Retailers look for ways to combat shoplifting as police security ends

But what's missing, we think, is a second tier, a better trained, more capable security officer that can be applied to stores as an option to off-duty officers.

This program had been in place for a number of years and had become fundamental to their response to, in particular, their very high theft stores.

with Winnipeg continuing to be disproportionately a challenge for retail security in Canada.

Now, to understand why so many businesses are upset about this news, we need to go back three years.

In 2023, Winnipeg stores were getting hit hard by shoplifters.

And by August of that year, there had been a 44% increase in retail theft from the previous year.

And the type of theft had changed.

Gone were the days where shoplifters were just bored teens, messily stuffing their bags with products and running out of the store.

Shoplifters had grown increasingly more brazen, with many retailers sharing stories of violent encounters.

And this is how Inspector Jennifer McKinnon characterized what they were seeing at the time.

We see our local grassroots businesses closing, impacting our communities and prices being driven up, further stretching our budgets.

What's more concerning is the increase in violence.

The day of hiding an item in your jacket or bag and slipping out of the store unnoticed are long gone.

We see suspects brazenly enter stores, taking items with no efforts to conceal them and brandishing a weapon at employees, security and any customers that are in their way.

This has led to innocent people who are just going about their day being assaulted, bear sprayed and stabbed.

Now, at the time, Graham, who we heard from earlier, said it was hard to quantify the financial losses because thefts are often unreported.

But he told my colleague, Brittany Greenslade, that his best estimate based on American data was that the American retail sector lost around $200 million in 2023.

Searching for solutions, his organization teamed up with the police and created the Retail Theft Initiative.

And at the time, Graham said police presence in the stores was a necessary measure, and one that was overdue.

Really coming out of the pandemic, we saw the escalation of more brazen retail crime in our stores across the province.

and began to work with the Winnipeg Police Service, Brandon Police, RCMP, prosecution, Justice Department, and bringing people around the same table to come up with strategies to address this crime.

Winnipeg Police Service has really started to embrace the realities of retail crime being not only costly to retailers, but creating increasingly unsafe environments for both shoppers and for those employees.

Why do you think we're seeing such a huge increase in these thefts?

Yeah, when an economy softens and households feel economic strain, you do see an increase in less violent, more need, a crime, the instance where you may be... helping to feed a family.

Those we can understand, and those are the ones we're happy to do work with alternative measures and put in precautions to reduce the risk and impact it has to businesses.