A Long Recession Provides a Big Lift for Shoplifting When the economy goes bad, does crime go up? You bet, especially at retail. And that’s bad news for easy-to-conceal items such as cosmetics and fragrances. The level of global retail theft reached nearly $115 billion in 2009, up 5.9% over last year, according to the Global Retail Theft Barometer, a study which monitored the costs of shrinkage and crime in the global retail industry between July 2008 and June 2009. ...