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Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

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

#141

Post by j_walter »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #127
neither_color wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're approaching a strange post-empirical world where the right chart or graph can be used to justify any public policy, and often changing how the data for the chart is collected, analyzed and presented is easier than solving the issue. The collective anecdotes of thousands/millions of people can be dismissed because the chart says otherwise. Disagree that crime in your neighborhood has dropped? Just because your c…

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 because of the laws. Articles about criminals that kill someone but had been in and out of the system for years with fairly severe crimes but always let off by a rouge DA or out on bail (or without bail because bail is racist).

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/sf-da-announces-homici...

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

#142

Post by unexpected »

sfasf wrote: post #85
bluedino wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> but in Texas, how likely is the staff or the store owner to be armed, and actually confront you? At a CVS? Not likely at all.

In a fairly liberal area of PA I saw a manager of a Walgreens very aggressively (not physically) confront a shoplifter and yell out to never come to the store again. The punk tried to respond, but ultimately cowered to the anger of the manager. In TX they'd be more intimidating, I'm sure. Unless corporate bans guns.

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.

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

#143

Post by sabarn01 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #127
neither_color wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're approaching a strange post-empirical world where the right chart or graph can be used to justify any public policy, and often changing how the data for the chart is collected, analyzed and presented is easier than solving the issue. The collective anecdotes of thousands/millions of people can be dismissed because the chart says otherwise. Disagree that crime in your neighborhood has dropped? Just because your c…

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...

murders are hard to fake. The rest of crime data is more subjective than people realize. I was robbed at gunpoint for 1$. I did not report the crime.

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

#144

Post by [deleted] »

president wrote: post #135
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #50

This appears to be part of a long running PR campaign by large corporations that are happy to lock up poor, mentally-ill and drug-addicted people at the taxpayers expense if it lets them fear monger, while at the same time stealing from their own employees. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/... https://www.npr.org/2020/10/16/923844907/when-shoplifting-is... https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinio…

I don't care if they're rich, poor, mentally-ill, or drug-addicted - if someone breaks the law, there needs to be some sort of punishment. Letting them off is just enabling repeat offense and signaling to other criminals that this behavior is tolerated as we have seen.

[deleted]

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

#145

Post by AlexandrB »

president wrote: post #135
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #50

This appears to be part of a long running PR campaign by large corporations that are happy to lock up poor, mentally-ill and drug-addicted people at the taxpayers expense if it lets them fear monger, while at the same time stealing from their own employees. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/... https://www.npr.org/2020/10/16/923844907/when-shoplifting-is... https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinio…

I don't care if they're rich, poor, mentally-ill, or drug-addicted - if someone breaks the law, there needs to be some sort of punishment. Letting them off is just enabling repeat offense and signaling to other criminals that this behavior is tolerated as we have seen.

I think I realized that America is lawless when no one who matters went to jail for torture during the Afghanistan/Iraq wars. Shoplifting is a drop in the bucket compared to that, so I have no sympathy for "tough on crime" rhetoric anymore.

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

#146

Post by alamortsubite »

kook_throwaway wrote: post #139
bluedino wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> but in Texas, how likely is the staff or the store owner to be armed, and actually confront you? At a CVS? Not likely at all.

Why not? Plenty of folks from all walks of life down there get their CCW.

So given the opportunity, Texan bystanders with guns would shoot unarmed shoplifters?

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

#147

Post by scythe »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #127
neither_color wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're approaching a strange post-empirical world where the right chart or graph can be used to justify any public policy, and often changing how the data for the chart is collected, analyzed and presented is easier than solving the issue. The collective anecdotes of thousands/millions of people can be dismissed because the chart says otherwise. Disagree that crime in your neighborhood has dropped? Just because your c…

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...

> In your opinion [...] was it all faked?

Please don't flamebait. The poster is talking about year-on-year changes in a neighborhood, not decade-on-decade changes in a whole country. The relevance of personal experience is drastically higher in the first case.

But I think it's worth noting that "crime is rising" and "crime is not rising" tend to be aliases for the real opinions: "crime is too high" and "crime is not too high".

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

#148

Post by dantheman »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #128
floren wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SF city government seems to have realized that there's another way to make crime "go down": refuse to prosecute for anything, ideally make it pointless for the cops to even show up, until people stop bothering to report crime. Wow, shoplifting is at record lows!

That is a bad idea. It leads to vigilantism, or even worse, local organized crime steps in with attendant protectionism racketeering. With the American System each year failing a larger and larger percentage of the population, while the upper elites continue to hoard wealth and starve the government, then it makes more and more poor people turn to illegal means to make money. Much like drug gangs in the inner city. H…

Do you think the government is starved? At what level of spending would it not be starved?

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

#149

Post by AlexandrB »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #31
Gunax wrote: post #25

> Retail investigators blame changes in sentencing laws in some states for an uptick in thefts. In California, a 2014 law downgraded the theft of less than $950 worth of goods to a misdemeanor from a felony. Target recently reduced its operating hours in five San Francisco stores, citing rising thefts. I think this is an example of conflating two classes of crime. There are effectively two classes of shoplifter: the…

> But the gangs are taking advantage of the light rules. Not only that, but it incentivizes amateurs to become professionals. Theft becomes a viable career under lax laws. And crime begets poverty, so I suspect this creates quite a few more "desperate amateurs" some of whom will become professionals and so on.

> And crime begets poverty...

Doesn't this get cause and effect backwards? You have no job, no prospects, so you turn to crime. How does the reverse narrative work?

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