The House Committee on Small Business, led by Chairman Roger Williams (R-TX), held a hearing titled “Main Street Under Attack: The Cost of Crime on Small Businesses” to discuss how rising crime rates are affecting small businesses across the United States.
Chairman Williams stated, “Main Street is under attack because of Democrats and the previous Administration’s soft-on-crime agenda. The rise of violent crime, retail theft, and cyberattacks is hitting America’s small businesses hard, creating uncertainty, raising costs, and driving away customers. This Committee is proud to work with President Trump and House Republicans to reverse the dangerous policies of the far Left and restore law and order to our cities.”
During the hearing, witnesses discussed various challenges faced by small business owners. Ms. Plaggemier addressed concerns about cybersecurity threats: “I think cybersecurity has turned into a kind of tax that we all pay through ransomware attacks and just the cost of protecting yourself. This has a sort of trickle-down effect on us as consumers, I think, because it causes prices to go up. The biggest problem that we see with small businesses is just getting their attention. They’re very, very busy places, and cybersecurity is intangible. Protecting your business from physical theft is very different. It’s much more tangible. You can see it. You can’t see a malware infection stealing information on your device, and so I think a lot of small businesses just don’t give it the priority that it needs until it’s actually too late—until they have been affected.”
Mr. Wickham commented on legal thresholds for prosecution in response to questions from Rep. Stauber: “As I said earlier, we really look at this on a district or jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis. The criminal elements that we’re dealing with are very sophisticated, and they are hitting the areas where they know they will not be prosecuted. So, we’ve been working with individual units of government, whether to be organized and coordinated.” When asked about the effects of lack of prosecution on small businesses he added: “It’s extremely demoralizing. The lack of prosecution results in repeat offenders we hear about time and time again, whether it's Mr. Hrag being hit 35 times or big box retailers being hit 600 times. This is a message that gets out there amongst the criminal network. We’re working very hard to change the laws in all the states to allow aggregation, so they’re not allowed to hit these stores just below the felony limit and then do so repeatedly. We would like to work with this Committee to ensure that all the states allow for aggregation of prosecution.”
Rep. Wied discussed incentives related to crime rates among repeat offenders: “Your father always taught you that incentives drive behavior, and that couldn’t be more true. Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome. Right now, our incentives tell people that crime pays and accountability doesn’t.” Mr. Kalebjian responded by sharing his experience as a business owner: “That specifically hasn’t been as big because we do have a really, really tight community. But what the impact has done: more on me and my staff feeling hopeless, feeling unsafe, and sad... Those kinds of negative comments were impacting my retail side of the business as opposed to the customers because they were supporting us throughout it.”
The hearing highlighted ongoing concerns among lawmakers regarding how increased incidents such as thefts—both physical crimes like shoplifting as well as cyberattacks—are influencing daily operations for small business owners.
