Countless thousands of dollars are stolen each year from the city’s largest retail chains, and police and a security expert say it comes at a cost for honest citizens.

More than 14,000 thefts were committed in Middletown from homes and businesses from 2008 to 2012. It’s uncertain how many of those were from businesses, but the four big box retailers — Walmart, Target, Kohl’s and Target — in the city’s East End had more than 1,000 of those thefts.

Thefts from the four chain retailers range from merchandise worth a few dollars to big-ticket items valued at several hundred. A handful occur every day at one, and often more, of these stores.

“That’s one of the crimes that affects everybody,” said Middletown police Maj. Mark Hoffman. “What goes out the door not paid for drives the price of everything else up.”

Security and crime prevention expert Chris McGoey said thefts from retailers have negatively affected the shopping experience for consumers.

“You don’t feel like you can go in and shop without someone looking over your shoulder,” he said.

And the cost of lost or damaged merchandise and adding security measures, McGoey said, is passed on to the consumer with higher prices.

Hoffman said the big box retailers typically have cameras seemingly everywhere in the store with loss prevention personnel monitoring them. They also have security personnel roaming undercover inside the store.

“Next time you’re in the store, look up and see how many cameras they have,” he said. “When they see it happen, they’ll let them go by the registers and then they’ll go accost them. They have to be 100 percent certain. There has to be clear intent not to pay for it.”

And more times than not, police reports show loss prevention personnel have arrested — and Hoffman said they do have arresting authority — for police to transport to jail.

Of Middletown’s big box retailers — Walmart, Target, Meijer and Kohl’s — 1,071 reports for either theft or robbery (which is a theft where the suspect used some type of force to elude or escape) were reported.

Hoffman said the people who get caught are the more brazen ones.

In October, a Franklin man had tried to leave Target on Roosevelt Parkway with a 40-inch Sharp television, valued at $550, under his jacket.

In July, two Middletown women, with a five-year-old boy with them, spent two hours before sunrise at Walmart on Towne Boulevard ripping off tags, and then placing the products in boxes and then in shopping bags. They tried to do it again. The entire crime spree was watched on video. The women left the store after paying for some items, but police stopped the women as they got into their car in the parking lot. More than $800 worth of merchandise was taken by the women.

Exactly how much is stolen each year is uncertain, Hoffman said, but “it’s a significant amount.”

According to a 2012 National Retail Federation survey, billions of dollars are collectively stolen from retailers every year.

“Fighting these self-serving and unethical criminals has been a tedious battle, but we remain resolute in our efforts and our partnerships with law enforcement to combat this growing problem,” said Rich Mellor, National Retail Federation vice president of Loss Prevention.

Retail shrinkage, which is inventory loss due to theft, fraud or paperwork errors, has decreased by $2.6 billion in 2011 to $34.5 billion, which is 1.41 percent of national retail sales, according to the survey.

Nearly 44 percent of retail shrinkage in 2011 was employee theft, but shoplifting and petty theft rose by a third to 35.7 percent of total losses, according to the survey.

“What’s not in that number is the cost and expense in trying to prevent it and trying to replace those stolen numbers,” McGoey said.