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Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

economist.com

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Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#611

Post by nlitened »

Oxidation wrote: post #553
public_defender wrote: post #159

Expert in stolen goods here. I was talking to a NYC colleague the other day about how there are trends in favor of not punishing people for certain criminal activity in the city. We were talking about driving with a suspended license, but I asked about shoplifting. She said, "Oh, no. That's on the opposite trend. Not only are they prosecuting it to the maximum, but they just changed the law to make it easier to hold…

The other thing that's interesting from their state graph is that it disagrees with the "people fleeing anarchist California to orderly Texas to escape rampant crime" meme. Not only does Texas have higher rates of larceny theft[1], it is the biggest outlier on the graph in terms of lack of prosecution for it - no other state is further below the trend line. [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/232583/larceny-thef…

Also should be taken into account, it's about _reported_ larceny theft. Allegedly, they say that in "anarchist California" people don't even bother reporting anymore.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#612

Post by mschuster91 »

einpoklum wrote: post #606
monero-xmr wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s morally wrong to steal, and has been since the beginning of civilization. “Though shalt not steal” - Ten Commandments “If a man has stolen goods from a temple, or house, he shall be put to death; and he that has received the stolen property from him shall be put to death.” - Code of Hammurabi Private property is the foundation of civilization and pretending theft doesn’t matter undermines the basis of our world.…

Bible laws are imposed rules of violent hostile overlords, not the foundation of civilization. Although you could argue that the way civilization has evolved, those kinds of rules _are_ its foundation :-( I might agree that all theft is wrong, but - as Proudhon aptly put it: La propriété, c'est le vol ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft !

Disagree a bit here. The Bible and other religious texts were not necessarily decrees by "hostile overlords", they were the back-then equivalent of what we would call a Constitution these days - the foundational rules of society. Particularly what Christians call the "Old Testament", the Jews the Torah and whatever Muslims call the foundations prior to Quran today... it's essentially the same text, the same rules.

It's micro-managing every aspect of their lives to the same degree modern laws do - everything from a basic criminal code (Ten Commandments) over food safety laws (e.g. the ban for Jews and Muslims to eat pork) and employment regulation (work-free Sabbath) to providing answers to specific legal questions (inheritance, paying damages for livestock or raped women) and prescribing religious rituals. Even how to properly wage war was written down there... all of that was stuff the old tribes learned the hard way or decided upon and documented. For the Quran, a good example for that is the love of Prophet Muhammad on cats - the tribes learned that cats keep grain storages free from pests!

The problem is that over the millennia, the original context of these rules being tribally discussed and agreed-upon laws or some of these being the documentation of dispute resolutions got lost, and dogmatic / religious interpretations took favor, leading to entrenchment of rules that no longer made any sense (e.g. the mentioned pork ban or ridiculous interpretations of the work-free Sabbath). Additionally, some of the contents got lost or modified in translation - the best example is the "72 virgins" that await a Muslim martyr in heaven, which may very well have rather meant "vine grapes" [1]. FWIW, the Christian "New Testament" can also be seen as a reform-oriented amendment of the Torah.

Religious texts make way more sense when viewing them as "this is the collection of hundreds or thousands of years of tribal knowledge, order and jurisprudence", which is (IMO as an atheist) the only way these texts should be interpreted as. And yet, it still makes sense to also see the part of the rules and regulations that haven't gotten outdated as a foundation of how even our modern societies should look like (e.g. parts of the Ten Commandments, Jesus' teachings on how to view and help the poor and discriminated).

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/opinion/martyrs-virgins-a...

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#613

Post by public_defender »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #430
public_defender wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Getting a low-level criminal or junkie off the street, alive, is worth a lot. Off the street and on to Riker's Island. A jail so dangerous that it has a high likelihood of being put into federal receivership in the next year. People are safer on the street. Full stop.

> People are safer on the street. Only if you narrowly define 'people' to mean the tiny minority of people who are thieves, and exclude the overwhelming majority of people who aren't thieves. Thieves are safer on the street but everybody else is safer with thieves off the street. You've got your priorities skewed.

This is a reasonable comment if you're talking about stabbings or murders but not shoplifting. Allowing people to steal from retail stores with impunity doesn't make anyone unsafe.

Realize that I'm not arguing for impunity, just that incarceration should be off the table.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#614

Post by public_defender »

macinjosh wrote: post #506
public_defender wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am speaking of the perspective of having seen about 200 cases of this type in the last few years (this is a moderately low sample size among practitioners) in the place in question and from having discussed the issue with colleagues who have more experience than that over longer time periods in the same place. You are free to disregard my "word of mouth" claim in favor of an elected prosecutor's press releases and…

You are only seeing the cases that make it to the courthouse, right? How many shoplifting events are ignored, missed, or otherwise let off before things make it that far? OK, there is no discretion on the cases they allow into court but there is a hell of a lot of discretion before things get to that point.

