5 ms·

What, exactly, should Walmart's response to shoplifting be? The article seems to make a point of the low dollar-value of some of the items stolen vs. how much t

by briHass 10y ago

What, exactly, should Walmart's response to shoplifting be? The article seems to make a point of the low dollar-value of some of the items stolen vs. how much the police spend arresting the subjects. I fail to see why the value of the stolen goods matters from a illegality perspective; it's not like Walmart can punish the shoplifters themselves.

mjevans 10y ago
In the case of the $0.98 cent drink, CLEARLY, the $1230.00 cost in working the case and holding the accused/guilty is NOT cost effective. Only Walmart and private prisons benefit from this; everyone else is worse off. There must be a more effective solution. Not just a 'better quality of "neighborhood"' at Walmart, but for our society as a whole.
- rlpb 10y ago
  > CLEARLY I disagree. It's the most cost effective method that we have that prevents stores becoming a free-for-all for shoplifters. This response serves to prevent other, similar crimes. Hidden from the cost of this is the saving society gets by crime not being worse. Higher shoplifting rates would mean higher prices for everyone because stores' security costs would be much higher.
  - zardo 10y ago
    >It's the most cost effective method that we have that prevents stores becoming a free-for-all for shoplifters. We don't have the data to come to that conclusion. What if police responded to a lower percentage of these calls?
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > In the case of the $0.98 cent drink, CLEARLY, the $1230.00 cost in working the case and holding the accused/guilty is NOT cost effective. It may not be, but the cost of the drink vs. the cost of enforcement alone is not sufficient to show that. What you'd need to know is the net effect of the enforcement costs -- what future thefts would have happened without them that they prevent by deterrence (general or specific), incapacitation, or rehabilitation (including the particular enforcement actions contribution to the broader deterrent effect of the collective enforcement of similar offenses throughout society.)
  - mjevans 10y ago
    I'm going to go with the 'Rehabilitation' angle here. What if, when presented with video evidence of the crime, there was already a 'plea deal' that was always on the table. Lets say that for 10X the minimum wage cost of the affected items, you could provide community service doing some type of work the community needs and would have otherwise contracted out. In that case, the offender would literally work off the (retail) 'cost' of the drink (maybe also a fixed 'fine' in money or community service time) to the community, also providing some rehabilitation, while the company in question would be pressed in to only writing off whatever loss isn't covered by insurance as at cost shrinkage on their taxes. Note that in this case instead of all of that money spent on corrections and the /peace/ officer is not wasted making a mountain out of a pimple.
- zeveb 10y ago
  > Only Walmart and private prisons benefit from this; everyone else is worse off. So your proposal is that it be legal to steal items of less than $1,230 in value? Or is it to deprive those accused of stealing items with no more legal representation than the value of those items? Or … what?
- briHass 10y ago
  > Only Walmart and private prisons benefit from this; everyone else is worse off. That seems a little hyperbolic. Stealing less than $100 in FL is a 2nd degree misdemeanor, usually just punished by a fine and probation. No private prison is making money from a misdemeanor shoplifting arrest. It would be hard to argue that Walmart is profiting: their loss-prevention staff costs money, they have paperwork, and they do lose some merchandise when the shoplifter isn't caught. Walmart may have plenty of negative externalities to discuss, but theft is a crime, and I don't see why they should be expected to ignore it. http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defense/misdemeanor-offense/shoplifting-charges-florida http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defe...
