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> Annual cases of theft in San Francisco are down 33% from where they were in 2017, according to San Francisco police data, but a national retail security surve

> Annual cases of theft in San Francisco are down 33% from where they were in 2017, according to San Francisco police data, but a national retail security survey found that shoplifting was at an all-time high in 2020, costing the industry an estimated $61.7 billion. Such crimes are part of what’s led 80% of San Franciscans to feel increasingly unsafe, according to a survey from the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. The other part is articles like this, that find a way to make it seem like people are especially at risk even though crime is at a historic low.

lazide 4y ago
reported crime. Most folks gave up years ago, anecdotally.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  This article isn’t talking about individuals, though. What would be the disincentive to retail stores reporting theft? There are presumably insurance benefits even if they don’t think the police will recover it or apprehend someone.
  - toast0 4y ago
    Reporting comes at a cost to the store. They've got to have their personnel working on it, possibly managerial staff, and they've got a lot of other things to do, and staffing shortages, etc. If reporting doesn't result in police actions that reduce future theft, it seems like it's a waste. If retail theft is as endemic as reporting would seem to indicate, I don't know how they could get insurance for 'petty' theft anyway, so a police report isn't likely to be useful. Likely their business insurance has higher deductibles anyway, so it's more useful for major theft or damage, not for smaller claims.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    For general retail, there is no point to insurance for predictable recurring costs. If you get robbed for 1000 a week, you just add it to your budget. This is differ if you have rare theft of high price items.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    And if retail theft was daily occurrence, how much would you charge as insurer to insure against it? Less than the damages? I think if you started to offer that sort of business there would be lot and lot of takers.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Retail stores generally were the first to give up: 1) reporting takes time at the staff level, significant time. Which they have to pay for, compounding the losses. I’ve seen security footage, and in some cases it was literally constant. They’d need full time staff just to call the police and report, assuming the cops would even show up if they did that. 2) they can write off the stolen inventory at 100% anyway, and most of them are self insured against this stuff. ‘Shrinkage’ is a normal business operating cost anyway, it’s the scale of it at some of these locations that is nuts. 3) a number of larger chains just gave up and pulled out of the worse areas, and made very public statements about it and why. [https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/theft-plagued-walgreens-closing-san-francisco-stores-80550211 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/theft-plagued-walgre...] Anecdotally, I was at a Best Buy in the east bay picking someone up. Not a bad area. And one of the fire alarms went off on an emergency exit and I saw someone dart out with something. The staff member just reset the alarm, sighed, and continued helping me. No attempt to do anything else. I asked what was going on and they said shoplifting, and that it happens all the time. Last year I was picking up a small generator at a Home Depot in San Jose - not a bad area - and they had to go into a locked area to get it - they said that was because people would load up a cart with generators and tools and just walk out with them. Nothing they could do, and it was a daily occurrence so now they keep things locked up. Pretty sad frankly.
    - jakelazaroff 4y ago
      Re: 3, Walgreens’ claim that they closed the stores in San Francisco due to shoplifting is famously a lie: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/walgreens-to-shut-200-stores-nationwide-to-trim-costs/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/walgreens-to-shut-200-s...
    - simoncion 4y ago
      > The staff member just reset the alarm, sighed, and continued helping me. No attempt to do anything else. It has been my understanding that for like at _least_ fifteen, twenty years major retailers have had a "Do not attempt to physically stop shoplifters." policy. The opinions I heard were split on whether it was to protect against an injury suit file by the thief if he were injured during the detention, or having to pay a _ton_ if an employee got seriously injured during the detention. (Source: talking to friends who worked on the floor for major retailers at the start of the century.) TBH, it smells like both to me. Anyway, all this is to say that retailers haven't been _physically_ restraining thieves walking out of their stores for quite some time... but that doesn't _necessarily_ mean that they've stopped reporting the thefts. (Indeed, the SF Mayor's Office's crowing about retrieving items from Retail Theft Rings suggests that -at minimum- a subset of the affected retailers _do_ report thefts.)
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  I'm surprised chain/mass market retailers permit that. I'd think HQ would want a police report for missing stock, otherwise they're going to think you took it yourself. It'll be a useless online police report, but you have a # to reference about missing stock XYZ.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    There are a lot of alternatives to a police report. Internal reports on what was stolen is a lot easier.
happyopossum 4y ago
How do you conclude that crime is at a “historic low” from that? Comparing cases from police data is only half of the story, as a ton of crime isn’t reported in San Francisco, as any theft less than $1k isn’t prosecutable. The survey of retailers is much more reliable a data point, and it says the exact opposite of what you claim.
- khuey 4y ago
  > any theft less than $1k isn’t prosecutable. It absolutely is, the cops and the DA just choose not to give a shit.
- inferiorhuman 4y ago
  The felony threshold in California is $950. In Texas it's like $2,500. Below that theft is a misdemeanor which typically means they're eligible for incarceration of up to one year. It's pretty difficult to prosecute people that the cops don't arrest.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  Do you think the companies that insure these stores will just trust that something has been stolen if the store didn’t report it to the police?
  - pseudo0 4y ago
    There is no point in insuring against a predictable cost of doing business. An insurer would simply charge a premium equal to the expected amount of theft, plus a margin for their profit and the (small) risk they are taking. For the many retail stores where insurance doesn't make sense, filing a police report is just extra wasted time and effort if it won't result in any tangible results.
  - refurb 4y ago
    You think stores buy insurance against shoplifting? You think insurers offer it? How much do you think it would cost?
buscoquadnary 4y ago
This was exactly what was predicted after the a bunch of public officials started stating their intention to no longer prosecute crimes. They said people will stop reporting crimes because there is no point, and then people will point to the reduction in reported crime as proof that crime is down. It turns out people stop reporting when they no one will get prosecuted and the cops won't do anything because they know there is no point in arresting criminals.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  What do you mean, they “know there’s no point in arresting criminals”? The point is that it’s their job. They literally get paid to do it. If my employer pays me for a certain amount of work and decides to only use half of it, I don’t thereafter get to only do half the work because there’s “no point” in doing the rest.
  - bagels 4y ago
    That's not how police departments are run. "Chief Anthony Batts listed exactly 44 situations that his officers will no longer respond to and they include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism. He says if you live and Oakland and one of the above happens to you, you need to let police know on-line." https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/suffer-these-crimes-in-oakland-dont-call-the-cops/2095121/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/suffer-these-crimes-in... Guess what happens when you fill in a form online? Maybe it turns in to an entry in a database, but that might be the end of it.
    - jakelazaroff 4y ago
      Okay, and what’s their excuse for that? Again, they’re literally paid to respond to those crimes. What is the point of police if they’re ignoring reports?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
ratchetbob 4y ago
Living in SF, I experience someone shoplifting from Walgreens at least once a month. Many things require calling someone to unlock an item. (Target has locks on $20 pants!)

