Colorado is the fifth-worst state in the nation for shoplifting burden, and the working people who staff the registers and own the stores are the ones absorbing the cost.
An analysis of FBI data by The Law Offices of Tad Nelson placed Colorado near the top of its All-State Shoplifting Index, with a score of 77.76. The state logged 26,698 shoplifting reports in 2025 — down a slim 1.9% from 2024, but still up a punishing 20.6% from 2023. The shoplifting rate sat at 447.9 reports per 100,000 covered residents. That's the kind of trajectory that doesn't reverse itself without a course correction from the people in charge.
The national picture actually improved, with total shoplifting reports falling 4.7% year-over-year to 1,069,716. Forty-two states saw declines. Colorado was not among the standouts — its modest dip from 2024 was overshadowed by the two-year surge and a rate that keeps climbing relative to the rest of the country.
The index ranked states by reported shoplifting rate, total volume, and the change in reports between 2024 and 2025. The states landing in the top tier — Arizona, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Oregon, Colorado, New Jersey, Virginia, New York, California, and Nevada — share a common thread: large urban centers and, in many cases, prosecutors who've made their names on reform over enforcement. The South and Midwest, where law-and-order policing still holds sway, are largely absent from the list.
The report comes with a caveat worth noting: it measures only shoplifting incidents reported to the FBI, not total retail shrinkage or organized retail theft losses. Agencies and jurisdictions vary widely in how they record and report incidents. A state that looks better on paper may simply be doing less reporting — and a state that looks worse may actually be tracking the problem honestly. The Coloradoan noted that a spokesperson for the law firm acknowledged a typo led to inaccurate figures being initially published on its website.
But the trendline is hard to argue with. When theft is effectively decriminalized — whether by prosecutors who refuse to charge, by legislatures that raise the threshold for felony theft, or by both working in tandem — the predictable result is more theft. The people who pay are the small-business owners who can't absorb the losses, the clerks who face confrontations with brazen repeat offenders, and the consumers who pick up the tab through higher prices and locked display cases.
The question Colorado and every state on this list needs to answer is simple: when are the people who actually follow the laws going to get a say in how those laws are enforced?
