Shoplifting cases in Chattanooga are at their lowest level in twelve years
Chattanooga police recorded 797 shoplifting cases from April through September 2026, the fewest for that window in the twelve years the dataset covers (2015 to 2026).
Chattanooga police recorded 797 shoplifting cases from April through September 2026, the fewest for that window in the twelve years the dataset covers (2015 to 2026). From 2015 through 2020 the same six months ran between 1,181 and 1,246 cases every year, and from 2021 through 2024 between 1,042 and 1,142. The count fell to 850 in 2025 and 797 in 2026, 30.2% below 2023 (1,142). Each case number is counted once, and cases marked Unfounded are excluded (none since 2021).
Most of the drop came in 2025. Full years show it: 2,491 cases in 2020, 2,269 in 2023, 2,106 in 2024 and 1,718 in 2025, the lowest of the eleven complete years. For April through August alone, 2026 (699) is 4.1% below 2025 (729). September 2026 (98) is lower than September 2025 (121), but reports for the most recent weeks may still be coming in.
The decline is larger than the change in police cases overall. All recorded cases for April-September (every offense type, Unfounded excluded) went from 29,478 in 2023 to 28,346 in 2026 (-3.8%), so shoplifting’s share fell from 3.87% to 2.81%.
It is not confined to one store or one part of town. The ten addresses with the most shoplifting cases since 2015 (mostly Hamilton Place, Gunbarrel Road, Greenway View Drive, Cummings Highway, Signal Mountain Road and Highway 153) went from 651 cases in April-September 2023 to 418 in 2026 (-35.8%); every other address went from 491 to 379 (-22.8%). All six police zones fell: Charlie North 423 to 282, Adam North 277 to 258, Charlie South 169 to 105, Adam South 166 to 104, Baker South 73 to 32 and Baker North 34 to 16.
The cases did not move into neighboring categories. Over the same window, all other larceny went from 1,109 to 850 and theft from buildings from 325 to 240. Cases where shoplifting was the only offense listed fell from 1,017 to 732 (-28.0%), close to the drop in the total.
The dataset records incidents reported to or by police. Shoplifting depends heavily on whether stores call police, so this cannot tell less shoplifting apart from fewer reports, and it gives no reason for the decline. The comparison uses April through September because the published file has far fewer records for February and March 2026 than for the months around them.