This is correct in the sense that the police have the ability to "let someone off with a warning," or loss prevention/the cashier can look the other way, but my statement applies to any case where someone gets a ticket or is arrested. That's where the ratchet starts to tighten.

In the case of habitual, high-volume retail theft like in the article, people seem to be eventually arrested at a pretty fast clip, though it's obviously impossible to know the rate.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#615

Post by Gareth321 »

fosk wrote: post #587
partiallypro wrote: post #179

This is such a big nationwide problem that Target actually mentioned it during their earnings report (this is stated in the article.) Some states/cities have made it near impossible to prosecute these people, so the risk/reward is very favorable to stealing and reselling. Some stores have even closed down in certain areas because of it. When we talk about "food deserts" in some cities, it could one day be we have mas…

This is mostly a function of policies that explicitly allow and tolerate this sort of behavior as a sort of “pay back” and “release valve” for the poor, addicts or generally speaking under represented social classes. As the wage gap and opportunity gap widens in the US, allowing shoplifting is actually an intentional release valve that is being tolerated and even outright legally permitted (California Prop 47), becau…

> As the wage gap and opportunity gap widens in the US, allowing shoplifting is actually an intentional release valve that is being tolerated and even outright legally permitted (California Prop 47), because - without it - we would see more home break-ins, kidnappings of wealthy people and more severe offenses. Instead, shoplifting is relatively harmless and prevents this type of escalation of crime.

What a wild theory. I've seen no evidence of this mechanism existing.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#616

Post by vanilla_nut »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #559
mensetmanusman wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a very American story, because American is the most diverse country.

The most diverse country? Not even in the top 50, nor the most diverse in the Americas. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-raci...

Perhaps the commenter means diversity of background and experience, rather than skin color?

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#617

Post by vanilla_nut »

concordDance wrote: post #569
standardUser wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly think shoplifters should be locked in a cage?

Ideally they'd be given corporal punishment by perfectly morally upstanding cops. This is cheap, fast, doesn't stop them working and doesn't put them in an environment where they're around lots of hardened convicts. I leave the problem of getting perfectly upstanding policemen who will not abuse their powers as an exercise to the reader.

Oh, I got this one! Just replace the cops with objective, completely fair AI! That will surely solve all of the problems and definitely hasn't been extensively worried about in science fiction for decades.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#618

Post by ginja »

etage3 wrote: post #555
magic_hamster wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a better solution?

Portugal decriminalised drugs in 2000 and this is regarded as a better solution. Drug use is treated as a health issue rather than a crime issue, and the results are better. See here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal

I'm Portuguese and can confirm this works pretty well overall.

It's still too strict though - I got convicted of essentially "possession with intent to distribute" just for having ~15g of hashish when I was young and a regular smoker some 15 years ago (the legal limit is 5g). I only got a bit over a year probation and it never showed up on my record, but it was extremely unfair IMO and a traumatic experience - to this day I still have nightmares of being arrested and my home being searched every once in a while, and a big distrust for police and the justice system which will probably never go away.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#619

Post by prottog »

mschuster91 wrote: post #592
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's very fair to have differing attitudes/moral thresholds for an impoverished mother shoplifting a week's worth of baby formula versus "a couple in Alabama [which] pled guilty to shifting $300,000-worth of stolen baby formula on eBay". I’ve also noticed a weird tendency to downplay theft lately, either through projecting a theoretical moral justification on to the shoplifter or by insinuating that retail…

> I’ve also noticed a weird tendency to downplay theft lately, either through projecting a theoretical moral justification on to the shoplifter or by insinuating that retail stores are evil corporations and therefore deserve no sympathy. Well... it's not that weird. The big chain stores like Walmart ruthlessly exploit their workers to the point of them being forced to apply for food stamps [1], while the owner class…

> forcing people to steal to survive

I really don't think these people are choosing between stealing and starving.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#620

Post by sbarre »

throwaway27727 wrote: post #449
internetter wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a nonsensical argument. Deodorant is a consumable good. In scenarios like this, 40$ for 4 == 10$ for 1, because you consume it at a steady rate, and what you don't buy now you will pay for later

Compare to an extreme example of a market selling one watermelon for 5 dollars, and 5 watermelons for 15. Sure, the latter is a better deal, but I definitely have no use for more than one melon, and the arbitrage opportunity is not worth my time. In the same sense, I and many others do not need more than 1 deodorant at a time and I would rather save my space.

Watermelons are perishable, so that's apples to eggs.

Do you live in a microhome? Deodorant sticks are tiny, surely you can store 3 of them under your sink for months without too much suffering.

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