Senate: Finish the Job on CORCA
It’s Time for the Senate to Act on Organized Retail Crime

By the D&D Daily staff

Organized retail crime has evolved far beyond isolated incidents of shoplifting. Sophisticated groups move stolen merchandise across jurisdictions, exploit online marketplaces and target multiple retailers as part of coordinated criminal operations. Yet the law enforcement response remains too often divided by jurisdictional boundaries.

The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, or CORCA, offers an opportunity to change that.

In May, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed CORCA by a bipartisan 348-60 vote. Now the Senate has an opportunity to finish the job and provide law enforcement and the retail industry with stronger tools to disrupt organized criminal networks.

Among its key provisions, CORCA would establish an Organized Retail and Supply Chain Crime Coordination Center within Homeland Security Investigations. The center would help improve coordination and information sharing among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and private-sector partners while supporting investigations that cross jurisdictional lines.

That coordination is critical. Retailers have spent years investing in technology, intelligence teams, investigators and partnerships with law enforcement. States have also strengthened organized retail crime laws and established dedicated task forces. But organized criminal groups don't stop operating when they cross a county or state line. The response to them shouldn't stop there either.

CORCA would provide a stronger federal framework to connect the work already taking place across the country.

The legislation has also demonstrated something increasingly rare in Washington: broad bipartisan agreement. Combating organized retail crime isn't a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It's an issue affecting retailers, employees, consumers, law enforcement agencies and communities nationwide.

The House has done its part. The Senate should now move CORCA forward and send it to the president's desk.

For years, the retail loss prevention community has called for greater collaboration, better intelligence sharing and stronger coordination across jurisdictions. CORCA represents a meaningful step toward delivering exactly that.

The framework is there. The bipartisan support is there. Now it's time to act.

Make Your Voice Heard: The National Retail Federation is urging the Senate to pass the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act. Retail professionals and others who support the legislation can learn more and contact their senators through the NRF’s CORCA action page.

   Take Action Here: https://www.votervoice.net/NRF/Campaigns/98241/Respond


Retail Theft Down 15% in NYC
NYC on track for record-low murders, shootings, robberies in 2026, NYPD says

NYPD data shows violent crime dropped nearly 13% across all five boroughs in July, closing out the city's safest first seven months on record.

2026 is on pace to be New York City's safest year on record, with the fewest murders, shooting incidents, shooting victims and robberies in recorded history, according to the NYPD.

New data released by the NYPD on Monday showed a nearly 13% decrease in violent crime in July for all five boroughs, wrapping up the city's safest first seven months of the year on record.

The Bronx continued to see the steepest overall drop in violent crime in 2026, the NYPD said.

Shooting incidents saw a 21% decrease across all five boroughs in July with a 7.5% drop year-to-date, the NYPD said.

In other major crime categories for July, burglary declined 14.7% to the lowest in recorded history, the department said. Auto theft declined 24.6%, robbery declined 14.9%, grand larceny declined 11.8%, and felony assault declined 6.4%.

Retail theft also continued to see a steady drop for the year, falling 15.2% in July, according to the data.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch attributed the drop in crime to the department's data-driven precision policing strategy and tireless work of its members. fox5ny.com


Shoplifting Citation Policy Draws Criticism
Opinion: Washington leads the nation in retail theft. Vancouver’s answer is to stop citing shoplifters. What could go wrong?
A Forbes Advisor study ranked us No. 1 among the states for retail theft impact. No. 1. Out of 50. The study found Washington had 48% more reported retail theft than our share of the national population would predict. Stores are locking up tools and underwear and cold medicine behind plexiglass. In June, I spent an hour at a Walmart trying to buy a $6 wrench because the whole tool aisle was behind a locked case.

So naturally, one of our cities has landed on a solution. Vancouver is telling its police to stop citing shoplifters on the spot. I wish I were kidding.

Vancouver’s city attorney told police to stop automatically citing people for shoplifting, drug possession, trespassing, and disorderly conduct. Instead, officers refer those reports to the city attorney, who decides later whether to file. Not because anybody thinks that’s a good idea. Because the city can’t guarantee a public defender will be available within 14 days, and no defender means no case, so why write the ticket at all?

Now, technically that stops short of ending prosecutions. But it removes the immediate consequence, and the officers said it makes the crime much harder to investigate. If you’re a shoplifter inside Vancouver city limits this week, it’s game on.

If you can walk out of a Vancouver store with $750 or less in merchandise and not get cited, the incentive is obvious. The police union president said officers are losing one of their most important tools: without an arrest or citation, he said, they generally can’t immediately search a suspect’s bag for the stolen goods. No search, no recovery, no case.

Stores can keep a file, document the repeat offenders, and hope the county eventually takes it on as organized retail theft. Maybe it does. But that’s slow and expensive, county prosecutors have their own mountain of cases, and the shop that just lost $600 in merchandise doesn’t get it back while everyone waits for the system to scare up a lawyer. mynorthwest.com


Facial Recognition Helping 'Turn the Tide' on Crime
UK: Conservatives call for greater use of facial recognition from police
The Conservatives have called for the greater use of facial recognition technology to investigate crimes. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp wants to make it a requirement for officers to run images of suspects through facial recognition software, where they have been captured on CCTV, mobile phones or camera doorbells.

He also wants officers to follow up when geo-tagged items - including phones, laptops, tablets, bikes and cars - are pinging their location at a suspect's address, as well as tackling stolen goods being sold in plain sight.

A Home Office spokesperson said the government was investing heavily in facial recognition technology. "This government is already turning the tide on crime," they added.

Philp said the Conservative's Take Back Our Streets plan would put all three elements into practice, backed up by 10,000 extra police officers, which he claimed would be fully funded by £800 million per year. "The public expects clear evidence to always be followed up," he said.

"When they show the police an image of a suspect or the location of stolen goods they want action, not just a crime number."

Labour has pledged an extra 13,000 neighbourhood police by the end of this Parliament. An additional 3,814 officers have been hired between April 2025 and March this year. Philp praised the existing facial recognition database, which contains images of about 10 million people that can be face-matched using AI, but said what was missing was a requirement on a force to always use it. bbc.com


Sarasota: Property crime down 11%

Violent crime in Danbury down about 50% through first half of 2026