7 ms·

Target to close 9 stores across four states because of theft and organized crime

77 points by fortran77 3y ago

anon373839 3y ago
> One factor that police believe is a driver of organized retail crime more recently is the fact that under new criminal justice reform laws and local district attorney’s policies to reduce mass incarceration, grand theft — the law that covers shoplifting — is a crime that judges can no longer jail a person or even require bail, no matter how many times the same individual is caught. I don’t understand the proliferation of these ridiculous policies. San Francisco is a poster child for what happens when crime is made legal. Yet more municipalities follow in its footsteps.
- networkchad 3y ago
  [dead]
- extragood 3y ago
  The US leads the world in both mass incarceration and recidivism. Jail time is not only not a deterrent, but actively makes the problem worse because incarceration in the US is punitive and is much less focused on rehabilitation. An ex-convict has very few options for employment after they've served their time, so it's unsurprising that many need to steal for their survival. It's a feedback loop that can only get worse without addressing the underlying issues: guaranteeing people's basic needs for survival. Shelter, food, clean water, adequate healthcare. Reducing incarceration should be the goal, but it needs to achieved by addressing those fundamental requirements.
  - anon373839 3y ago
    >An ex-convict has very few options for employment after they've served their time, so it's unsurprising that many need to steal for their survival This trope has little to do with the recent spate of property crimes that spiked right after criminal penalties were removed. These are not desperate people, but rather people who willfully and repeatedly exploit an opportunity to harm others without punishment.
    - reverius42 3y ago
      When and where were criminal penalties removed for property crime? I live in Seattle near one of the closing stores and I haven't heard anything about decriminalizing theft here.
      - zo1 3y ago
        Don't wanna be that guy, but just search for it on the internet? I don't even live in your continent and can find all sorts of talk about Seattle's DA petty theft policies. So yes laws are still on the books, but they effectively through various means, don't get prosecuted. Here's just one, as I'm on mobile. https://crosscut.com/2019/10/whats-seattle-doing-solve-its-shoplifting-problem-nothing-really https://crosscut.com/2019/10/whats-seattle-doing-solve-its-s...
        reverius42 3y ago
        That article literally contradicts the claim made, which is that the law was changed to remove penalties. There have always been crimes that aren't particularly well enforced, and lately the whole system is struggling to enforce low-level criminal law since prosecutors and judges' calendars are full, jails and prisons are full, and yet there is still more crime. Perhaps the difference between places (which all have the same laws on the books) is cultural; perhaps it's that "word got around", as per your link; but it's not because the law says it's not a crime.
  - sugarplant 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    I also don't really understand the wisdom of locking criminals up in a cesspool of other criminals where they can teach each other the tricks of the trade and work on building their networks. The way it's now it's too much like 'crime school'. I don't think it's really about not getting their basic necessities of life. More about just not knowing anything else to do with their lives. Especially for smaller crimes like store theft, it would make a whole lot more sense to put them in community service so they will be surrounded by real communities with people focused on making an honest living.
    - junofan 3y ago
      It’s 2023. You can just search #boost on TikTok. I think consequences will serve as a better deterrent.
      - wkat4242 3y ago
        Well clearly your system is failing at it with huge rates of incarceration and recidivism. The consequences are heavier than other countries but crime is even higher. And it's not about finding the knowledge. It's about constantly getting slapped in the face with it every day by being surrounded by people that don't even know anything else. It normalizes it. Maybe it's time to look beyond the instinctive kneejerk response and see what really works.
        zo1 3y ago
        And until we find this glorious and wonderful solution that is claimed to exist? We're expected to live in hell and surrounded by examples of how crime pays. We talk about how jail teaches criminals and hardens them, but what about all the opportunists seeing how they can just get free stuff without work. We substituted one failure for another, and made it worse for everyone overall. There is no way to justify this lawlessness, unless you want to hasten our demise into UBI serfdom.
        wkat4242 3y ago
        > And until we find this glorious and wonderful solution that is claimed to exist? We're expected to live in hell and surrounded by examples of how crime pays. Maybe look at about every other first-world country in the world where it works a lot better. There's not many first-world countries that have crime levels this heavy and especially hardened violent and organised crime. It could be caused by not just the penal system but also societal norms, income differences etc. A holistic approach is needed. > We talk about how jail teaches criminals and hardens them, but what about all the opportunists seeing how they can just get free stuff without work. We substituted one failure for another, and made it worse for everyone overall. I think this is part of the problem, the strong American aversion to any kind of government assistance to people that need it "because they don't work". It leads to really disadvantaged groups that in turn feel like outcasts and start behaving as such.
