New York, NY —

As if the recession hadn't already brought enough problems, 84 percent of major retailers have reported an increase in shoplifting since the start of the recession, according to the National Association of Retailers. WNYC's Bob Hennelly has this report on a crime wave that's costing consumers and retailers billions of dollars.

REPORTER: The NYPD doesn't track shoplifting as it does major felonies, like murder, rape and burglary. John Jay Criminal Justice Professor Gene O'Donnell says shoplifting tends to viewed as more trouble than its worth.

O'DONNELL: Stores see it as a nuisance, the DA's see it as nuisance, the cops see it as a nuisance but you know it is actually a crime we should be actually paying a lot of attention to.

REPORTER: There's more at stake than just higher prices and lost profits, according to Barbara Staib with the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention.

STAIB: Shoplifting, especially juvenile shoplifting, is absolutely a gateway to the next crime, and it is not the shoplifting itself, it's the getting away with shoplifting.

REPORTER: The NYPD says it made almost 16,000 arrests for shoplifting last year, fourteen hundred higher than the year before. Professor O'Donnell sees a recession link.

O'DONNELL: There are reports surfacing that more and more one timers, if you will, first timers and people that have never done it before are doing it. You talk to people in retail and they tell you that there is just an avalanche of shoplifting going on throughout the country."

REPORTER: Ultimately it comes down to the honour system. The Association for Shoplifting Prevention says the odds are with the shoplifters. On average, they're only caught once every 49 times they try. And there's just a 50-50 chance shoplifters get arrested, even when they're apprehended.

For WNYC, I'm Bob Hennelly.