§41505 Organized retail theft database

Summary

The Attorney General and the FBI must set up a task force with the retail industry to fight organized retail theft and to help create a national database, kept in the private sector, to track where these crimes happen in the United States. The database must let federal, state, and local law enforcement and authorized retail companies and retail databases send information into it and look at information electronically. The Attorney General must provide money for federal agencies’ ongoing administrative and technology costs for the project, and the Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance may give grants to help state and local agencies with their costs. Congress authorized $5,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2006 through 2009 to train federal law enforcement, investigate and prosecute organized retail theft, and work with the private sector to build and use the database. Organized retail theft covers three things: stealing large amounts of merchandise to resell, handling or selling property that is known or should be known to be stolen, and organizing or recruiting people to do those acts.