  - prepend 3y ago
    > Jail time is not only not a deterrent It seems to deter shoplifting, right? Seems like not jailing shoplifters is resulting in increased shoplifting based on increased shoplifting rates. And repeat individuals, not just more people. So jailing does deter. I think there are better ways to prevent recidivism than jail. But if the only options the state is willing to try are “jail” or “release over and over,” I think we need to choose jail until we can develop something better. And this will result in lots of people in prison.
  - lenkite 3y ago
    > ex-convict has very few options for employment after they've served their time Most of these repeat shop-wipers own fancy sports cars - they don't want regular, boring employment
  - polski-g 3y ago
    The purpose of incarceration is not deterrence, nor for "rehabilitation" (whatever the fuck that is). The purpose is *incapacitation*. It is for society. It is not for the benefit of the criminal. It is to protect society from the malbehavior of the criminal. The reason the US leads the world in incarceration is because the US has a lot of criminals: "If America put nobody in prison except for murderers and rapists, we would still have a larger per capita prison population than Germany (96 per 100,000 vs. 67 per 100,000). Not a single critic of mass incarceration has ever even attempted to come to terms with this reality" Would you go loot an Apple Store if you didn't have "adequate" dental care? Would you rape and murder an Asian shopkeeper if you didn't have "clean water"? No, what an absolutely absurd hypothesis. And yet you people routinely state that is the reason others commit crime. Look at these stats from a supposedly anti-incarceration institute: https://twitter.com/SwannMarcus89/status/1698911461031190835 https://twitter.com/SwannMarcus89/status/1698911461031190835 For those released from prison for a violent crime, the risk of committing a murder is 1%. Wow that sounds low. 1% would be 1000 murders per 100k! Comparing it to country-wide stats, that would make it the most violent country on the planet by a factor of 200. A 1% risk of murder is an insanely high number. And a 71% chance of recommitting another violent crime!
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Jail in the US is not supposed to be about rehabilitation or reforming criminals. It's to provide retributive justice to victims and separate criminals from everyone else.
- bsder 3y ago
  Jailing the shoplifter doesn't do one iota of good when it's an organized crime ring. They'll swap somebody new in without so much as a hitch. This is a case where the FBI needs to put some old-fashioned boots on the ground and rip the rings, themselves, apart.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Fenced By Amazon (FBA) is an Amazon program where thieves send stolen goods to Amazon and Amazon gives them money. The FBI has no chance of taking every "ring", consisting of a thief with an Amazon account, down.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      Well then they have to work with Amazon to stop it.
    - bsder 3y ago
      I believe that "Receiving Stolen Goods" already qualifies as a criminal activity. Pawn shops have sets of laws that apply to them in order to prevent them from being fences for stolen goods. Do those same laws not apply to Amazon?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - anon373839 3y ago
    > Jailing the shoplifter doesn't do one iota of good when it's an organized crime ring Not true. First, attaching penalties to the theft will reduce the pool of willing thieves. Second, under threat of prosecution, the thieves can turn on their handlers and cooperate with investigators. But when the law states that there are no consequences for theft, there is also no incentive to do this.
    - bsder 3y ago
      > Not true. First, attaching penalties to the theft will reduce the pool of willing thieves. You say this, but Prohibition and the Drug War both provide direct counter-evidence to that statement. There is always someone desperate enough to be on the bottom rungs of criminal organizations. You reduce organized crime by taking out the leaders.
- didntcheck 3y ago
  I've just come to never underestimate the ability of people to deny reality and insist something is working when it isn't, and instead attack anyone who calls out the new clothes. It helps that a significant amount of the media class are vocal supporters of these policies, though are usually too privileged or remote to be significantly affected
c420 3y ago
What's missing from what Target and others are trying to have us believe is that employee theft and corporate ineptitude account for 56% of "shrinkage". Also, external theft is trending down while internal theft is trending up. "While retailers and the NRF are increasingly saying crime is cutting into profits, losses from internal and external theft last year were largely on par with historical trends. They made up 65% of total shrink, the survey found. External theft, which includes organized retail crime, was again reported as the largest source of shrink last year at 36.15%, but that was slightly below 37% in 2021. Internal theft, or goods stolen by employees, rose slightly to 28.85% from 28.5% in 2021. Process and control failures and errors made up 27.29% of shrink in 2022, up from 25.7% the year prior." https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/26/organized-retail-crime-and-theft-not-increasing-much-nrf-study-finds.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/26/organized-retail-crime-and-t...