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    > Stealing less than $100 in FL is a 2nd degree misdemeanor, usually just punished by a fine and probation. No private prison is making money from a misdemeanor shoplifting arrest. Fine collection and private probation is just as fucked up. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/private-probation http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/pr... http://www.npr.org/about-npr/314011043/npr-news-investigation-guilty-and-charged http://www.npr.org/about-npr/314011043/npr-news-investigatio...
- rustyfe 10y ago
  I think the "cost" argument here misses the point slightly. Law and order has value, in and of itself. There's a reason why the punishment for stealing $100 is not a $100 fine. We all benefit from a society where no one steals things. Not to strawman, but for instance, I see no ethical argument that homicide is less serious if you murder a person with a net negative cost to society. Neither murder nor theft are wrong simply because they're expensive. They're wrong without the context of cost. In both cases, cost effectiveness isn't what I would consider the most important thing. However, I 100% agree with you that Walmart is certainly benefitting from the public police force enforcing private security. It's a sticky issue without a clear solution. Crimes are crimes, but there's also a reason we install locks and alarm systems in our homes. By maintaining secure systems, we reduce our vulnerability to crime and our cost to everyone else. I feel like Walmart should do the same.
- monochromatic 10y ago
  $1,230 is pretty cheap for the benefit to society of deterring crime.
  - drcube 10y ago
    Then why doesn't society pay for it?
fweespee_ch 10y ago
> What, exactly, should Walmart's response to shoplifting be? The article seems to make a point of the low dollar-value of some of the items stolen vs. how much the police spend arresting the subjects. I fail to see why the value of the stolen goods matters from a illegality perspective; it's not like Walmart can punish the shoplifters themselves. Honestly, shoplifting and other small scale financial crime committed by individuals who are not conspiring, should be largely considered in financial terms.
williamscales 10y ago
They should hire private security guards, which as the article notes, reduce theft by 50%. Of course they should call the police when they catch a shoplifter. But they could be doing a lot more to keep people from shoplifting in the first place.
stellar678 10y ago
Serious answer: Offer the accused shoplifter some alternatives to police involvement. Pay for the merchandise, pay a fine, sign an agreement to never be on the store property. I'm not a retailer - I'm sure there are plenty of other ideas. Flippant answer: Pay Target to train your managers in how to not abuse community resources like police. They obviously figured out something that Walmart can't figure out.
- Evenjos 10y ago
  I like common sense solutions. Unfortunately, most people don't.
- avalaunch 10y ago
  Response to flippant answer: I'm pretty sure the only thing Target figured out is to cater to a higher income demographic. I'm curious if there were less disturbances before Walmart, or if they were just more distributed throughout the city.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure the only thing Target figured out is to cater to a higher income demographic. Whereas Walmart's genius lay in not only continuing to cater to the lower income demographic... but to keep its valued customers addicted to junk food, junk clothing, junk music, junk kitchenware, and just plain... junk in general (peppered with vindictive, quite possibly career- and/or life-ruining arrests for drinking a $0.98 iced tea before paying, now and then) so that they stay in the lower income demographic.
    - michaelbuddy 10y ago
      >drinking a $0.98 iced tea before paying Or shoving it behind something else on a shelf and not paying at all. When people no longer have any respect for authority, social contract or citizenship AND you can't crack them over the head to teach a lesson in hard knocks, how are loss prevention supposed to deal with it? You let it go, then it's suddenly a widespread thing (YES IT WILL BE) and it costs everyone. And frankly it never ends. Certain people will go so low at the expense of others, it makes for an unworkable culture.
