What Could Preventing 1% of Crime Save You? We Built a Calculator to Find Out

Every asset protection leader has sat in a budget meeting and heard some version of the same line: show me the number. Case counts and recovery dollars are easy to show. Prevention, historically, hasn't been. 

We built a calculator that puts a dollar figure on shifting even one percent of your strategy toward deterrence, using eight data points most retailers already have on hand. 

We ran it live during a recent Loss Prevention Foundation webinar with Mike Combs, former Director of Investigations and Organized Retail Crime (ORC) at The Home Depot. Below is a recap of those findings. 

→ Try the calculator to see how much preventing crime could save your organization.  

The Inputs

Combs supplied real-world estimates based on his experience running a large enterprise program:

• Incidents per year: 100,000
• Average cost per incident: roughly $3,500, blending low-dollar shoplifting with high-dollar ORC cases
• Monthly repeat crime rate: 7%
• Average recovery rate: 10%, far lower than the 25% many practitioners still assume, largely because recovered merchandise often sits in evidence for years before a case resolves
• Positive ID rate: 25%
• Case acceptance rate: 15%
• Case-to-catch rate: 50%
• Conviction rate: just under 25%

These numbers may fluctuate depending on jurisdiction, resourcing, and how mature a program's technology stack is, and Combs was upfront about that. These are averages for a large enterprise retailer with existing AP investment, not a universal benchmark.

The Output

Shifting just one percent of strategy toward deterrence, the calculator put the benefit at $3.5 million a year. Shifting one percent toward prosecution instead, the calculator found four additional convicted offenders, about $6,500 in additional recovery, and 372 additional crimes prevented because habitual offenders got taken off the street. That works out to $1.3 million saved.

Either of those outcomes is a win. 

Benefits Beyond the Spreadsheet

Matt Kelley, SVP of Business and Market Development at LVT (LiveView Technologies), pointed out that incremental improvements compound over the life of a strategy—the gains stack up year after year. As they do, they can strengthen profitability and improve the experience of both customers and employees.

Prevention can also reduce operational costs that do not appear in a traditional shrink calculation. Fewer incidents can mean fewer broken windows, damaged doors and alarm contacts, vendor repair visits, and interruptions for store teams.

Combs mentioned another benefit: internal buy-in. "It may have brought more people to the table on the deterrent side," he said, describing how a hard number changes the conversation with operations teams who don't report into asset protection but still have a stake in shrink. It gives asset protection, ORC, and operations leaders a shared way to evaluate priorities, allocate resources, and show how their efforts support the broader business.

Local Conditions Change the Calculation

During the webinar Q&A, an audience member asked whether retailers should run the calculator at the store, regional, divisional, or portfolio level. The answer was simple: try all of them.

Demographics, jurisdiction, and local law enforcement posture vary enough that, as Kelley put it, "you can't peanut butter spread a strategy" across every location and expect the same result. Running the calculator at several levels will give you a clearer picture of where additional investment could have the greatest impact.

Put Your Numbers to the Test

The value of prevention will look different for every organization, which is why our calculator is built to run your own numbers. To see how much you could save by implementing stronger crime prevention, try the calculator. To listen to the full conversation, watch the webinar here.