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The article also said that Wal-Mart needs more employees and private security present and visible in the stores. They said Target and grocery stores have this.

The article also said that Wal-Mart needs more employees and private security present and visible in the stores. They said Target and grocery stores have this. They also said that Target uses computer vision analysis to identity shoppers who linger too long in one area, and other theft patterns. Walmart can do more. Are the legally obligated to do so? Not unless laws are written in a jurisdiction that says stores of that size need to have some minimum security and anti-theft measures.

fixermark 10y ago
From the article: > He can’t believe, he says, that a multibillion-dollar corporation isn’t doing more to stop crime. Instead, he says, it offloads the job to the police at taxpayers’ expense. I think citizens should be very concerned about the notion that instead of their taxpayer-supported police doing the policing, an expectation of corporations policing their own territory should exist. That's a little bit Snow Crash, isn't it?
- wpietri 10y ago
  Is it? I think there's a long-standing expectation that you take care of your own space, that emergency services are there for emergencies. In any case, the asked-for remedy is basically to return to their staffing levels of a decade ago, which doesn't sound like a corporate dystopia to me.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    So you are perfectly happy with walmart branded cops roaming their property, using force against people and putting them in a walmart branded jail until the real cops come to pick them up? Note that in reality this option inevitably includes walmart cops accidentally beating up an innocent black person, a sympathetic sick mother dying in walmart jail of some pre-existing medical issues, and similar things. (All I'm assuming here is that walmart cops/jails are identical to US Govt cops/jails.) You'll have no problem with walmart when these things occur? You're sure that the media won't criticize them for this as well?
    - jbooth 10y ago
      The premise here is that Wal-mart spends much less on security than other shopping centers like malls and Target. I haven't seen a lot of news stories about civil rights violations by Target's security guards. Maybe they're under the radar?
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        Most likely Target simply has fewer criminals in their customer base. The simple fact is that any law enforcement will result in some civil rights violations. It's just a statistical inevitability. This is one of the reasons I'm extremely cautious about new regulations; part of the price of a new law is one or two more Eric Garners.
        jbooth 10y ago
        Having somebody visible near the store entrance so that you're not a complete magnet for crime that creates taxpayer expense.. not exactly Eric Garner.
        yummyfajitas 10y ago
        And what happens when the criminal class discovers that the $18k/year greeter near the store entrance will do nothing? Why will this be a remotely useful deterrent in that case? Consider the possibility that if the greeters actually prevented a significant amount of shrinkage, walmart would have kept them. The cases being referred to the cops are only a tiny percentage of the shrinkage that occurs.
        jbooth 10y ago
        "Consider the possibility that if the greeters actually prevented a significant amount of shrinkage, walmart would have kept them." It's a possibility, I guess. But I've seen enough MBAs cut costs with poorly understood consequences to be a little skeptical of that assertion. How would they even know? Did they run a controlled experiment? Or did they just say a prayer to Jack Welch and cut anything they could?
- adrianparsons 10y ago
  From the article: According to laws in every state in the U.S., Walmart has a duty to protect its customers from violent crime while they’re on store property. Under an area of the law known as premise liability, victims and their lawyers have argued in hundreds of lawsuits that Walmart failed to provide enough security.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  The problem here isn't the expectation of Walmart having a corporate police force, it's the expectation of some Walmart stores to be prioritized in the case of an understaffed police district without paying their fair share for a public service.
  - pc86 10y ago
    > without paying their fair share I see this argument a lot and there are never numbers to back it up. If Walmart isn't paying the taxes it legally owes, then they should be fined and there should be charges brought. If they are, then they are already paying their fair share as determined by the law and implying otherwise is at best extremely disingenuous. Let he who voluntarily donates additional money to the US Treasury cast the first snarky HN comment, or something.
wpietri 10y ago
I'd be super hesitant to see laws written like that; it would be very easy to get them wrong. I'd much rather see some sort of cost recovery system for businesses with excessive crime. That would avoid penalizing the stores doing fine, and wouldn't fix possibly-inappropriate solutions in law.
- gozur88 10y ago
  But do you really want to penalize companies for opening stores in bad neighborhoods? Fewer companies competing for business means higher prices for (presumably poor) people in those neighborhoods.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    I'd be happy with a definition of "excessive" that's sensitive to that. A couple of times I've lived near corner/liquor stores that were obviously more problematic than their competitors, for example. If those stores exerted downward pricing pressure then it might be to a level that was problematic. I don't want all stores to become poorly run crime magnets because they can't afford to stay in business.