fisherjeff 10y ago
Most times I've been to a Target store, they have a loss prevention officer right up front. It's not a solution to every incident, but is a very effective front line defense, as alluded to in the article: > Local Walmarts, on average, generated four times as many calls as nearby Targets, the Times found. Walmart continues to be the gold standard of reducing prices by increasing externalities.
- avalaunch 10y ago
  Yeah, but are the decreased amount of police calls due to Target's loss prevention officers (and other such prevention mechanisms), or is it simply due to the fact that they cater to a different demographic? It would certainly be an interesting experiment - if Target removed their loss prevention officer, and/or Walmart added them, how much would change? I have no idea, but I suspect the demographic plays a pretty large role.
  - fisherjeff 10y ago
    Completely agree - there's no chance lack of on-site enforcement accounts for 100% of the difference, but I'm sure the effect is still large. Theft of a $3 bottle of eye drops, to take an example from the article, just seems SO easily resolvable without police intervention. Even without loss prevention officers.
kafkaesq 10y ago
What, exactly, should Walmart's response to shoplifting be? Aside from the matter of whether drinking a $0.98 iced tea before you buy it really constitutes "shoplifting" (I've seen this quite often enough, in Whole Foods of all places, to conclude that while it's not exactly a classy thing to do, it's most likely a misunderstanding on the part of people who happen to be... very thirsty), the article isn't (at all) suggesting that Walmart ignore shoplifting. Rather, the basic point it (very clearly) makes is that Walmart's very design and layout attracts criminal and/or nuisance behaviors in the first place: Walmart stores, with heavy foot traffic and cavernous layouts, are natural targets for shoplifters, panhandlers and other opportunists. Many are located in disadvantaged areas prone to more trouble. The retailer knows all of that, experts said, but doesn’t do enough to address the problems, despite ample resources. Walmart, they said, lays out its stores in a way that invites trouble and often doesn’t have enough uniformed employees to make sure everything runs smoothly. Oh -- and as to what Walmart's response to the premature $0.98 iced tea drinker be, you ask? How about the natural, human response: "Sir, can you please make sure to pay for drinks at the register before opening them in the store? Thanks!"
- drcube 10y ago
  I've been drinking things in grocery stores before buying them since I was a baby. When did this become "shoplifting"? After all, we eat in restaurants before paying too, and nobody considers that a crime.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    When did this become "shoplifting"? Specifically, since Walmart started hiring $8-an-hour loss prevention officers ("48% below national average", according an article that appears to be behind a paywall). And all the common sense, and capacity for independent judgement forbearance that buys you.
ryanobjc 10y ago
retail management very clearly knows that store design changes significant behavior in their customers. both positive and negative. For example, the end-positions in grocery stores are paid for, because of the boost in sales they result in. The article talks about the walmart store design. Narrow isles, limited sight lines, messy isles, etc. These all significantly contribute to shoplifting. Make no mistake, walmart is taking a strategic approach to prioritize a certain store design that they know increases shoplifting. The solution of leaning on the local police is also strategic. The PR position of relying on people's moral sense of how they think law-breaking works is also strategic, deliberate and cynical. The results is comments like yours. Making their argument for them, under the guise of 'what else can they do' and 'dont break laws' kind of middle-class sensibilities that are frequently thrown about. Crime is entirely an issue of economics and oppertunity. Reduce the economic needs, and reduce the oppertunity.