lazide 4y ago

reported crime. Most folks gave up years ago, anecdotally.

jakelazaroff 4y ago
This article isn’t talking about individuals, though. What would be the disincentive to retail stores reporting theft? There are presumably insurance benefits even if they don’t think the police will recover it or apprehend someone.
- toast0 4y ago
  Reporting comes at a cost to the store. They've got to have their personnel working on it, possibly managerial staff, and they've got a lot of other things to do, and staffing shortages, etc. If reporting doesn't result in police actions that reduce future theft, it seems like it's a waste. If retail theft is as endemic as reporting would seem to indicate, I don't know how they could get insurance for 'petty' theft anyway, so a police report isn't likely to be useful. Likely their business insurance has higher deductibles anyway, so it's more useful for major theft or damage, not for smaller claims.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  For general retail, there is no point to insurance for predictable recurring costs. If you get robbed for 1000 a week, you just add it to your budget. This is differ if you have rare theft of high price items.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  And if retail theft was daily occurrence, how much would you charge as insurer to insure against it? Less than the damages? I think if you started to offer that sort of business there would be lot and lot of takers.
- lazide 4y ago
  Retail stores generally were the first to give up: 1) reporting takes time at the staff level, significant time. Which they have to pay for, compounding the losses. I’ve seen security footage, and in some cases it was literally constant. They’d need full time staff just to call the police and report, assuming the cops would even show up if they did that. 2) they can write off the stolen inventory at 100% anyway, and most of them are self insured against this stuff. ‘Shrinkage’ is a normal business operating cost anyway, it’s the scale of it at some of these locations that is nuts. 3) a number of larger chains just gave up and pulled out of the worse areas, and made very public statements about it and why. [https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/theft-plagued-walgreens-closing-san-francisco-stores-80550211 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/theft-plagued-walgre...] Anecdotally, I was at a Best Buy in the east bay picking someone up. Not a bad area. And one of the fire alarms went off on an emergency exit and I saw someone dart out with something. The staff member just reset the alarm, sighed, and continued helping me. No attempt to do anything else. I asked what was going on and they said shoplifting, and that it happens all the time. Last year I was picking up a small generator at a Home Depot in San Jose - not a bad area - and they had to go into a locked area to get it - they said that was because people would load up a cart with generators and tools and just walk out with them. Nothing they could do, and it was a daily occurrence so now they keep things locked up. Pretty sad frankly.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    Re: 3, Walgreens’ claim that they closed the stores in San Francisco due to shoplifting is famously a lie: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/walgreens-to-shut-200-stores-nationwide-to-trim-costs/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/walgreens-to-shut-200-s...
  - simoncion 4y ago
    > The staff member just reset the alarm, sighed, and continued helping me. No attempt to do anything else. It has been my understanding that for like at _least_ fifteen, twenty years major retailers have had a "Do not attempt to physically stop shoplifters." policy. The opinions I heard were split on whether it was to protect against an injury suit file by the thief if he were injured during the detention, or having to pay a _ton_ if an employee got seriously injured during the detention. (Source: talking to friends who worked on the floor for major retailers at the start of the century.) TBH, it smells like both to me. Anyway, all this is to say that retailers haven't been _physically_ restraining thieves walking out of their stores for quite some time... but that doesn't _necessarily_ mean that they've stopped reporting the thefts. (Indeed, the SF Mayor's Office's crowing about retrieving items from Retail Theft Rings suggests that -at minimum- a subset of the affected retailers _do_ report thefts.)
Scoundreller 4y ago
I'm surprised chain/mass market retailers permit that. I'd think HQ would want a police report for missing stock, otherwise they're going to think you took it yourself. It'll be a useless online police report, but you have a # to reference about missing stock XYZ.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  There are a lot of alternatives to a police report. Internal reports on what was stolen is a lot easier.

