5 ms·

What you are describing is a particular sort of story that's meant to inflame and probably speaks to where you get you news, which sounds like it's political an

What you are describing is a particular sort of story that's meant to inflame and probably speaks to where you get you news, which sounds like it's political and partisan. Both of the things you describe are corporate policies. They have nothing to do with state law anywhere, and they are there because of liability. Safeway doesn't want to get sued for 1) if an employee is an idiot/racist and misidentifies someone and harms them 2) employees get harmed substantially trying to stop a shoplifter. In these cases you have rare and small losses that are miniscule compared to bad financial outcomes of intervention. It would be easy to stop, but that costs money. It's a very simple business decision for retailers: is the cost of loss prevention higher than the loss. The fact that this surprises you is surprising to me, this problem is many decades old in retail. Car burglaries are a much different dynamic, and another poster mentions that it's a felony that was reclassified to a misdemeanor, and that law probably does need to be changed and is a problem for lawmakers. edit: and can we raise the elephant in the room, which is that this is fairly solvable with a national facial recognition database and fairly low end iptv/image capture tech?

beat 7y ago
Hasn't anyone ever watched the opening scene of Pulp Fiction? Tarantino got right to that... no one is going to stop if you if you decide to rob a diner.
mc32 7y ago
I get neighborhood news from one of the various social neighborhood apps. These apps aren’t political or partisan in so far as I can tell. In my neighborhood there are lots of progressives but after a few years even some of the died in wool progs see that there are problems. And to your point. Yes different crimes but the point is there has been a surge in both as well as a new crime in the form of package theft.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
BurningFrog 7y ago
One point is that grocers shouldn't have to fend for themselves against crime. Supplying the public good of crime fighting is the main reason to form governments in the first place.
- mrpippy 7y ago
  The police can't be in every store all the time. Presumably the police did show up and file reports about these crimes, but when a shoplifter is running away and the window to catch/arrest them is <60 seconds, I don't know what more the police could be doing.
  - ed 7y ago
    I can think of a few San Francisco retail locations where blatant theft happens maybe every 15 minutes. The Walgreens at 9th and Market, the Gateway Safeway, the CVS at Pine and Kearney. The city has a task force for poop (much of the city is treated as a literal toilet); petty theft is almost equally visible and problematic.
    - anxman 7y ago
      The Safeway at 4th and King was basically a free market for crackheads. I lived nearby for five years and I would see shoplifting every time that I entered the store. I'm not even exaggerating.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    So how have other cities solved this? Or do you claim it's like this in every city?
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  First of all, grocers do not fend for themselves. They don't have private armed security and prisons. They call the police. It follows a completely normal and established process for reporting a crime and investigating it, then goes into the criminal justice system if necessary. Beyond that what do you propose? Put a police officer in each store 24x7? How much does that cost and is that cost socialized? What if a police office causes issues with customers? What does the reporting structure and chain of command look like? Who has ultimate authority in that situation, the police office or the store? How is the cost borne by the store? What is the share of private and public burden in officer benefits/pension? None of those questions involve the internet and closed circuit monitoring is almost 50 years old. The status quo reflects a lot of thought and money invested into the problem.

beat 7y ago

Hasn't anyone ever watched the opening scene of Pulp Fiction? Tarantino got right to that... no one is going to stop if you if you decide to rob a diner.

mc32 7y ago

I get neighborhood news from one of the various social neighborhood apps. These apps aren’t political or partisan in so far as I can tell. In my neighborhood there are lots of progressives but after a few years even some of the died in wool progs see that there are problems. And to your point. Yes different crimes but the point is there has been a surge in both as well as a new crime in the form of package theft.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

BurningFrog 7y ago

One point is that grocers shouldn't have to fend for themselves against crime. Supplying the public good of crime fighting is the main reason to form governments in the first place.

mrpippy 7y ago
The police can't be in every store all the time. Presumably the police did show up and file reports about these crimes, but when a shoplifter is running away and the window to catch/arrest them is <60 seconds, I don't know what more the police could be doing.
- ed 7y ago
  I can think of a few San Francisco retail locations where blatant theft happens maybe every 15 minutes. The Walgreens at 9th and Market, the Gateway Safeway, the CVS at Pine and Kearney. The city has a task force for poop (much of the city is treated as a literal toilet); petty theft is almost equally visible and problematic.
  - anxman 7y ago
    The Safeway at 4th and King was basically a free market for crackheads. I lived nearby for five years and I would see shoplifting every time that I entered the store. I'm not even exaggerating.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  So how have other cities solved this? Or do you claim it's like this in every city?
throwaway5752 7y ago
First of all, grocers do not fend for themselves. They don't have private armed security and prisons. They call the police. It follows a completely normal and established process for reporting a crime and investigating it, then goes into the criminal justice system if necessary. Beyond that what do you propose? Put a police officer in each store 24x7? How much does that cost and is that cost socialized? What if a police office causes issues with customers? What does the reporting structure and chain of command look like? Who has ultimate authority in that situation, the police office or the store? How is the cost borne by the store? What is the share of private and public burden in officer benefits/pension? None of those questions involve the internet and closed circuit monitoring is almost 50 years old. The status quo reflects a lot of thought and money invested into the problem.