5 ms·

As someone in retail there is only one cause to the flooding of shoplifting - stores asking their employees not to deal with it It is perfectly legal in Califo

by shmatt 5y ago

As someone in retail there is only one cause to the flooding of shoplifting - stores asking their employees not to deal with it It is perfectly legal in California for an employee to use non-lethal force to detain a shoplifter. Its also legal to put them in a cell and call police, and not let them out until the police come (even if they will just free them) Once a store is known to not do any of this, then yeah - every shoplifter will come flooding into those small subsets of stores Ignoring extreme cases like shoplifting flash mobs - i'm just writing about the people who come in, empty a shelf into a bag and leave. You can't do that in 90% of stores. The employees will become violent with you. There was the very famous case of the Rite Aid that closed in NYC. That block is wall to wall stores. Duane Reed, some expensive clothing stores. None of them had the hourly shoplifting Rite Aid had, because only Rite Aid made it known they will not attempt to stop anyone Again in NYC, it costs $50/hr to bring in an armed uniformed off-duty NYPD officer to stand in your store. They get overtime and its run through the city, officers sign up for it. If you can't justify $50/hr to help shoplifting, then you probably have different issues going on causing you to close (the rent for that Rite Aid was probably $10k+/month)

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
> Again in NYC, it costs $50/hr to bring in an armed uniformed off-duty NYPD officer to stand in your store. They get overtime and its run through the city, officers sign up for it. If you can't justify $50/hr to help shoplifting, then you probably have different issues going on causing you to close (the rent for that Rite Aid was probably $10k+/month) That doesn’t prove much, the expensive clothes store didn’t have things that could be fenced easily for drug money while the drug store is much more convenient for that. Sure the things in the clothes store are worth more, but to a grifter looking for their next fentanyl hit, they can’t do anything with whatever they lift there (as opposed to an organized flash mob who has plans to fence the goods online somehow). The downtown Seattle target hires off duty officers, yet their lego section is still depleted (there was a fence for legos at pike place market that wasn’t shutdown until a few months ago) and people still shoplift like crazy since the city and county won’t prosecute.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  There is a happy medium between open shoplifting sprees and the state murdering people over $20. I'm hopeful we will find it with more experimentation and personally suspect that it looks like UBI.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    That’s only if you see it as a people in need problem. If you see it as a drug addiction problem, UBI could actually make things worse.
    - ashwagary 5y ago
      Hard for me to say which is worse.. It's not obvious whether drug addicts with adequate means of procuring a steady supply would be more dangerous to society than ones in desperation. Portugal may have the answers but I have yet to look into this deeply enough to make a claim either way.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        > It's not obvious whether drug addicts with adequate means of procuring a steady supply would be more dangerous to society than ones in desperation. It would definitely be worse for them, if we moralistically care about their well being. They would also probably still need housing and food given to them, as their addiction would often prevent them from prioritizing those things with the UBI they got. UBI isn't a panacea to these problems, at least.
msrenee 5y ago
I've been told in training at every retail store that I've worked for not to attempt to stop shoplifters. Because the cost of the goods is less than the cost of a dead employee. It's pretty damn dangerous to square off with someone when you don't know if they're armed or what they're willing to do if they're caught.

by shmatt 5y ago

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

> Again in NYC, it costs $50/hr to bring in an armed uniformed off-duty NYPD officer to stand in your store. They get overtime and its run through the city, officers sign up for it. If you can't justify $50/hr to help shoplifting, then you probably have different issues going on causing you to close (the rent for that Rite Aid was probably $10k+/month) That doesn’t prove much, the expensive clothes store didn’t have things that could be fenced easily for drug money while the drug store is much more convenient for that. Sure the things in the clothes store are worth more, but to a grifter looking for their next fentanyl hit, they can’t do anything with whatever they lift there (as opposed to an organized flash mob who has plans to fence the goods online somehow). The downtown Seattle target hires off duty officers, yet their lego section is still depleted (there was a fence for legos at pike place market that wasn’t shutdown until a few months ago) and people still shoplift like crazy since the city and county won’t prosecute.

ashwagary 5y ago
There is a happy medium between open shoplifting sprees and the state murdering people over $20. I'm hopeful we will find it with more experimentation and personally suspect that it looks like UBI.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  That’s only if you see it as a people in need problem. If you see it as a drug addiction problem, UBI could actually make things worse.
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    Hard for me to say which is worse.. It's not obvious whether drug addicts with adequate means of procuring a steady supply would be more dangerous to society than ones in desperation. Portugal may have the answers but I have yet to look into this deeply enough to make a claim either way.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      > It's not obvious whether drug addicts with adequate means of procuring a steady supply would be more dangerous to society than ones in desperation. It would definitely be worse for them, if we moralistically care about their well being. They would also probably still need housing and food given to them, as their addiction would often prevent them from prioritizing those things with the UBI they got. UBI isn't a panacea to these problems, at least.

msrenee 5y ago

I've been told in training at every retail store that I've worked for not to attempt to stop shoplifters. Because the cost of the goods is less than the cost of a dead employee. It's pretty damn dangerous to square off with someone when you don't know if they're armed or what they're willing to do if they're caught.