4 ms·

The article says prosecutors don't go after these thefts but I'd think the issue is with the cops and the number of arrests. After the BLM protests of 2020 (Geo

The article says prosecutors don't go after these thefts but I'd think the issue is with the cops and the number of arrests. After the BLM protests of 2020 (George Floyd) cops basically went hands off on these so called minor crimes, and so I'd imagine many of them don't even make it to prosecutors. We'd need a graph of incidents and arrests for years prior to 2020 (or months in early vs late 2020) to see the change.

soperj 4y ago
Has the number of cops shooting people actually decreased? Considering that they've never even looked for a bicycle, which is many times more expensive than a stick of deodorant, I'm seriously doubtful that they've ever have been hands on for these thefts.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  no, avoiding minor crimes has no bearing on whether the cops “feared for their lives” during the times they did show up
compiler-guy 4y ago
The article claims that the BLM protests made little difference, and include a graph of various states comparing the amount of shoplifting with the amount of prosecution. Generally there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between states with large BLM protests and reduced prosecution. For example, Oregon had huge protests and weak government responses, and yet prosecutes large amounts of shoplifting. Blaming this on the response to BLM seems intuitive, but I have yet to see data that supports it.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  As others have said, aggregating at the state level makes no sense. For example, in Austin, TX, I can't speak for retail crimes in particular but there has most definitely been a change in prosecuting other crimes. Hit-and-runs are an epidemic now in the city, primarily because the police won't even respond unless there is a major injury. I was in a hit and run, I got a detailed description of the car and license plate, and yet there were 0 consequences to the person that hit me. It actually makes more sense to run if you hit someone because there are literally no downsides (except for people with a conscience, of course). But if you looked across TX as a whole, this data would definitely not show up.
- Bud 4y ago
- cm2187 4y ago
  Law enforcement is not done at the state level but at the city level.
  - compiler-guy 4y ago
    The stats are prosecutions aggregated by state, not state prosecutions.
    - cm2187 4y ago
      My point is that you can have a democrat city abdicating law enforcement in a republican state. What matters for local crime is the city, not the wider state.
  - AuthorizedCust 4y ago
    False. Law enforcement has many layers with concurrent jurisdiction. It’s not just city. How each jurisdiction polices can vary widely depending on where you are.
    - cm2187 4y ago
      State police doesn't deal with shoplifting.
- tyrfing 4y ago
  > For example, Oregon had huge protests and weak government responses, and yet prosecutes large amounts of shoplifting. https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/multnomah-county-misdemeanor-theft-shoplifting-prosecutions/283-f787c79b-a70c-4cb6-b48a-fb22cafbc15d https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/multnomah-co... There were not protests state wide, they were in a single county, the one in which shoplifting isn't prosecuted as much. A couple miles away, with different DAs, you will get arrested and prosecuted for even very minor theft. > Unseating [Washington Co DA] Barton has been a priority for national progressive groups funding criminal justice reform in Oregon. > “Washington County is the most extreme county I’ve ever worked in, and that’s because of the tough on crime, war on drugs, lock 'em up and throw away the key fanaticism coming from the DA’s office,” Decker said. This is the person responsible for a 93% prosecution rate, being re-elected on the basis of "law and order" and relatively conservative viewpoints, backlash against the BLM protest responses that you talk about.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Protests draw from a much wider area than just where they physically take place.
  - rhaway84773 4y ago
    And yet the shoplifting problem is across those county lines and across state lines even. Whit contradicts the idea that the BLM protests are responsible.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Invariably people will blame BLM there's a lot of latent disgruntlement.
  - nverno 4y ago
    People love simple explanations. BLM obviously wasn't a causal factor, but general mayhem/disorder certainly facilitated things like shoplifting. There were a lot of people doing what sublime did back in '92 [1]. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ttchToDa7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ttchToDa7Y
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  Policing, not prosecutions.
- throw__away7391 4y ago
  And what do you suppose would happen to the career of a researcher who published a study showing such a correlation?
  - acdha 4y ago
    That depends on how rigorous their work was. If they did a good job, that would be a major career boost and would likely get them tenure. If they did a flawed but plausible sounding job, they’d likely get a book deal and could become a fixture on conservative media which would pay more but would limit the places they get tenure.
V-eHGsd_ 4y ago
> The article says prosecutors don't go after these thefts the article says that was speculated but not borne out by the data. > What is behind this unwelcome rise? Some speculated that prosecutors had gone soft on looting after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. But it is hard to see any such trend in the data: generally states with more shoplifting prosecute more shoplifters (see chart).
- wholinator2 4y ago
  As stated in another comment, the articles claim makes no sense. More shoplifting = more prosecuting has nothing to do with there having been a change after some event. There could still be a linear relationship between incidents and prosecutions, but a lower line after George Floyd. Specifically, a single cross sectional data point cannot prove anything about a time series or a claim about it.
zone411 4y ago
In Chicago there has been a dramatic drop off: the arrest rate for retail theft went from 43%-54% in 2016-2019 to 18% in 2021 and the number of cases brought to Chicago police has dropped from 8986-10792/year to 6166. https://abc7chicago.com/smash-and-grab-robberies-chicago-organized-retail-theft/11553974/ https://abc7chicago.com/smash-and-grab-robberies-chicago-org...
- lupire 4y ago
  What is the cause of the arrest drop? Prosecutor policy, police strike, Covid masking and office closures confounding the operation of the law enforcement system, or something else?
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    As a Chicago resident I’d say it’s mostly “quite quitting” by cops. You never see them working anymore, and the people I’ve talked to about their experience with police basically all say that they never even showed up, and if they did they refused to even fill out a report. The union even officially called for work stoppages due to vaccine mandates.
  - nxm 4y ago
    Prosecutor policy results in police saying “what’s the point”?

