6 ms·

A Tiny Number of Shoplifters Commit Thousands of New York City Thefts

60 points by asnyder 3y ago

vt85 3y ago
[dead]
dghlsakjg 3y ago
Long tail distribution is true with A LOT of different crime categories, no? "A tiny number of drug-dealers commit thousands of NYC drug deals" "A tiny number of vandals commit thousands of acts of NYC graffiti" What is this article supposed to be telling us?
- rufus_foreman 3y ago
  >> What is this article supposed to be telling us? Put a few people in jail and you can have nice things again?
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    Other people will step up to fill the void. As long as the costs of crime are low and the rewards are high, people will do it. Crack down on Amazon for distribution of stolen goods and a lot of these convenience store thefts will stop.
    - colechristensen 3y ago
      But it’s not like the shoplifter job is full and arresting existing ones opens up a spot. More like there will be a continuous flux of people entering and leaving the habitual shoplifter role and to keep numbers low you have to keep enforcing.
      - pclmulqdq 3y ago
        To some degree, the shoplifter job is full like that. If these guys hit a few stores every week, those stores can't really be hit for the "good" stuff until the next week (or whenever they restock). There are only so many easy stores to hit. As I understand it, the shoplifting operations in big cities are actually pretty organized and have a constant flux of low-tier thieves, but a few ringleaders who set things up and really do shoplift for a living. It's not inconceivable that if one of these guys is a ringleader and gets arrested that someone will come "fill that position." If they are affiliated with organized crime, they may even have job interviews.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  That if you jailed these 327 people, crime would fall dramatically, and particularly in the neighborhoods progressives claim to care about. That shopkeeper in the Bronx is not exactly Jamie Dimon. Society should try to protect him, and we _choose not to_.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 3y ago
    For something like shoplifting imho counseling of these people would be the way to go for best pay-off. And then maybe long-term insight into what causes such pathology. Agreed though. A choice is being made to not go after the small stuff. The shopkeeper should have the full force of protection, even over a bag of chips.
    - mc32 3y ago
      Much of the high volume shoplifting is actually a business. They ae in it as a job to make money. I don't think counselling would work like it would on a kid who shoplifted some stogies and candy a couple of times.
      - Simulacra 3y ago
        Are they individuals or is it gangs?
      - sh34r 3y ago
        Stealing stuff and selling it through a fence is not a business. It’s organized crime. A racket. You could effectively argue drug dealers and bookies are running an illegal business, and I would not disagree. They sell (illegal) goods and services to willing participants. The fences (eBay and other co-conspirators) are running a business too. But shoplifting isn’t a business any more than muggings and “protection rackets” (give me a cut or I break your kneecap) are a business. It’s just violence.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - 3y ago
- HyperSane 3y ago
  That jailing a very small number of naughty people would drastically reduce crime.
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    I get that. The article doesn’t answer the question of why these laws aren’t enforced when it comes to prolific offenders. Shoplifting under $1k in NYC is punishable by a jail term of up to 1 year. The NYPD has a 5.5 billion dollar budget, and shoplifting is an absurdly easy crime to solve given that it almost always happens on camera. Prosecutors and judges aren’t going to catch heat for going after people with hundreds of offenses. The interesting story to me is, what is going on with the mountains of money being shoveled at police and courts?
    - tetromino_ 3y ago
      > The article doesn’t answer the question of why these laws aren’t enforced when it comes to prolific offenders. Here is an article that does: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/manhattan-da-alvin-bragg-low-level-offenses/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/manhattan-da-alvin-brag...
    - sh34r 3y ago
      Cops don’t want to work anymore. Their fee-fees are hurt after the 2020 protests, so they’ve been doing a work slowdown. In a sane country, this would lead to mass layoffs and defunding of the police, but somehow the answer in this insane country is to reward the petulant children. Can you imagine any other profession refusing to work for three years and getting a raise for it? The police are a gang, running a city-wide protection racket. NYC voters even decided it’d be a great idea to put a made man in the mafia in the mayor’s office. That’ll fix crime alright! /s The pigs are eating all that slop in the trough, getting fatter and lazier. Why would anything change? They keep it up and they’ll get even richer! What kind of idiot rocks the boat when they have a $200k a year job where you can just play on your phone all day? Cops are scum.
      - meany 3y ago
- black_13 3y ago
  [dead]
mrtweetyhack 3y ago
[dead]
anon291 3y ago
Hmmm... It sounds like with 300 jail cells to protect the public, this is an easy problem to fix.
pontifier 3y ago
We need a better way to help these people live life without committing crimes. My suggestion is a type of UBI that is immediate, fair, and would immediately be effective at easing some of the desperation these people must feel. I propose a tower that drops money. $1 every minute. The price of such a tower in dollars would be just over a half a million dollars per year. It would serve as a tourist attraction, and a way for someone needing a few dollars to get them without begging, without stealing, without stigma. It would put dollars in people's pockets that would be spent at nearby businesses. I don't see a downside. The town I live in, Pine Bluff Arkansas, has an organization called Go Forward Pine Bluff. They waste so much tax money it's unbelievable, and the things they do don't benefit the people. I'm fighting them as hard as I can, and I hope to someday build a tower like that in this town.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  To some degree, crime is just basic supply and demand. There's a certain amount of demand for crime, driven by loose security, lax enforcement, and easy outlets for stolen goods (who do you think is stocking the cheap deodorant on Amazon?). You aren't going to be able to fight those economic incentives with something like UBI.
- csmiller 3y ago
  Perhaps three hots and a cot?
HyperSane 3y ago
Penalties should double for every repeat crime committed, both in terms of fines and prison time.
predogger 3y ago
It is largely the people who are comfortable with the probability of getting caught but know that MOST stores have a policy to not engage with a shoplifter due to liability concerns.
sh34r 3y ago
The RICO Act is criminally underutilized. Use these 300 street-level knuckleheads to take down the online fences that are orchestrating this whole racket. eBay already looks like the mafia after that psychotic terrorism campaign against a blogger. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/investigation-ebay-employees-stalk-harass-couple-60-minutes-transcript-2023-03-26/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/investigation-ebay-employee... Put their dons next door to El Chapo and these organized theft rings will be severely disrupted.
FrontierPsych 3y ago
Pareto principle. 80/20 law. 80% of x is caused by 20% of y. . 80% of the sales come from 20% of the salespeople. 80% of the music played comes from 20% of the composers. 80% of the crime is commited by 20% of the people. . And not only that, out of those 20%, the 80/20 law still applies. of the 20% of the people who commit crimes, 80% of those crimes are commited by 20% of the people. And of those 20%, 80% of those are caused by 20% of them. Same with wealth, music, whatever. That's why, no matter what, most of the wealth will always be owned by a very small number of people. You can take all the money away from the wealthiest people, and in 50 years, the top 20% will own 80% of the wealth again. It will be a different 20%, but still, 20% will own 80% the wealth again. It's also if you have a company with employees, 20% of the employees do 80% of the work. So you do NOT want to lose those 20% of the employees who do most of the work.
richvernadeau 3y ago
During the Wild West, those 327 people responsible for thousands of crimes in NYC would not have been allowed to continue operating. In the age of Bonnie and Clyde and Dillinger, repeat offenders (especially violent ones) were taken out of circulation one way or another. In the event of a societal collapse, these 327 would represent a predatory threat to other people and would have to be dealt with. I suspect that only in New York City could these 327 people continue as they have been doing. In certain states, they would already be out of circulation.

