San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill, testifying before lawmakers about organized retail theft.
"It is not just an economic issue. If you go to the ground level and actually talk to the employees in the stores, you will sense the fear and the trauma and how much impact this has on human beings," Stephan said.
Retail theft in San Diego County
Stephan spoke about the special team she set up here in San Diego to go after what she called the "criminal industry" of retail theft.
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So far, the team has prosecuted 76 people for organized retail theft. In three of those cases, thieves stole more than $250,000 in merchandise, including $700,000 in products from multiple Ulta Beauty stores around the county.
Stephan also criticized the laws against this type of crime as weak and inadequate.
The district attorney has said before that making a case that reaches the level of a felony isn’t easy, since the threshold for felony charges more than doubled, from $400 to $950 dollars in California.