by briHass 10y ago

mjevans 10y ago

In the case of the $0.98 cent drink, CLEARLY, the $1230.00 cost in working the case and holding the accused/guilty is NOT cost effective. Only Walmart and private prisons benefit from this; everyone else is worse off. There must be a more effective solution. Not just a 'better quality of "neighborhood"' at Walmart, but for our society as a whole.

rlpb 10y ago
> CLEARLY I disagree. It's the most cost effective method that we have that prevents stores becoming a free-for-all for shoplifters. This response serves to prevent other, similar crimes. Hidden from the cost of this is the saving society gets by crime not being worse. Higher shoplifting rates would mean higher prices for everyone because stores' security costs would be much higher.
- zardo 10y ago
  >It's the most cost effective method that we have that prevents stores becoming a free-for-all for shoplifters. We don't have the data to come to that conclusion. What if police responded to a lower percentage of these calls?
dragonwriter 10y ago
> In the case of the $0.98 cent drink, CLEARLY, the $1230.00 cost in working the case and holding the accused/guilty is NOT cost effective. It may not be, but the cost of the drink vs. the cost of enforcement alone is not sufficient to show that. What you'd need to know is the net effect of the enforcement costs -- what future thefts would have happened without them that they prevent by deterrence (general or specific), incapacitation, or rehabilitation (including the particular enforcement actions contribution to the broader deterrent effect of the collective enforcement of similar offenses throughout society.)
- mjevans 10y ago
  I'm going to go with the 'Rehabilitation' angle here. What if, when presented with video evidence of the crime, there was already a 'plea deal' that was always on the table. Lets say that for 10X the minimum wage cost of the affected items, you could provide community service doing some type of work the community needs and would have otherwise contracted out. In that case, the offender would literally work off the (retail) 'cost' of the drink (maybe also a fixed 'fine' in money or community service time) to the community, also providing some rehabilitation, while the company in question would be pressed in to only writing off whatever loss isn't covered by insurance as at cost shrinkage on their taxes. Note that in this case instead of all of that money spent on corrections and the /peace/ officer is not wasted making a mountain out of a pimple.
zeveb 10y ago
> Only Walmart and private prisons benefit from this; everyone else is worse off. So your proposal is that it be legal to steal items of less than $1,230 in value? Or is it to deprive those accused of stealing items with no more legal representation than the value of those items? Or … what?
briHass 10y ago
> Only Walmart and private prisons benefit from this; everyone else is worse off. That seems a little hyperbolic. Stealing less than $100 in FL is a 2nd degree misdemeanor, usually just punished by a fine and probation. No private prison is making money from a misdemeanor shoplifting arrest. It would be hard to argue that Walmart is profiting: their loss-prevention staff costs money, they have paperwork, and they do lose some merchandise when the shoplifter isn't caught. Walmart may have plenty of negative externalities to discuss, but theft is a crime, and I don't see why they should be expected to ignore it. http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defense/misdemeanor-offense/shoplifting-charges-florida http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defe...
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  > Stealing less than $100 in FL is a 2nd degree misdemeanor, usually just punished by a fine and probation. No private prison is making money from a misdemeanor shoplifting arrest. Fine collection and private probation is just as fucked up. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/private-probation http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/pr... http://www.npr.org/about-npr/314011043/npr-news-investigation-guilty-and-charged http://www.npr.org/about-npr/314011043/npr-news-investigatio...
rustyfe 10y ago
I think the "cost" argument here misses the point slightly. Law and order has value, in and of itself. There's a reason why the punishment for stealing $100 is not a $100 fine. We all benefit from a society where no one steals things. Not to strawman, but for instance, I see no ethical argument that homicide is less serious if you murder a person with a net negative cost to society. Neither murder nor theft are wrong simply because they're expensive. They're wrong without the context of cost. In both cases, cost effectiveness isn't what I would consider the most important thing. However, I 100% agree with you that Walmart is certainly benefitting from the public police force enforcing private security. It's a sticky issue without a clear solution. Crimes are crimes, but there's also a reason we install locks and alarm systems in our homes. By maintaining secure systems, we reduce our vulnerability to crime and our cost to everyone else. I feel like Walmart should do the same.
monochromatic 10y ago
$1,230 is pretty cheap for the benefit to society of deterring crime.
- drcube 10y ago
  Then why doesn't society pay for it?

fweespee_ch 10y ago

> What, exactly, should Walmart's response to shoplifting be? The article seems to make a point of the low dollar-value of some of the items stolen vs. how much the police spend arresting the subjects. I fail to see why the value of the stolen goods matters from a illegality perspective; it's not like Walmart can punish the shoplifters themselves. Honestly, shoplifting and other small scale financial crime committed by individuals who are not conspiring, should be largely considered in financial terms.

williamscales 10y ago

They should hire private security guards, which as the article notes, reduce theft by 50%. Of course they should call the police when they catch a shoplifter. But they could be doing a lot more to keep people from shoplifting in the first place.

stellar678 10y ago

Serious answer: Offer the accused shoplifter some alternatives to police involvement. Pay for the merchandise, pay a fine, sign an agreement to never be on the store property. I'm not a retailer - I'm sure there are plenty of other ideas. Flippant answer: Pay Target to train your managers in how to not abuse community resources like police. They obviously figured out something that Walmart can't figure out.

