4 ms·
It's a tough situation from what I've read about it. Someone steals $500. What do you do? Charging someone alone costs thousands. Putting them in jail costs
by mindvirus 3y ago
It's a tough situation from what I've read about it.
Someone steals $500. What do you do?
Charging someone alone costs thousands.
Putting them in jail costs tens of thousands per year and has some serious negative externalities (what happens if they have kids? what if this knocks them off the economic treadmill and they're forced to continue stealing as the only option to them?)
And then you have organized crime organizing hundreds of people to commit the same petty theft. But they're hard to find and catch.
I think the resolution won't be laws changing, so much as stores changing to be harder to shoplift from. Already places are experimenting with more of a fast-food style order at the front on a tablet, and the clerks will bring the goods to you from the back. Or a shift to more of an online ordering world, where shoplifting is close to non-existent (though package theft and credit card fraud are problems).
- junofan 3y agoThe problem is organized crime, and it’s worth pursuing even though it’s hard. This organized crime happens throughout the distribution chain, from the docks to store shelves. Changing store layouts or ordering online won’t fix the problem. Law enforcement is the correct tool to combat organized crime. As far as laws changing, there’s a bill to create a national center focused on coordinating responses to this theft between local, state, and federal levels: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/140/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/140...
- mindvirus 3y agoTotally agree going after organized crime is key, and didn't mean to imply otherwise.
- andromeduck 3y agoDefer it until they reach at threshold and then charge them every time or at minimum detain them for a few hours period. Crime follows a pareto distribution like everything else.
- qwertycrackers 3y agoWe just need to make convictions profitable. If justice remains a cost then it will be done incompletely. I would sell the organs from convicted shoplifters.