21–30 of 351 posts
Nobody working on wage theft by employers, by far the largest organized theft ring running.
EPI has some good articles as well: https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-fo...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The felony theft limit for Texas is $2,500, but their retail establishments do not report massive shoplifting sprees. Clearly there is more than misdemeanor/felony classification at work here.
I'm pretty sure in CA it's that police do not respond to calls for anything less than felony theft. So it creates a situation where you can walk in the store, grab what you want, and then walk out with out having the police called or anyone legally allowed to stop you.
Walmart and Target, among others, reportedly monitor small thefts and let you get up to the felony threshold over multiple incidents before swooping in.
Mods, please correct headline. This hardly a story about Amazon. It's a story of how Northern California's choice not to prosecute theft has resulted in a massive increase in criminal activity. That CVS has to privately hire security in the face of $10 million/year of goods being brazenly looted out of its stores has little to do with any Amazon policy and more to do with the policies adopted by local district attorn…
Nobody working on wage theft by employers, by far the largest organized theft ring running.
Wage theft is absolutely a reality and an injustice that needs to be punished as much as petty theft if not more. But 2 wrongs don't make a right. Both kind of theft need to be prosecuted, especially when it's an organized group, and all the businesses that allow fencing stolen goods need to have the book thrown at them if they don't take serious measures to limit these practices.
I think this is an example of conflating two classes of crime. There are effectively two classes of shoplifter: the professional and the desperate amateur. The activists who wanted the sentencing reduction probably did not have organised gangs in mind. But the gangs are taking advantage of the light rules.
This is something we miss a lot in discussions of crime. For instance, laws against possession exist because of the crimes associated with drug use. People who use drugs who wouldn't otherwise cause any crime are a sort of collateral damage of these rules.
It's often remarked how drug laws are disproportionately enforced against the poor, but I have always regarded that as a feature and not a mistake (as awful as that is for equality under the law). No one really cares about the banker snorting coke because he isn't robbing gas stations to get his fix.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The felony theft limit for Texas is $2,500, but their retail establishments do not report massive shoplifting sprees. Clearly there is more than misdemeanor/felony classification at work here.
That's a good point. I don't think the felony theft limit is the only consideration the deters organized theft. One obvious difference between Texas and Bay Area is Texas has a lot of guns. > In TX can You Legally Shoot & Kill a Shoplifter? The short answer is…not unless they somehow injure you in the process of committing the theft, making it a robbery. “During the process of committing the theft” would include whil…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m actually surprised no-one has set up an online pawnshop, Klarna meets eBay.
Shipping costs make this probably a bad idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The felony theft limit for Texas is $2,500, but their retail establishments do not report massive shoplifting sprees. Clearly there is more than misdemeanor/felony classification at work here.
That's a good point. I don't think the felony theft limit is the only consideration the deters organized theft. One obvious difference between Texas and Bay Area is Texas has a lot of guns. > In TX can You Legally Shoot & Kill a Shoplifter? The short answer is…not unless they somehow injure you in the process of committing the theft, making it a robbery. “During the process of committing the theft” would include whil…
My mom worked at Macy's and reported endless problems with organized shoplifting in the 1980's and 1990's. One time a whole family came into the Men's clothing department after her shift, the dad kept the clerk distracted, the mom and the kids took a few racks of suits and loaded them into their car.
She said that the security guards were loathe to use force on anyone because Macy's could get sued; that didn't stop shoplifters from running over a security guard in the parking lot.
I worked at a supermarket where the security was entirely undercover (probably because they were more afraid of us stealing than the customers) and I knew nothing about the security until the day I saw a massively overweight woman tackle a man who was leaving the store.
I read this book
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Mafia-Ethnic-Succession-Organiz...
which describes similar organized theft organizations working in the 1970s, how the goods were fenced, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a good point. I don't think the felony theft limit is the only consideration the deters organized theft. One obvious difference between Texas and Bay Area is Texas has a lot of guns. > In TX can You Legally Shoot & Kill a Shoplifter? The short answer is…not unless they somehow injure you in the process of committing the theft, making it a robbery. “During the process of committing the theft” would include whil…
And what happens if you check the receipt on the body and find out that the item wasn't stolen? How many years do you face for murdering a customer?
> The target was no ordinary shoplifter. He was part of a network of organized professionals, known as boosters, whom CVS had been monitoring for weeks. The company believed the group responsible for stealing almost $50 million in products over five years from dozens of stores in Northern California. The story isn't about people selling stolen goods on Amazon. It's about organized theft operations. One way to stop th…
