Allegheny County leads the state for the highest number of retail theft offenses, according to a December report by Pennsylvania’s Unified Judicial System.

“People steal for a lot of reasons,” said Sgt. Aaron Scott, from the Frazer police station within the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills . “Maybe they need food or diapers for their kids. But then you have people who are pushing out four TVs. Some people are addicted to drugs and are stealing things to pawn off.”
This is in contrast to reports that retail theft is down across the state of Pennsylvania. “It might be down because it’s not being reported or because retailers are not reporting it because the court system is doing nothing about it,” said Barbara Staib, director of communications for the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention, an organization that maintains that “shoplifting has become one of the most prevalent crimes in the U.S.” with roughly 550,000 incidents happening per day.

Shoplifting costs retailers nearly $778,000 per every billion dollars in sales.