Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by hattmall » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #261

jdavis703 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

The only time I’ve seen an armed guard at a retail store in the southeast is when they have off duty cops late night at very high crime locations. It is extremely uncommon here for a Target or Best Buy to regularly employee armed security.

Most everywhere in Atlanta has armed security, CVS included.

It's not ever really geared at shoplifters though, as a lot of people seem to forget that shoplifting isn't really the biggest crime you can do in a store.

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

#322

Post by hattmall » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 6:35 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #259

kook_throwaway wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> box retailers do not use armed staff. Target, Wal Mart, CVS, Walgreens, Best Buy - I have never, ever seen a worker with a gun It wouldn't be the corporation arming the staff, it would be the staff arming themselves via a CCW/CHL. The first letter states 'concealed', so by definition you shouldn't see it. >A Wal Mart employee is more intimidating, simply because they're Texan Its less about any individual employee,…

That vast majority of retail chains would fire an employee who stopped a shoplifter with a firearm. When I worked at Best Buy, loss prevention was very clearly instructed that using force to stop a shoplifter would get you fired.

Yeah in the areas I'm in where most stores have armed personnel they aren't worried about shoplifting.

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

#323

Post by hattmall » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 6:47 AM UTC

nonameiguess wrote: post #115

bko wrote: post #20

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…

These comments are ridiculous. Have any of you people saying these things ever actually lived in Texas? Minimum wage chain store employees are not carrying guns. I would discourage you from trying to rob someone's actual house, sure. My wife once called me home to say she thought someone was in the house, and I cleared every single room with an AR-15, and you can believe I would have shot an intruder without a second…

I'm not so sure about that, like someone stealing a few things yeah, no one is going to care enough. But in SF it's common that people walk in and fill up a fucking roller suitcase and then just walk out.

In the south someone is likely going to call you out for that, at which point a confrontation may ensue and it has a much higher likelihood of a gun being involved.

I've been called out by presumably minimum wage employees before for opening food in the gas station while waiting on family members to finish shopping or use the restroom.

There are studies that show people from the south are more aggressive and take much more personal offense to perceived disrespectful behavior.

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

#324

Post by hattmall » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 6:49 AM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #58

PaulHoule wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in NH which is a gun-happy state. 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 becau…

The 70s 80s and early 90s was the golden age of crime. Short sentences, much more lenient recidivism laws, poor security, a culture that really didn't care that much, no digitsliazation and no tech to easy track stolen goods or id suspects, no smartphones . Multiple types of crimes thrived in that era: bank robbery, drug dealing/distribution, shoplifting, auto theft, and so on. It was pretty bad, even worse than now.…

Now is the golden age of shoplifting though. I'm REQUIRED to wear a mask and no one wants to come with in 6ft!!

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

#325

Post by hattmall » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 6:51 AM UTC

nonameiguess wrote: post #109

bko wrote: post #3

> 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…

If it's actually organized crime, then they can be prosecuted under RICO statutes, which allows for much stronger sentencing than shoplifting ever would have. Robbery is one of the 35 crimes included under the "racketeering" umbrella.

Gotta be felonies though right?

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

#326

Post by hattmall » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 6:52 AM UTC

Gunax wrote: post #37

bko wrote: post #3

> 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…

I think it's okay to mention the effect Amazon is having without blaming them. Ultimately online person-to-person trading is making fencing items easier and the people buying probably don't know they are purchasing stolen items. Amazon isn't the thesis, but it is disrupting the stolen goods market in the same way automoboles and highways lead to a spike in bank robbery. I grew up in a poor area and we had a neighborh…

This has been flea markets and yard sales for decades though.

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

#327

Post by hattmall » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 6:53 AM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #66

bko wrote: post #3

> 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…

A simpler way — just put all merchandise behind the glass. Any touching only with supervision of a store manager.

And what if the manager sees me put it in my pocket and walk out. Police still arent coming.

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

#328

Post by tornato7 » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 7:27 AM UTC

neither_color wrote: post #78

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!

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…

It's almost like training an ML algorithm for the first time, it'll almost always find a bug in your fitness measurement instead of actually solving the problem.

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

#329

Post by deepsun » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 7:48 AM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #284

spfzero wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should have reported the crime, because by not reporting it, you feed the people that are enabling it. You allow them to promote the idea that their policies are actually working. Then, you're more likely to have it happen to you again.

Ever try to report a crime that the police officer doesn't want to write a report for? They will do everything in their power to not write that report, including accusing you of crimes, or gaslighting you.

Yes, I reported twice very small crimes (like stolen bicycle worth ~$50). Officers just filed the report, no questions asked.

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

#330

Post by FDSGSG » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 8:41 AM UTC

bsanr2 wrote: post #249

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…

No one considers that perhaps ever-increasing inequality in the Bay Area has also increased both the incentive to commit crime and the disincentive to prosecute it. It would stand to reason that the people who are desperate would be more desperate than ever, while the people who are well-off would be more able to eat the costs than ever. No one is happy but the dynamic is grotesquely sustainable.

> the people who are desperate would be more desperate than ever

This does not follow from increasing inequality. The poor do not get poorer, rich just get richer (faster).