Evenjos 10y ago
I like common sense solutions. Unfortunately, most people don't.
avalaunch 10y ago
Response to flippant answer: I'm pretty sure the only thing Target figured out is to cater to a higher income demographic. I'm curious if there were less disturbances before Walmart, or if they were just more distributed throughout the city.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure the only thing Target figured out is to cater to a higher income demographic. Whereas Walmart's genius lay in not only continuing to cater to the lower income demographic... but to keep its valued customers addicted to junk food, junk clothing, junk music, junk kitchenware, and just plain... junk in general (peppered with vindictive, quite possibly career- and/or life-ruining arrests for drinking a $0.98 iced tea before paying, now and then) so that they stay in the lower income demographic.
  - michaelbuddy 10y ago
    >drinking a $0.98 iced tea before paying Or shoving it behind something else on a shelf and not paying at all. When people no longer have any respect for authority, social contract or citizenship AND you can't crack them over the head to teach a lesson in hard knocks, how are loss prevention supposed to deal with it? You let it go, then it's suddenly a widespread thing (YES IT WILL BE) and it costs everyone. And frankly it never ends. Certain people will go so low at the expense of others, it makes for an unworkable culture.

fisherjeff 10y ago

Most times I've been to a Target store, they have a loss prevention officer right up front. It's not a solution to every incident, but is a very effective front line defense, as alluded to in the article: > Local Walmarts, on average, generated four times as many calls as nearby Targets, the Times found. Walmart continues to be the gold standard of reducing prices by increasing externalities.

avalaunch 10y ago
Yeah, but are the decreased amount of police calls due to Target's loss prevention officers (and other such prevention mechanisms), or is it simply due to the fact that they cater to a different demographic? It would certainly be an interesting experiment - if Target removed their loss prevention officer, and/or Walmart added them, how much would change? I have no idea, but I suspect the demographic plays a pretty large role.
- fisherjeff 10y ago
  Completely agree - there's no chance lack of on-site enforcement accounts for 100% of the difference, but I'm sure the effect is still large. Theft of a $3 bottle of eye drops, to take an example from the article, just seems SO easily resolvable without police intervention. Even without loss prevention officers.

kafkaesq 10y ago

What, exactly, should Walmart's response to shoplifting be? Aside from the matter of whether drinking a $0.98 iced tea before you buy it really constitutes "shoplifting" (I've seen this quite often enough, in Whole Foods of all places, to conclude that while it's not exactly a classy thing to do, it's most likely a misunderstanding on the part of people who happen to be... very thirsty), the article isn't (at all) suggesting that Walmart ignore shoplifting. Rather, the basic point it (very clearly) makes is that Walmart's very design and layout attracts criminal and/or nuisance behaviors in the first place: Walmart stores, with heavy foot traffic and cavernous layouts, are natural targets for shoplifters, panhandlers and other opportunists. Many are located in disadvantaged areas prone to more trouble. The retailer knows all of that, experts said, but doesn’t do enough to address the problems, despite ample resources. Walmart, they said, lays out its stores in a way that invites trouble and often doesn’t have enough uniformed employees to make sure everything runs smoothly. Oh -- and as to what Walmart's response to the premature $0.98 iced tea drinker be, you ask? How about the natural, human response: "Sir, can you please make sure to pay for drinks at the register before opening them in the store? Thanks!"

drcube 10y ago
I've been drinking things in grocery stores before buying them since I was a baby. When did this become "shoplifting"? After all, we eat in restaurants before paying too, and nobody considers that a crime.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  When did this become "shoplifting"? Specifically, since Walmart started hiring $8-an-hour loss prevention officers ("48% below national average", according an article that appears to be behind a paywall). And all the common sense, and capacity for independent judgement forbearance that buys you.

ryanobjc 10y ago

retail management very clearly knows that store design changes significant behavior in their customers. both positive and negative. For example, the end-positions in grocery stores are paid for, because of the boost in sales they result in. The article talks about the walmart store design. Narrow isles, limited sight lines, messy isles, etc. These all significantly contribute to shoplifting. Make no mistake, walmart is taking a strategic approach to prioritize a certain store design that they know increases shoplifting. The solution of leaning on the local police is also strategic. The PR position of relying on people's moral sense of how they think law-breaking works is also strategic, deliberate and cynical. The results is comments like yours. Making their argument for them, under the guise of 'what else can they do' and 'dont break laws' kind of middle-class sensibilities that are frequently thrown about. Crime is entirely an issue of economics and oppertunity. Reduce the economic needs, and reduce the oppertunity.