduces the city's tax base, which reduces its ability to pay for police officers even if it can find people who want to work in that thankless job.
The people who leave tend to be good citizens while criminals remain because they know a good thing when they see it.
This turns into a death spiral as Los Angeles and Dallas morph into San Francisco and Portland.
Oddly, some of these cities destroyed by crime actually saw a decrease in shoplifting during the first half of this year. This is probably because the number of businesses that are still open in those cities are far fewer, and the ones that remain open probably have most of their merchandise locked down.
Meanwhile, the politicians in places like Dallas and Los Angeles will try to make excuses for their failure, spin the numbers in the best way possible, or outright lie about them. What they won't do is actually crack down on criminals.
Michael Letts is the Founder and CEO of In-Vest USA, a national grassroots nonprofit organization helping to re-fund police by contributing thousands of bulletproof vests for police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs. He also has over 30 years of law enforcement experience. Read More Michael Letts reports — Here.