Last week, the National Retail Federation, which has been pushing the ‘organized retail crime’ nonsense admitted they were full of shit (boldface mine):

The main lobbying group for U.S. retailers retracted its claim that “organized retail crime” accounted for nearly half of all inventory losses in 2021 after finding that incorrect data was used for its analysis.

A spokesperson for the National Retail Federation said Tuesday that the organization had removed the sentence from its report on organized retail crime published in April. It produced the report in collaboration with private security firm K2 Integrity.

The research — which was edited in late November, according to NRF’s website — previously stated that “nearly half” of the $94.5 billion in inventory losses reported by retailers in a 2021 survey “was attributable” to organized retail crime…

The NRF’s claim that organized retail crime accounted for “nearly half” of inventory losses was repeated in multiple media reports on the issue. The NRF has cited growing rates of crime in calls for Congress to pass new laws, including proposed legislation that would broaden the scope of offenses considered “organized” crime and increase potential penalties.

Basically, some guy made it up, and they repeated it as fact. No, really:

…the claim that organized crime accounted for nearly half of all inventory losses was based on two-year-old testimony from Ben Dugan, former president of the advocacy group Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail. In 2021, he told a U.S. Senate committee that organized retail crime accounted for $45 billion in annual losses for retailers, according to estimates by the coalition.

The inclusion of the claim in NRF’s report was “taken directly from Ben’s testimony” and “was an inference made by the K2 analyst linking the results of the NRF survey from 2021 and Ben Dugan’s statement made that same year,” Inman said.

K2 Integrity did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Dugan could not immediately be reached for comment on how the coalition calculated the $45 billion figure.

That the firm has “integrity” in its name is the rancid cherry on this shit sundae. Not only was this bullshit used as justification for shuttering stores, as well as more punitive policing and sentencing, but it also was used to justify locking everything away–which showed all along how stupid the arguments were.

In Dupont Circle and Logan Circle, D.C., there are three CVS stores, each on P Street, and two blocks apart from each other, all of which are in ‘good’, low crime neighborhoods. Yet for some reason, other than the Tide detergent, they all have different items under lock and key (or other safety devices). Are the predilections of shoplifters, not to mention those of the Nefarious Organized Retail Criminals, so different in stores 400 yards away from each other?

On a state colonial territorial level, maybe the D.C. Council, instead of using this as an excuse to pass more punitive laws, could put some pressure on these stores to stop treating their customers like criminals?

Just liberate the fucking toothpaste already.