- credit_guy 3y ago
  > Target and others are trying to have us believe I doubt Target or other are "trying to have us believe". Closing a store is quite a big business decision, it's not likely they are doing that in order to promote a thesis. While I don't dispute your numbers, it is entirely possible that they are correct as an average, but Target has 2000 stores in the US, and they are closing only 9.
  - Avshalom 3y ago
    Is it a big business decision or is it just 9 out 2000.
    - credit_guy 3y ago
      Closing a store is definitely a big business decision. I mentioned 9 out of 2000, hoping that it is self evident that a statement about stable average theft over 2000 does not contradict the fact that in the extremes you can have a large increase in theft that results in unprofitable stores.
  - actuallyalys 3y ago
polka_haunts_us 3y ago
Ha, one of the Seattle ones shut down is the former Dollar Tree on the Ave in the U District. They started a big remodel of the building right around when I left in 2017, thing barely lasted 4 years apparently.
- reverius42 3y ago
  The other Seattle store also lasted just under 4 years (opened November 2019). Seems more like they're closing recently-opened under-profitable stores.
  - jytrhtegrfw 3y ago
    both are shitty small format stores -- all the full size stores in seattle are staying open
    - reverius42 3y ago
      Makes me think corporate simply made some bad investments, and is trying to avoid egg on their face now by blaming theft.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
novia 3y ago
Similarly, out in Atlanta, Walmart closed both of the main stores [1] and cut hours for several of the remaining stores surrounding the city. [2] I suspect all these store closings have less to do with theft and more to do with rent and cost-cutting measures. [1] https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/vine-city-howell-mill-walmart-update/85-783dc26e-e8d4-4f10-8ddf-cac5d5fc0214 https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/vine-city-howell-... [2] https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/these-walmart-stores-across-metro-atlanta-will-start-closing-earlier/C47K7TVVMVHUXJFR2PNYZG26N4/ https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/these-walmart-store...
- hattmall 3y ago
  In Atlanta they are definitely theft related. Thieves literally set the stores on fire as part of a shoplifting plot. They did it at target as well. Vine City will reopen because the city promised a police precinct in the store.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Walmart also closed all their stores in Chicago. Claimed that in their 17 years of existence they never once turned a profit.
someonehere 3y ago
There was general strike in Oakland today with all the local businesses closed down and they organized a rally. People got up, admitted they were Progressives and that they were wrong about the ideals of rehabilitation instead of punishment. I think Trump polarizing left vs right caused this knee jerk reaction of Progressives to push harder on no cash bail policies, restorative justice, etc.. Being tough on crime does not equal being a fan of Trump. It means you want people to take responsibility for their actions by being removed from society for a predetermined time.
- reverius42 3y ago
  > no cash bail policies This has nothing to do with Trump or right-vs-left. Cash bail is simply a privilege that those with money enjoy (to not go to jail while awaiting trial), that those without money don't. Perhaps some have suggested that in order to right this wrong, everyone should get free bail, but I think it would work equally well to hold everyone awaiting trial in jail (no bail).
  - Master_Odin 3y ago
    There's also the issue that some number of people tossed into jail are there on suspect evidence and later exonerated, and then in the meantime, they lose their job, miss payments on stuff so it gets repossessed, and suffer inhumane conditions. Good luck to them to then struggle to get their life back on track.
  - didntcheck 3y ago
    Most other countries manage without going to the extreme of no bail or universal bail, yet manage it with no money involved
    - reverius42 3y ago
      I like how every possible solution involving treating poor folks equally to rich folks under the law is an "extreme".
  - 3y ago
janalsncm 3y ago
As inequality becomes more stark, this is what it looks like. Stores need to increase their security because more people did the cost/benefit of stealing and chose to steal. This cost of security or in extreme cases forced store closures is the price of systemic inequality. Or in other words, the dividends of having a large, stable middle class can’t be cashed in everywhere.
