While “apple picking” may sound like a wholesome activity a family engages in during the fall months, in reality it describes a particularly twenty-first century kind of crime that is escalating all over the U.S. “Apple (News - Alert) picking” is the phrase police use to describe the increasingly common theft of iPhones, iPads and other pricey personal digital items by thieves who then wipe their memories and resell them into the gray market.

Because of their high price tags, there is lively demand for used, but still relatively new, smartphones and tablets. In New York City, iPhone (News - Alert) theft is so rampant that the NYPD has created a special task force to work with Apple to hunt down stolen iPhones and iPads. The typical iPhone thief prowls the New York subway system and grabs devices from subway riders just before the doors to the train car close. In numerous cases, the confrontations have resulted in injuries and even deaths of the device owners.

Apple has tried to help, by offering a “Find My iPhone” app, but knowing where your iPhone has wound up and having the ability to retrieve it are very different things. (We would hope most iPhone owners would stop short of bursting into a secret hideout of armed thieves to retrieve his or her beloved device.)

Piecemeal efforts have done little to curtail the rising rates of “apple picking,” so state officials are taking matters into their own hands. On June 13, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will convene a Smartphone Summit that will include representatives of four of the largest players in the smartphone industry, to begin to address the problem.

The meeting, which will take place at Schneiderman’s office in New York City, will see Gascón and Schneiderman pressing mobile operating system companies and cell phone manufacturers on their failure to develop technology that would allow stolen devices to be rendered permanently inoperable, which would eliminate any benefits thieves could gain from them.

“With 1.6 million Americans falling victim to smartphone theft in 2012, this has become a national epidemic,” said District Attorney Gascón in a statement announcing the summit. “Unlike other types of crimes, smartphone theft can be eradicated with a simple technological solution.”

“The theft of handheld devices is the fastest-growing street crime, and increasingly, incidents are turning violent,” added Attorney General Schneiderman. “It’s time for manufacturers to be as innovative in solving this problem as they have been in designing devices that have reshaped how we live.”

Thus far, Apple, Google, Motorola (News - Alert), Samsung and Microsoft have promised to attend the event.