Sec. 2. Findings
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It is the sense of Congress that— organized retail crime, a crime involving groups of individuals specifically targeting retail stores, often by using violence or threats of violence to subdue employees and shoppers while robbing stores of their most valuable and easily diverted merchandise, has been a growing concern to retailers, industry, and law enforcement; retailers have seen a dramatic increase in occurrences of organized retail crime, costing retailers approximately $720,000 per every $1,000,000,000 in sales in 2019, representing more than a 50-percent increase in such losses since 2015.
Further, according to the National Retail Federation, the use of violence or aggression is increasing in the commission of these crimes, with 2/3 of retailers reporting an increase of violence during the commission of retail theft; organized retail crime— threatens the safety and liberty of individuals in the United States when those individuals engage in commerce; erodes the retail economy for customers and businesses alike; and finances transnational criminal organizations that use the proceeds of those thefts to support the criminal goals of the criminal organizations; and it has become necessary for Congress— to amend title 18, United States Code, to ensure that law enforcement has the legal tools necessary to combat organized retail crime in the same capacity as law enforcement is able to combat theft and diversion from other portions of the supply chain; and to direct the executive branch to create a central coordination center to align Federal, State, local, territorial, and Tribal efforts to combat organized retail crime.