- Reubend 3y ago
  I don't think this is a result of inequality. I think it's a complex mixture of local policies, culture, large scale criminal groups seeking profits, etc. Inequality is certainly a factor! But ultimately, large criminal organizations are turning shoplifting into a business. I don't think that efforts to support a "large, stable middle class" will help much with that.
Nifty3929 3y ago
It’s not just a question of how much is stolen. Compounding the problem are the 2nd order effects: putting toothpaste behind a cage, general deterioration of conditions, employee morale. All of these things and more are a consequence of theft and drive customers and employees away, and affect the business value of the store, but don’t show up in “shrinkage” numbers.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
One solution is to follow the northern European approach and remove criminals from broader society and teach them how to live in homes together with basic life skills and responsibilities (with no escape from the island). The US could set up an internal Australian where people are sent to learn to live proper community life away from distraction. This of course would be after institutionalizing the mentally ill.

77 points by fortran77 3y ago

> One factor that police believe is a driver of organized retail crime more recently is the fact that under new criminal justice reform laws and local district attorney’s policies to reduce mass incarceration, grand theft — the law that covers shoplifting — is a crime that judges can no longer jail a person or even require bail, no matter how many times the same individual is caught. I don’t understand the proliferation of these ridiculous policies. San Francisco is a poster child for what happens when crime is made legal. Yet more municipalities follow in its footsteps.

networkchad 3y ago
[dead]
extragood 3y ago
The US leads the world in both mass incarceration and recidivism. Jail time is not only not a deterrent, but actively makes the problem worse because incarceration in the US is punitive and is much less focused on rehabilitation. An ex-convict has very few options for employment after they've served their time, so it's unsurprising that many need to steal for their survival. It's a feedback loop that can only get worse without addressing the underlying issues: guaranteeing people's basic needs for survival. Shelter, food, clean water, adequate healthcare. Reducing incarceration should be the goal, but it needs to achieved by addressing those fundamental requirements.
- anon373839 3y ago
  >An ex-convict has very few options for employment after they've served their time, so it's unsurprising that many need to steal for their survival This trope has little to do with the recent spate of property crimes that spiked right after criminal penalties were removed. These are not desperate people, but rather people who willfully and repeatedly exploit an opportunity to harm others without punishment.
  - reverius42 3y ago
    When and where were criminal penalties removed for property crime? I live in Seattle near one of the closing stores and I haven't heard anything about decriminalizing theft here.
    - zo1 3y ago
      Don't wanna be that guy, but just search for it on the internet? I don't even live in your continent and can find all sorts of talk about Seattle's DA petty theft policies. So yes laws are still on the books, but they effectively through various means, don't get prosecuted. Here's just one, as I'm on mobile. https://crosscut.com/2019/10/whats-seattle-doing-solve-its-shoplifting-problem-nothing-really https://crosscut.com/2019/10/whats-seattle-doing-solve-its-s...
      - reverius42 3y ago
        That article literally contradicts the claim made, which is that the law was changed to remove penalties. There have always been crimes that aren't particularly well enforced, and lately the whole system is struggling to enforce low-level criminal law since prosecutors and judges' calendars are full, jails and prisons are full, and yet there is still more crime. Perhaps the difference between places (which all have the same laws on the books) is cultural; perhaps it's that "word got around", as per your link; but it's not because the law says it's not a crime.
- sugarplant 3y ago
  [flagged]
- wkat4242 3y ago
  I also don't really understand the wisdom of locking criminals up in a cesspool of other criminals where they can teach each other the tricks of the trade and work on building their networks. The way it's now it's too much like 'crime school'. I don't think it's really about not getting their basic necessities of life. More about just not knowing anything else to do with their lives. Especially for smaller crimes like store theft, it would make a whole lot more sense to put them in community service so they will be surrounded by real communities with people focused on making an honest living.
  - junofan 3y ago
    It’s 2023. You can just search #boost on TikTok. I think consequences will serve as a better deterrent.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      Well clearly your system is failing at it with huge rates of incarceration and recidivism. The consequences are heavier than other countries but crime is even higher. And it's not about finding the knowledge. It's about constantly getting slapped in the face with it every day by being surrounded by people that don't even know anything else. It normalizes it. Maybe it's time to look beyond the instinctive kneejerk response and see what really works.