60 points by asnyder 3y ago

vt85 3y ago

[dead]

Long tail distribution is true with A LOT of different crime categories, no? "A tiny number of drug-dealers commit thousands of NYC drug deals" "A tiny number of vandals commit thousands of acts of NYC graffiti" What is this article supposed to be telling us?

rufus_foreman 3y ago
>> What is this article supposed to be telling us? Put a few people in jail and you can have nice things again?
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Other people will step up to fill the void. As long as the costs of crime are low and the rewards are high, people will do it. Crack down on Amazon for distribution of stolen goods and a lot of these convenience store thefts will stop.
  - colechristensen 3y ago
    But it’s not like the shoplifter job is full and arresting existing ones opens up a spot. More like there will be a continuous flux of people entering and leaving the habitual shoplifter role and to keep numbers low you have to keep enforcing.
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      To some degree, the shoplifter job is full like that. If these guys hit a few stores every week, those stores can't really be hit for the "good" stuff until the next week (or whenever they restock). There are only so many easy stores to hit. As I understand it, the shoplifting operations in big cities are actually pretty organized and have a constant flux of low-tier thieves, but a few ringleaders who set things up and really do shoplift for a living. It's not inconceivable that if one of these guys is a ringleader and gets arrested that someone will come "fill that position." If they are affiliated with organized crime, they may even have job interviews.
local_crmdgeon 3y ago
That if you jailed these 327 people, crime would fall dramatically, and particularly in the neighborhoods progressives claim to care about. That shopkeeper in the Bronx is not exactly Jamie Dimon. Society should try to protect him, and we _choose not to_.
- scyzoryk_xyz 3y ago
  For something like shoplifting imho counseling of these people would be the way to go for best pay-off. And then maybe long-term insight into what causes such pathology. Agreed though. A choice is being made to not go after the small stuff. The shopkeeper should have the full force of protection, even over a bag of chips.
  - mc32 3y ago
    Much of the high volume shoplifting is actually a business. They ae in it as a job to make money. I don't think counselling would work like it would on a kid who shoplifted some stogies and candy a couple of times.
    - Simulacra 3y ago
      Are they individuals or is it gangs?
    - sh34r 3y ago
      Stealing stuff and selling it through a fence is not a business. It’s organized crime. A racket. You could effectively argue drug dealers and bookies are running an illegal business, and I would not disagree. They sell (illegal) goods and services to willing participants. The fences (eBay and other co-conspirators) are running a business too. But shoplifting isn’t a business any more than muggings and “protection rackets” (give me a cut or I break your kneecap) are a business. It’s just violence.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- 3y ago
HyperSane 3y ago
That jailing a very small number of naughty people would drastically reduce crime.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  I get that. The article doesn’t answer the question of why these laws aren’t enforced when it comes to prolific offenders. Shoplifting under $1k in NYC is punishable by a jail term of up to 1 year. The NYPD has a 5.5 billion dollar budget, and shoplifting is an absurdly easy crime to solve given that it almost always happens on camera. Prosecutors and judges aren’t going to catch heat for going after people with hundreds of offenses. The interesting story to me is, what is going on with the mountains of money being shoveled at police and courts?
  - tetromino_ 3y ago
    > The article doesn’t answer the question of why these laws aren’t enforced when it comes to prolific offenders. Here is an article that does: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/manhattan-da-alvin-bragg-low-level-offenses/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/manhattan-da-alvin-brag...
  - sh34r 3y ago
    Cops don’t want to work anymore. Their fee-fees are hurt after the 2020 protests, so they’ve been doing a work slowdown. In a sane country, this would lead to mass layoffs and defunding of the police, but somehow the answer in this insane country is to reward the petulant children. Can you imagine any other profession refusing to work for three years and getting a raise for it? The police are a gang, running a city-wide protection racket. NYC voters even decided it’d be a great idea to put a made man in the mafia in the mayor’s office. That’ll fix crime alright! /s The pigs are eating all that slop in the trough, getting fatter and lazier. Why would anything change? They keep it up and they’ll get even richer! What kind of idiot rocks the boat when they have a $200k a year job where you can just play on your phone all day? Cops are scum.
    - meany 3y ago
black_13 3y ago
[dead]

