[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato, we kick off the program with someone we have not had on for a while.

He needs to be heard.

He is Steve Malanga, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, we'll put up their website.

also check out Steve's numerous books around a whole range of complex public policy and economic issues.

Hey Steve, I saw you on our program, the PBS series, Metro Focus with Jack Ford.

A great interview you did with him, I wanna pick it up.

And by the way, check out Metro Focus to see that interview that Steve did with the great Jack Ford.

You talked a lot about shoplifting.

Shoplifting is a national crisis.

Make the case.

- Yeah, it's become a national crisis because it's no longer just about individuals picking up things here and there.

It's actually organized retail methods.

It's a new kind form of organized crime.

You might remember back in the day, people would like steal stuff off the back of a truck, and then they'd say, where'd you get this?

Oh, it fell off the truck.

- I have no idea what you're talking about.

- You have no idea what I'm talking about.

(laughing) But these days, because of the internet, what happens is, organized gangs are going into stores.

They are shoplifting huge amounts of sometimes everyday merchandise.

Putting the merchandise online, selling it online in an organized way, getting people to clean the money, money laundering.

And this has become so lucrative, particularly because reform laws, like bail reform laws have really reduced the sentences for this.

That what's happened is it's more than doubled in just the last five years.

And now, now we're starting to see retailers, especially in areas where this is taking off, closing stores, closing numerous stores I just wrote about.

There are more than 600 chain stores throughout New York City have closed since before the pandemic.

Not all about shoplifting, but that's part of the problem.

- So, Steve, let me ask you this.

You've been very critical, and we'll hopefully do another segment on you on how polarized our country is and where's the quote "middle", if there is any middle anymore.

Left, right, far, far apart.

You've argued that much of this is a product of extremely left-leaning progressive and beyond policies, regarding crime, no?

- Yeah, well, it's possible to go too far in either direction, right?

We can go too far and we can over police, but it's also in reaction to that we, can go too far in the other direction.

And we did things like, for instance, say, well, we're going to reduce the penalties to make a misdemeanor stealing even more than a thousand dollars of merchandise from stores now, only a misdemeanor.

And that seriously reduces the incentive for people not to do it.

In fact, one of the security experts I talked to, I quoted him as saying that shoplifting is now a low risk, high reward crime.

When you get to that situation, you tip over.

And many, many people take advantage of that.

And that's where we are now.

We've swung from one extreme, we don't want over-policing, to now we've got bail reform that has acted as an incentive for people to shoplift.

- But you know what's interesting, Governor Chris Christie running for President as we speak, things change all the time.

Taping in late December.

No, they do, they change all the time.

But Governor Christie led the bail reform effort in New Jersey.

Not a liberal democrat, a conservative Republican.

So how does party even play into this?

- Yeah, well you're absolutely right about this.

Part of the issue is just kind of misunderstanding the incentives that you're putting forward.

Now New Jersey has been lucky because New Jersey, and let's say part of this is actually because despite the new laws, New Jersey has been better at enforcing some of these laws.

In places like New York and Chicago, they've really defunded the police.

They're now taught, and now people we're talking about how that's the cause of the rise in a lot of street crime.

Street crime includes this kind of shoplifting that we're seeing.

So the incentives, it's not even a question necessarily of ideology, although clearly much of this reform has been driven by left-leaning prosecutors.

But it's possible to go back and forth too far.

We went too far in the era of policing.

We drove down crime, but then we kept driving it down in some places.

Now we've got too far in the other direction, and their response needs a new response.

- So Steve, let's be specific.

Our focus is less on politics and more on policy.

Name or identify a substantive specific policy initiative, a change in the status quo that would, if not eradicate, because it will not eradicate this massive shoplifting crisis that you talk about, that would improve the situation and reduce shoplifting, please.

- Yeah, I think it's pretty simple.

There has to be consequences for repeat offenders.

It's one thing to say if a kid steals something, and even if it's like a $500 something or other, right?

And he gets caught, well, we're not gonna make this kid pay bail.

We're not gonna let him sit in jail for six months or something like that.

But in a place like New York City where a guy was arrested in 2021, 47 times for shoplifting-- - Saw you write about that.

- Some days, right.

Some days he was arrested, released, went out and shoplifted again.

There has to be consequences for things like that.

So there's a difference between letting the kid go by who did it once or twice, and he needs to be taught a lesson and letting people create organized retail rings and do it 45, 50 times a year.

- Steve shift gears dramatically, and I don't know if it's that dramatic, but so many years when we started, we started the Caucus Educational Corporation in 1994.

We're actually celebrating our 30th anniversary in 2024.

Steve Malanga was on constantly with us, and a lot of the conversation was about the New York, New Jersey battle, the ongoing never ending battle for rateables, commercial-- - People and jobs.

- Yeah, jobs.

- Jobs and people.

- Yeah, people, employees-- - And money!

- Companies and money.

With the congestion pricing, not crisis, but battle going on, just do it, you got a few minutes left.

We'll do a separate conversation on democracy and danger, which is something I've been thinking about a lot.

Question, are we in danger of New York and New Jersey of cannibalizing each other at this point?

- Well, here's the thing.

It's ironic because it's always been a battle between New York and New Jersey.

- Always.

- When I first started writing for Crain's New York Business and coming on your show in the early 1990s, we were writing about all of the jobs that New York was losing to New Jersey.

So there has always been an interregional battle.

And various mayors and governors tried to say, we need to make peace.

And we were never able to make peace because it's really about dividing up a pie.

The problem is this, this region has been losing jobs of people to other regions.

And so rather than the pie getting bigger here, and therefore they're being less concerned when I lose something to New York, or New York loses something to New Jersey, the pie has been getting smaller in this region.

And that's part of the problem, we're now seeing it, certainly the pandemic has been a perfect example is New Jersey, New York, we're two of the leading states in terms of out migrations of jobs, and businesses, and money to other places.

So part of this, what you are seeing, this scrap, this ongoing scrap between New Jersey and New York, it's a little bit because the pie is limited, and we're being surpassed by other areas of the country.

- Real quick, before we go, isn't New York City trying to get New Jersey commuters who come into New York through one of the many ways you get into New York over the Hudson River, the shaft with this congestion pricing initiative?

- Well, I don't think that is their primary purpose because they are charging everybody else this too as a result.

But the idea here is almost outdated because it was, first of all, it was based on this notion that New York was too crowded.

Was too congested.

- That's right!

- And that's not healthy.

but that's not the case anymore after the pandemic.

If anything, New York needs to be attracting people, not repelling them, right now, New York City.

- That's Steve Malanga, Senior Fellow, the Manhattan Institute, by the way, 30 seconds.

The Manhattan Institute is, - It's a think tank, a free market think tank focused on cities and urban economics, which is not something necessarily that enough free marketers do.

- You heard that from Steve Malanga.

Hey, check out past on our website, past interviews we've done with Steve.

Hey Steve, thanks for joining us, we'll talk soon.

- Thank you.

- We'll be right back.

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