Your about to be pretty depressed. First, the reason that there is so much shoplifting is that businesses encourage it. Yes, they encourage it. Official policy at any retail business is, you *COOPERATE* with shoplifters...or at least you do not interfere with them or slow them down. See, companies are afraid of getting sued if employees get hurt or killed, so they instruct employees to (essentially) help the shoplifters.
Second...at the corporate level, the financial records account for shoplifting as "shrinkage". Well, shrinkage is more than just shoplifting, but a major percentage of shrinkage is shoplifting losses. To meet profit goals, prices are adjusted for a number of factors, including expected shrinkage. To greatly over-simplify the issue...if shrinkage goes up 10%, then prices on everything go up 10% to compensate. That's over-simplified as the Math is not that easy.

But it is a fact that if San Francisco shops get hit with a lot of shoplifting, then retail stores all over the country raise their prices to cover that "shrinkage". So if YOU shop at a retail store that also has a location in San Francisco, then GUESS WHO is paying higher prices because of San Francisco shoplifting?