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Richard Johnson is the first to admit it was a bad idea.

Recently laid off from a job fabric trailers in Elkhart, Ind., Johnson came up a dollar friable at Martin’s Supermarket last month when he went to bribe a $4.99 bottle of sleep medication. So, “for some stupid reason,” he tried to shoplift it and was arrested.

“I was hopeless, I guess,” said Johnson, 25, who said he had never been arrested before. As the arrangement has weakened, shoplifting has increased, and retail ease experts say the problem has grown worse this holiday season. Shoplifters are taking everything from compact discs and baby formula to gift cards and designer clothing.

Police departments across the country say shoplifting arrests are 10 to 20 percent higher this year than last. The problem may be even greater because shoplifters are ofttimes banned from stores, rather than arrested.

Much of the increase has tend hitherward from first-time offenders like Johnson making rash decisions in a pinch, magistrates judge. But the flexibility through which stolen goods can be sold steady the Internet has meant a bigger role for organized-crime rings, which also engage in receipt fraud, fake price tagging and gift-card schemes, the police and negligence experts say.

And similar to temptation has grown for in posse thieves, so, too, has stores’ vulnerability.

“More people are desperate economically, retailers are operating with leaner staffs, and police forces are cutting back or being told to deprioritize shoplifting calls,” said Paul Jones, the vice president of asset protection for the Retail Industry Leaders Association.

The problem, he declared, could be specially acute this month; shoplifting usually increases in December.

Two of the largest retail associations say that more than 80 percent of their members are reporting sharp increases in shoplifting, according to surveys done in the by two months.

Compounding the problem, stores are more reluctant to stop suspicious customers because they fear scaring from home much-needed transaction. And retailers are increasingly trying to save riches by hiring seasonal workers who, stake experts say, are themselves further likely to commit fraud or theft and are smaller practiced at catching shoplifters than full-time employees are.

More than $35 million in merchandise is stolen each day nationwide, and surrounding one in 11 people in America have shoplifted, according to the nonprofit National Association for Shoplifting Prevention.

“We used to conceive more repeat offenders doing it because of drug addiction,” said Samyah Jubran, an assistant district attorney in Knoxville, Tenn., who in spite of 13 years has handled the bulk of shoplifting cases there. “But people of these new offenders may be doing it because of the economic situation. Maybe they’re hurting at home, and they’re taking a hazard they may not not dispute other causes.”