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Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

wsj.com

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Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#271

Post by fighterpilot »

spfzero wrote: post #256
rayiner wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody will risk prison for $950 of stuff. If you make it basically a ticket, then you can easily get dozens of people to be able to steal a meaningful amount of stuff.

If you stole $950 from me, I'd want it handled as a felony. Or if a misdemeanor, that you at least got jail time (after giving my money back). I do not want people thinking they can steal with impunity. Otherwise, can I have all of the tax dollars I've spent on law enforcement returned now please?

There should be a protest movement that steals $949 worth of stuff from the front garden of elected reps until it changes

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#273

Post by pope_meat »

jellicle wrote: post #18

Nobody working on wage theft by employers, by far the largest organized theft ring running.

Funny how commentary that actually speaks truth to power drops to the bottom of the comments sections.

Don't lose hope op, this place makes it seem like we're in the minority, but we are not.

The human spirit will not be crushed and commodified that easily, we'll cut the nose the spite the face if we have to.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#274

Post by mensetmanusman »

fighterpilot wrote: post #271
spfzero wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you stole $950 from me, I'd want it handled as a felony. Or if a misdemeanor, that you at least got jail time (after giving my money back). I do not want people thinking they can steal with impunity. Otherwise, can I have all of the tax dollars I've spent on law enforcement returned now please?

There should be a protest movement that steals $949 worth of stuff from the front garden of elected reps until it changes

0.96 sq.ft of manicured grass?

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#275

Post by [deleted] »

newsclues wrote: post #235
Animats wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you need more staff. I was trying to buy some allergy spray at CVS, and couldn't get anyone to unlock the case. So I left and ordered it online from Costco, at 1/3 the price.

Stores can become large vending machines with minimal staff

[deleted]

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#276

Post by rayiner »

jzb wrote: post #262
rayiner wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my observations coming from Bangladesh, where policing is pretty inadequate, is that criminal law is really there to prevent the growth of organized crime. So you have to think about crime as a system not in terms of individuals. Harsh punishment may not deter a given criminal. But it may well make it hard to recruit dozens of low level people to engage in low value illegal activity that adds up to something s…

That doesn't seem to be working so well with drugs. We've filled prisons with people engaged in low level illegal activity but we don't seem to have made any dent in illegal drugs. In fact, probably the opposite.

That just means that it’s hard to regulate criminal activity where the “victim” (buyer) is a voluntary participant.

But laws like RICO—which allows low level goons to be held liable for the whole enterprise’s crimes—absolutely decimated the Mafia.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#277

Post by rayiner »

desmosxxx wrote: post #264
coderintherye wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is patently false, do you think people didn't go to prison prior to the law change? In fact, so many people were risking prison time for petty theft that is what led to enacting the law in first place to deal with the overcrowding in the state prison system, as summed up in this layman article: https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-160551360299

> overcrowding in the state prison system and so our solution is to change the law, instead of dealing with whatever is causing people to steal in the first place. Theft is a grey area between non-violence and violence, I'd rather we deal with the root causes rather than just making it less of a crime. If murders were overcrowding prisons, i doubt many people would be calling for reduced murder sentencing (although i…

The “root causes” of theft (and most crime) is social breakdown. It’s not poverty or need—or you’d expect far more crime in say India than in the US and you don’t actually see that.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#278

Post by mycall »

j_walter wrote: post #141
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your opinion, did the multi-decade drop in American crime, regularly discussed by academics who have some tentative theories to explain it, happen or was it all faked? https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/amer...

That was real and everyone can agree on that based on what they see as well as the data. However you can't go to a single SF neighborhood and find people that think crime has dropped recently. There are boatloads of articles about people having their cars broken into so often they leave them unlocked because replacing windows was so expensive. Videos of people shoplifting while security stands by and does nothing bec…

Maybe if the CVS/Wallgreens/etc took a different tactic. Don't let people inside. Take orders online or line outside, deliver or pick up at the door. Distribute more intelligently.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#279

Post by ALittleLight »

jdavis703 wrote: post #216
unexpected wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, but in Texas, big box retailers do not use armed staff. Target, Wal Mart, CVS, Walgreens, Best Buy - I have never, ever seen a worker with a gun. As a life-long Texan, this sounds ridiculous to me. A Wal Mart employee is more intimidating, simply because they're Texan? This is not the 1850's.

Even in the ultra-liberal Bay Area my Walgreens, Target and Best Buy employ armed security. I find it doubtful that Texas of all places doesn’t have armed security. (Oddly I’ve only seen unarmed, tired looking security in CVS. Perhaps they’re too cheap to pay for armed gaurds.)

Maybe there is somewhere in Texas where those stores employ armed security. I've never heard of it nor been to one. I think armed security is more a function of crime than of local sentiment towards guns.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#280

Post by josephcsible »

mycall wrote: post #278
j_walter wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was real and everyone can agree on that based on what they see as well as the data. However you can't go to a single SF neighborhood and find people that think crime has dropped recently. There are boatloads of articles about people having their cars broken into so often they leave them unlocked because replacing windows was so expensive. Videos of people shoplifting while security stands by and does nothing bec…

Maybe if the CVS/Wallgreens/etc took a different tactic. Don't let people inside. Take orders online or line outside, deliver or pick up at the door. Distribute more intelligently.

Everywhere else, stores can let people inside without crime being rampant, so obviously this isn't the problem.
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