mrtweetyhack 3y ago

[dead]

anon291 3y ago

Hmmm... It sounds like with 300 jail cells to protect the public, this is an easy problem to fix.

pontifier 3y ago

We need a better way to help these people live life without committing crimes. My suggestion is a type of UBI that is immediate, fair, and would immediately be effective at easing some of the desperation these people must feel. I propose a tower that drops money. $1 every minute. The price of such a tower in dollars would be just over a half a million dollars per year. It would serve as a tourist attraction, and a way for someone needing a few dollars to get them without begging, without stealing, without stigma. It would put dollars in people's pockets that would be spent at nearby businesses. I don't see a downside. The town I live in, Pine Bluff Arkansas, has an organization called Go Forward Pine Bluff. They waste so much tax money it's unbelievable, and the things they do don't benefit the people. I'm fighting them as hard as I can, and I hope to someday build a tower like that in this town.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
To some degree, crime is just basic supply and demand. There's a certain amount of demand for crime, driven by loose security, lax enforcement, and easy outlets for stolen goods (who do you think is stocking the cheap deodorant on Amazon?). You aren't going to be able to fight those economic incentives with something like UBI.
csmiller 3y ago
Perhaps three hots and a cot?

HyperSane 3y ago

Penalties should double for every repeat crime committed, both in terms of fines and prison time.

predogger 3y ago

It is largely the people who are comfortable with the probability of getting caught but know that MOST stores have a policy to not engage with a shoplifter due to liability concerns.

sh34r 3y ago

The RICO Act is criminally underutilized. Use these 300 street-level knuckleheads to take down the online fences that are orchestrating this whole racket. eBay already looks like the mafia after that psychotic terrorism campaign against a blogger. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/investigation-ebay-employees-stalk-harass-couple-60-minutes-transcript-2023-03-26/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/investigation-ebay-employee... Put their dons next door to El Chapo and these organized theft rings will be severely disrupted.

FrontierPsych 3y ago

Pareto principle. 80/20 law. 80% of x is caused by 20% of y. . 80% of the sales come from 20% of the salespeople. 80% of the music played comes from 20% of the composers. 80% of the crime is commited by 20% of the people. . And not only that, out of those 20%, the 80/20 law still applies. of the 20% of the people who commit crimes, 80% of those crimes are commited by 20% of the people. And of those 20%, 80% of those are caused by 20% of them. Same with wealth, music, whatever. That's why, no matter what, most of the wealth will always be owned by a very small number of people. You can take all the money away from the wealthiest people, and in 50 years, the top 20% will own 80% of the wealth again. It will be a different 20%, but still, 20% will own 80% the wealth again. It's also if you have a company with employees, 20% of the employees do 80% of the work. So you do NOT want to lose those 20% of the employees who do most of the work.

richvernadeau 3y ago

During the Wild West, those 327 people responsible for thousands of crimes in NYC would not have been allowed to continue operating. In the age of Bonnie and Clyde and Dillinger, repeat offenders (especially violent ones) were taken out of circulation one way or another. In the event of a societal collapse, these 327 would represent a predatory threat to other people and would have to be dealt with. I suspect that only in New York City could these 327 people continue as they have been doing. In certain states, they would already be out of circulation.