soperj 4y ago

Has the number of cops shooting people actually decreased? Considering that they've never even looked for a bicycle, which is many times more expensive than a stick of deodorant, I'm seriously doubtful that they've ever have been hands on for these thefts.

yieldcrv 4y ago
no, avoiding minor crimes has no bearing on whether the cops “feared for their lives” during the times they did show up

compiler-guy 4y ago

The article claims that the BLM protests made little difference, and include a graph of various states comparing the amount of shoplifting with the amount of prosecution. Generally there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between states with large BLM protests and reduced prosecution. For example, Oregon had huge protests and weak government responses, and yet prosecutes large amounts of shoplifting. Blaming this on the response to BLM seems intuitive, but I have yet to see data that supports it.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
As others have said, aggregating at the state level makes no sense. For example, in Austin, TX, I can't speak for retail crimes in particular but there has most definitely been a change in prosecuting other crimes. Hit-and-runs are an epidemic now in the city, primarily because the police won't even respond unless there is a major injury. I was in a hit and run, I got a detailed description of the car and license plate, and yet there were 0 consequences to the person that hit me. It actually makes more sense to run if you hit someone because there are literally no downsides (except for people with a conscience, of course). But if you looked across TX as a whole, this data would definitely not show up.
Bud 4y ago
cm2187 4y ago
Law enforcement is not done at the state level but at the city level.
- compiler-guy 4y ago
  The stats are prosecutions aggregated by state, not state prosecutions.
  - cm2187 4y ago
    My point is that you can have a democrat city abdicating law enforcement in a republican state. What matters for local crime is the city, not the wider state.
- AuthorizedCust 4y ago
  False. Law enforcement has many layers with concurrent jurisdiction. It’s not just city. How each jurisdiction polices can vary widely depending on where you are.
  - cm2187 4y ago
    State police doesn't deal with shoplifting.
tyrfing 4y ago
> For example, Oregon had huge protests and weak government responses, and yet prosecutes large amounts of shoplifting. https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/multnomah-county-misdemeanor-theft-shoplifting-prosecutions/283-f787c79b-a70c-4cb6-b48a-fb22cafbc15d https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/multnomah-co... There were not protests state wide, they were in a single county, the one in which shoplifting isn't prosecuted as much. A couple miles away, with different DAs, you will get arrested and prosecuted for even very minor theft. > Unseating [Washington Co DA] Barton has been a priority for national progressive groups funding criminal justice reform in Oregon. > “Washington County is the most extreme county I’ve ever worked in, and that’s because of the tough on crime, war on drugs, lock 'em up and throw away the key fanaticism coming from the DA’s office,” Decker said. This is the person responsible for a 93% prosecution rate, being re-elected on the basis of "law and order" and relatively conservative viewpoints, backlash against the BLM protest responses that you talk about.
- Retric 4y ago
  Protests draw from a much wider area than just where they physically take place.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  And yet the shoplifting problem is across those county lines and across state lines even. Whit contradicts the idea that the BLM protests are responsible.
psychphysic 4y ago
Invariably people will blame BLM there's a lot of latent disgruntlement.
- nverno 4y ago
  People love simple explanations. BLM obviously wasn't a causal factor, but general mayhem/disorder certainly facilitated things like shoplifting. There were a lot of people doing what sublime did back in '92 [1]. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ttchToDa7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ttchToDa7Y
NotYourLawyer 4y ago
Policing, not prosecutions.
throw__away7391 4y ago
And what do you suppose would happen to the career of a researcher who published a study showing such a correlation?
- acdha 4y ago
  That depends on how rigorous their work was. If they did a good job, that would be a major career boost and would likely get them tenure. If they did a flawed but plausible sounding job, they’d likely get a book deal and could become a fixture on conservative media which would pay more but would limit the places they get tenure.

V-eHGsd_ 4y ago

> The article says prosecutors don't go after these thefts the article says that was speculated but not borne out by the data. > What is behind this unwelcome rise? Some speculated that prosecutors had gone soft on looting after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. But it is hard to see any such trend in the data: generally states with more shoplifting prosecute more shoplifters (see chart).

wholinator2 4y ago
As stated in another comment, the articles claim makes no sense. More shoplifting = more prosecuting has nothing to do with there having been a change after some event. There could still be a linear relationship between incidents and prosecutions, but a lower line after George Floyd. Specifically, a single cross sectional data point cannot prove anything about a time series or a claim about it.

zone411 4y ago

In Chicago there has been a dramatic drop off: the arrest rate for retail theft went from 43%-54% in 2016-2019 to 18% in 2021 and the number of cases brought to Chicago police has dropped from 8986-10792/year to 6166. https://abc7chicago.com/smash-and-grab-robberies-chicago-organized-retail-theft/11553974/ https://abc7chicago.com/smash-and-grab-robberies-chicago-org...

lupire 4y ago
What is the cause of the arrest drop? Prosecutor policy, police strike, Covid masking and office closures confounding the operation of the law enforcement system, or something else?
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  As a Chicago resident I’d say it’s mostly “quite quitting” by cops. You never see them working anymore, and the people I’ve talked to about their experience with police basically all say that they never even showed up, and if they did they refused to even fill out a report. The union even officially called for work stoppages due to vaccine mandates.
- nxm 4y ago
  Prosecutor policy results in police saying “what’s the point”?