LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- After walking into a jewelry store on El Monte's Main Street in California, a man dressed in all black took out a hammer and started breaking the cases inside trying to rob. The store's owners and workers jumped in to stop the would-be robber.

The robbery attempt ended up being a failure, yet the owner of the shop complained, "We pay taxes, we're good citizens... We just want laws to protect us, to protect the business, to protect regular citizens," reported Fox11 news.

This is not a unique incident. As a matter of fact, such chaotic phenomena were massively exposed by the media, prompting the creation of an ironic phrase -- "zero-dollar shopping," which does not refer to a store planning for a big auction or a big sale, but someone pushing a full shopping cart and swaggering out of the store without checking out.

Over the past few years, many U.S. chain stores like Target and Walmart have been troubled by the so-called "zero-dollar shopping."

Target has not said how much loss it suffered due to stealing last year but only said it climbed by 750 million dollars, and organized retail crime will fuel 500 million dollars more in stolen and lost merchandise this year compared with a year ago, CNBC reported in May.

Nor did luxury retailers escape from "zero-dollar shopping."

About 30 to 40 thieves broke into a Yves Saint Laurent store, a luxury retailer in Glendale, California in August, stealing an estimated 300,000 dollars worth of merchandise, and then escaping in multiple get-away cars. A similar-sized mob stormed a Nordstrom store in Los Angeles in the same month, lifting an estimated 100,000 dollars worth of merchandise, according to Forbes magazine.

California has seen a surge in "zero-dollar shopping," according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a California-based think tank in September.

Last year, the state saw a 28.7-percent jump in shoplifting from the rate of the pandemic years, and the rate of commercial burglary is 15.7 percent higher than that in 2019, according to a report released by PPIC. The report also said that the commercial robbery rate had increased by 13.3 percent since 2019, with an uptick of 9.1 percent in 2022.

The lawless actions can be traced back to the passage of Proposition 47 (Prop 47), named The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act in 2014. It is a California ballot initiative, under which theft of less than 950 dollars in goods is treated as a nonviolent misdemeanor rather than a felony and rarely prosecuted.

Prop 47, once promised to save money on costly incarceration and spend the savings on mental health and education programs, eventually backfired. Because the "misdemeanor" will most probably be dismissed by the judge out of concerns for safety and potential lawsuits, employees and security guards in many stories do not intervene when they witness a crime.

"The problem now... is that, people who are drug addicted, who have mental health issues, they candidly will go into stores and they will steal," said the New York Post, citing Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retailers Association.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump recently voiced his view about "zero-dollar shopping."

"We will immediately stop all of the pillaging and theft. Very simply: If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store," he said Friday during a speech to California Republicans.

As alarming as his words are, the "zero-dollar shopping" problem is real not only in California, but also in the whole country.

Losses from retail crime ticked up in 2022, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation (NRF) in September. External theft, including organized retail crime, caused 36 percent of total losses, the survey said.

"Retailers are seeing unprecedented levels of theft coupled with rampant crime in their stores, and the situation is only becoming more dire," said David Johnston, NRF's vice president, in a statement.

Though California has toughened penalties and launched an information-sharing partnership with a number of large retailers, it seems that more actions need to be taken to address the problem nationwide. Enditem

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