Mewzilla, I don’t disagree with you....
There are a ton of other things hitting retail hard. The minimum wage, especially the recent jumps in places like Chicago and Seattle up to $15/hour, are certainly awful for retail. So are taxes, regulation-inflated energy bills, property-tax-driven retail space rent hikes, and lots of other things too.
I’m not saying that crime is absolutely the only problem that retailers have to deal with.
However...
What I AM saying is that crime is the key, the giant among problems.
Big retail crime - not occasional shoplifting but smash-n-grabs in the parking lot, follow-home crime, assaults on your way out, gangs turning the mall or shopping district into a gang hangout, and flash mobs in the store - this modern, massive crime wave is the one problem that you can’t deal with by price point adjustments and better marketing.
YES, of course, we need to reduce the minimum wage, and income taxes and property taxes and sales taxes, back to reasonable levels...
But if we don’t get crime back under control, then absolutely nothing else matters.
When people think of a mall as being a crime center, that mall is done for.
JFD
Shrinkage losses are tax deductible.
When the mall gets its own police substation, then that's it.
Eastmont Mall, Oakland, California.