fixermark 10y ago

From the article: > He can’t believe, he says, that a multibillion-dollar corporation isn’t doing more to stop crime. Instead, he says, it offloads the job to the police at taxpayers’ expense. I think citizens should be very concerned about the notion that instead of their taxpayer-supported police doing the policing, an expectation of corporations policing their own territory should exist. That's a little bit Snow Crash, isn't it?

wpietri 10y ago
Is it? I think there's a long-standing expectation that you take care of your own space, that emergency services are there for emergencies. In any case, the asked-for remedy is basically to return to their staffing levels of a decade ago, which doesn't sound like a corporate dystopia to me.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  So you are perfectly happy with walmart branded cops roaming their property, using force against people and putting them in a walmart branded jail until the real cops come to pick them up? Note that in reality this option inevitably includes walmart cops accidentally beating up an innocent black person, a sympathetic sick mother dying in walmart jail of some pre-existing medical issues, and similar things. (All I'm assuming here is that walmart cops/jails are identical to US Govt cops/jails.) You'll have no problem with walmart when these things occur? You're sure that the media won't criticize them for this as well?
  - jbooth 10y ago
    The premise here is that Wal-mart spends much less on security than other shopping centers like malls and Target. I haven't seen a lot of news stories about civil rights violations by Target's security guards. Maybe they're under the radar?
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Most likely Target simply has fewer criminals in their customer base. The simple fact is that any law enforcement will result in some civil rights violations. It's just a statistical inevitability. This is one of the reasons I'm extremely cautious about new regulations; part of the price of a new law is one or two more Eric Garners.
      - jbooth 10y ago
        Having somebody visible near the store entrance so that you're not a complete magnet for crime that creates taxpayer expense.. not exactly Eric Garner.
        yummyfajitas 10y ago
        And what happens when the criminal class discovers that the $18k/year greeter near the store entrance will do nothing? Why will this be a remotely useful deterrent in that case? Consider the possibility that if the greeters actually prevented a significant amount of shrinkage, walmart would have kept them. The cases being referred to the cops are only a tiny percentage of the shrinkage that occurs.
        jbooth 10y ago
        "Consider the possibility that if the greeters actually prevented a significant amount of shrinkage, walmart would have kept them." It's a possibility, I guess. But I've seen enough MBAs cut costs with poorly understood consequences to be a little skeptical of that assertion. How would they even know? Did they run a controlled experiment? Or did they just say a prayer to Jack Welch and cut anything they could?
adrianparsons 10y ago
From the article: According to laws in every state in the U.S., Walmart has a duty to protect its customers from violent crime while they’re on store property. Under an area of the law known as premise liability, victims and their lawyers have argued in hundreds of lawsuits that Walmart failed to provide enough security.
antisthenes 10y ago
The problem here isn't the expectation of Walmart having a corporate police force, it's the expectation of some Walmart stores to be prioritized in the case of an understaffed police district without paying their fair share for a public service.
- pc86 10y ago
  > without paying their fair share I see this argument a lot and there are never numbers to back it up. If Walmart isn't paying the taxes it legally owes, then they should be fined and there should be charges brought. If they are, then they are already paying their fair share as determined by the law and implying otherwise is at best extremely disingenuous. Let he who voluntarily donates additional money to the US Treasury cast the first snarky HN comment, or something.

wpietri 10y ago

I'd be super hesitant to see laws written like that; it would be very easy to get them wrong. I'd much rather see some sort of cost recovery system for businesses with excessive crime. That would avoid penalizing the stores doing fine, and wouldn't fix possibly-inappropriate solutions in law.

gozur88 10y ago
But do you really want to penalize companies for opening stores in bad neighborhoods? Fewer companies competing for business means higher prices for (presumably poor) people in those neighborhoods.
- wpietri 10y ago
  I'd be happy with a definition of "excessive" that's sensitive to that. A couple of times I've lived near corner/liquor stores that were obviously more problematic than their competitors, for example. If those stores exerted downward pricing pressure then it might be to a level that was problematic. I don't want all stores to become poorly run crime magnets because they can't afford to stay in business.