Advocacy in Action: Downtown Cleveland Champions FORCE Act to Combat Organized Retail Crime

Downtown Cleveland, Inc. advocated and supported the recent passage of House Bill 366, the Fight Organized Retail Crime and Empower Law Enforcement (FORCE) Act, signed by Governor DeWine and enacted into law last week. This legislation allows local retailers to protect themselves from organized and repeat theft, through targeted investigations, increased penalties, and a specific focus on high-value thefts encouraging new retail and existing growth in the downtown market.

This legislation will accomplish the following:

• Create the Organized Retail Theft Task Force within the Organized Crime Investigations Commission to investigate retail theft.

• Increase felonious penalties against repeat offenders of grand theft and aggravated theft.

• Create the crime of organized theft of retail property, which prohibits:

  • Knowingly committing theft of retail property with a value of $7500 or more

  • Receiving, purchasing, or possessing retail property with a value of $7500 or more

  • Knowingly acting as an agent of an enterprise to steal retail property with a value of $7500 or more

  • Knowingly recruiting, coordinating, organizing, managing, or financing an enterprise to commit any of these acts.

  • Specifies that organized theft of retail property is a third degree felony, but can be as high as a first degree felony depending on the value of property stolen.

  • Retail property stolen that equals or exceeds $1000 in value will be aggregated for the same person over a 6-month period.

In 2023, Downtown Cleveland engaged Streetsense, a leading real estate strategy and design collective, to produce the Downtown Retail Strategy based on market conditions and needs. Streetsense found the need for more retail options that serve downtown’s rapidly growing residential population. While the strategy provides practical and targeted recommendations to attract new and maintain existing retail, the most important factor in the success of a local economy is a safe environment.

Downtown Cleveland supports this legislation as it will increase criminal penalties and further discourage organized retail theft, allowing downtown’s small business community to flourish in an urban environment.

Learn more about Downtown Cleveland's Economic Development and Policy work by visiting 2025 Policy Agenda here.