happyopossum 4y ago

How do you conclude that crime is at a “historic low” from that? Comparing cases from police data is only half of the story, as a ton of crime isn’t reported in San Francisco, as any theft less than $1k isn’t prosecutable. The survey of retailers is much more reliable a data point, and it says the exact opposite of what you claim.

khuey 4y ago
> any theft less than $1k isn’t prosecutable. It absolutely is, the cops and the DA just choose not to give a shit.
inferiorhuman 4y ago
The felony threshold in California is $950. In Texas it's like $2,500. Below that theft is a misdemeanor which typically means they're eligible for incarceration of up to one year. It's pretty difficult to prosecute people that the cops don't arrest.
jakelazaroff 4y ago
Do you think the companies that insure these stores will just trust that something has been stolen if the store didn’t report it to the police?
- pseudo0 4y ago
  There is no point in insuring against a predictable cost of doing business. An insurer would simply charge a premium equal to the expected amount of theft, plus a margin for their profit and the (small) risk they are taking. For the many retail stores where insurance doesn't make sense, filing a police report is just extra wasted time and effort if it won't result in any tangible results.
- refurb 4y ago
  You think stores buy insurance against shoplifting? You think insurers offer it? How much do you think it would cost?

buscoquadnary 4y ago

This was exactly what was predicted after the a bunch of public officials started stating their intention to no longer prosecute crimes. They said people will stop reporting crimes because there is no point, and then people will point to the reduction in reported crime as proof that crime is down. It turns out people stop reporting when they no one will get prosecuted and the cops won't do anything because they know there is no point in arresting criminals.

jakelazaroff 4y ago
What do you mean, they “know there’s no point in arresting criminals”? The point is that it’s their job. They literally get paid to do it. If my employer pays me for a certain amount of work and decides to only use half of it, I don’t thereafter get to only do half the work because there’s “no point” in doing the rest.
- bagels 4y ago
  That's not how police departments are run. "Chief Anthony Batts listed exactly 44 situations that his officers will no longer respond to and they include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism. He says if you live and Oakland and one of the above happens to you, you need to let police know on-line." https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/suffer-these-crimes-in-oakland-dont-call-the-cops/2095121/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/suffer-these-crimes-in... Guess what happens when you fill in a form online? Maybe it turns in to an entry in a database, but that might be the end of it.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    Okay, and what’s their excuse for that? Again, they’re literally paid to respond to those crimes. What is the point of police if they’re ignoring reports?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

ratchetbob 4y ago

Living in SF, I experience someone shoplifting from Walgreens at least once a month. Many things require calling someone to unlock an item. (Target has locks on $20 pants!)