08/02/2022
Though the media firestorm has substantially subsided (for now), we are one amateur video away from another “crime wave” that has been misunderstood and misrepresented. While industry and security experts point to several factors that have contributed to a rise in the large-scale thefts we’ve seen by organized criminal cohorts, the media coverage largely conflated these coordinated thefts with things like low-level, simple shoplifting to create an impression of a surging retail theft wave.
This leaves public officials with the ability to take a moment now to better understand how the public reacted to the coverage so they can mount a serious response when it inevitably flares up again.
To understand how voters respond to various messages about retail theft, Safer Cities conducted some testing:
https://safercitiesresearch.com/the-latest/new-message-test-responding-to-voter-concerns-about-retail-theft
Voters want policymakers to reflect back to them the urgency of the problem and promise accountability for people committing retail theft crimes.
