District attorneys across New York City are trying to tighten the screws on shoplifters by training retailers on methods to ban repeat offenders — and threaten serious prison sentences if they attempt to shoplift again.
The new training programs come as swaths of products in retail pharmacies have come under lock and key, and as customers complain about enduring long waits to buy items like toothpaste.
The new strategy, which involves “trespass notices” that warn alleged shoplifters they’ll face burglary charges if they return, gives prosecutors a way to bump offenses out of an overwhelmed misdemeanor court and detain a person on Rikers unless they can pay cash bail.
While low-level crimes have surged in recent years, defense attorneys argue that these efforts criminalize poverty. They say the strategy circumvents state reforms that eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors — like shoplifting — and nonviolent felonies. The measures were intended to prevent poor people from languishing in jail as they awaited trial because they couldn’t pay.
The training programs come as law enforcement officials push lawmakers to roll back the criminal justice reforms.
“Misdemeanor court in New York is fairly broken,” Andrew Warshawer, deputy chief of the Trial Division at the Manhattan DA’s office, said at recent training for retailers on how to ban alleged shoplifters.
“We can stay on top of some violent cases, domestic violence cases, sex crimes, but we can’t prosecute things the way we would like to in misdemeanor courts,” he said.
He said retailers can upgrade shoplifting from a nominal misdemeanor to a felony burglary charge by serving what’s called a trespassing notice.
When a shoplifter is caught, they are told they’re no longer allowed in the store and issued a formal notice. If the individual returns and attempts to shoplift again, prosecutors can charge the person with burglary instead of petit larceny, an escalation from a misdemeanor to a felony that carries a one- to three-year prison sentence.
City prosecutors offered different statistics about their programs.
The Manhattan DA’s office launched its training program last October, focusing on large retailers. The office has conducted five trainings with more than 200 business owners or employees. Warshawer said his office has the capacity to upgrade about 350 shoplifting charges a year to burglaries.
Brooklyn’s program began in early 2024, initially in a handful of NYPD precincts with big box stores but now expanding to other precincts, according to that DA’s office. Brooklyn officials didn’t describe their office’s capacity but said they served approximately 200 trespass notices in 2024.
Queens started its initiative at the end of 2021 at the request of small businesses. According to that DA’s office, 430 shops have filed a total of 1,600 trespass notices since 2021, resulting in 83 people charged with elevated burglary felonies.
Prosecutors from the Bronx and Staten Island did not answer questions about any similar expansions.
“We’re just still behind the eight ball on resources,” Warshawer said. “We have aimed these at the 300 most prolific offenders in Manhattan. Those 300 are responsible for about 30% of all retail crime on the island.”
The criminal justice reforms of 2020 made many low-level crimes like shoplifting ineligible for bail — meaning the accused shouldn’t be held at Rikers while their case is adjudicated.
Prosecutors have said this removed the consequences for many of these low-level crimes. Using trespass notices to charge an alleged shoplifter with felony burglary reintroduces the possibility of bail and detaining them until trial.
Some prosecutors, however, emphasized that upgraded charges present an opportunity for rehabilitation — saying they can get shoplifters who violate trespass notices drug or mental health treatment, which they may be more inclined to accept if the alternative is prison.
“This by definition gives them a second chance not to come back to that store because of a reason,” Queens DA Melinda Katz said. “To help to make sure they don’t come back through the court system again.”
The new measures come as brick-and-mortar retailers face an existential crisis brought on by consumers’ increased reliance on home delivery. One business group that joined the training welcomed the initiatives.
“This is something that a couple of businesses have brought up to me prior to the training,” said Daniel Bernstein, executive director of the Columbus-Amsterdam Business Improvement District. “Some of them have had repeat shoplifting incidents.”
But defense attorneys said people can be directed into treatment programs without subjecting them to felony charges and possible prison time — and without criminalizing poverty.
“It’s circumventing the bail laws. It’s done intentionally to make charges bail eligible and to turn otherwise low-level misdemeanor property offenses into felony charges,” said Gina Mitchell, an attorney for Queens Defenders.
She listed a string of clients who spent weeks in jail when they really needed treatment.
“We had a client charged with five burglaries from Duane Reade, all with food items,” Mitchell said. “These types of policies are subverting the purpose of the bail law and it’s funneling vulnerable people directly into Rikers.”
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