No, those have helped exacerbate existing issues but aren't the cause.
Organized retail theft has been around quite awhile. It's one of the prototypical examples of there being a will and a way. And it's rife in just about every major population center in the U.S.
Spin political narratives all day, but don't ignore this
Quote:
Thirty-eight states now don’t consider shoplifting a felony unless $1,000 or more of merchandise gets stolen. A2020 National Retail Federation reporton organized retail crime found that two-thirds of retailers in states that had raised their felony shoplifting minimums reported growing retail theft.
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The irony is that California's Prop 47 took the threshold for the felony from $450 to $950. California may have gotten the majority of the attention but was joined by red states and red legislatures which you'll conveniently ignore.