      - zo1 3y ago
        And until we find this glorious and wonderful solution that is claimed to exist? We're expected to live in hell and surrounded by examples of how crime pays. We talk about how jail teaches criminals and hardens them, but what about all the opportunists seeing how they can just get free stuff without work. We substituted one failure for another, and made it worse for everyone overall. There is no way to justify this lawlessness, unless you want to hasten our demise into UBI serfdom.
        wkat4242 3y ago
        > And until we find this glorious and wonderful solution that is claimed to exist? We're expected to live in hell and surrounded by examples of how crime pays. Maybe look at about every other first-world country in the world where it works a lot better. There's not many first-world countries that have crime levels this heavy and especially hardened violent and organised crime. It could be caused by not just the penal system but also societal norms, income differences etc. A holistic approach is needed. > We talk about how jail teaches criminals and hardens them, but what about all the opportunists seeing how they can just get free stuff without work. We substituted one failure for another, and made it worse for everyone overall. I think this is part of the problem, the strong American aversion to any kind of government assistance to people that need it "because they don't work". It leads to really disadvantaged groups that in turn feel like outcasts and start behaving as such.
- prepend 3y ago
  > Jail time is not only not a deterrent It seems to deter shoplifting, right? Seems like not jailing shoplifters is resulting in increased shoplifting based on increased shoplifting rates. And repeat individuals, not just more people. So jailing does deter. I think there are better ways to prevent recidivism than jail. But if the only options the state is willing to try are “jail” or “release over and over,” I think we need to choose jail until we can develop something better. And this will result in lots of people in prison.
- lenkite 3y ago
  > ex-convict has very few options for employment after they've served their time Most of these repeat shop-wipers own fancy sports cars - they don't want regular, boring employment
- polski-g 3y ago
  The purpose of incarceration is not deterrence, nor for "rehabilitation" (whatever the fuck that is). The purpose is *incapacitation*. It is for society. It is not for the benefit of the criminal. It is to protect society from the malbehavior of the criminal. The reason the US leads the world in incarceration is because the US has a lot of criminals: "If America put nobody in prison except for murderers and rapists, we would still have a larger per capita prison population than Germany (96 per 100,000 vs. 67 per 100,000). Not a single critic of mass incarceration has ever even attempted to come to terms with this reality" Would you go loot an Apple Store if you didn't have "adequate" dental care? Would you rape and murder an Asian shopkeeper if you didn't have "clean water"? No, what an absolutely absurd hypothesis. And yet you people routinely state that is the reason others commit crime. Look at these stats from a supposedly anti-incarceration institute: https://twitter.com/SwannMarcus89/status/1698911461031190835 https://twitter.com/SwannMarcus89/status/1698911461031190835 For those released from prison for a violent crime, the risk of committing a murder is 1%. Wow that sounds low. 1% would be 1000 murders per 100k! Comparing it to country-wide stats, that would make it the most violent country on the planet by a factor of 200. A 1% risk of murder is an insanely high number. And a 71% chance of recommitting another violent crime!
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Jail in the US is not supposed to be about rehabilitation or reforming criminals. It's to provide retributive justice to victims and separate criminals from everyone else.
bsder 3y ago
Jailing the shoplifter doesn't do one iota of good when it's an organized crime ring. They'll swap somebody new in without so much as a hitch. This is a case where the FBI needs to put some old-fashioned boots on the ground and rip the rings, themselves, apart.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Fenced By Amazon (FBA) is an Amazon program where thieves send stolen goods to Amazon and Amazon gives them money. The FBI has no chance of taking every "ring", consisting of a thief with an Amazon account, down.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Well then they have to work with Amazon to stop it.
  - bsder 3y ago
    I believe that "Receiving Stolen Goods" already qualifies as a criminal activity. Pawn shops have sets of laws that apply to them in order to prevent them from being fences for stolen goods. Do those same laws not apply to Amazon?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- anon373839 3y ago
  > Jailing the shoplifter doesn't do one iota of good when it's an organized crime ring Not true. First, attaching penalties to the theft will reduce the pool of willing thieves. Second, under threat of prosecution, the thieves can turn on their handlers and cooperate with investigators. But when the law states that there are no consequences for theft, there is also no incentive to do this.
  - bsder 3y ago
    > Not true. First, attaching penalties to the theft will reduce the pool of willing thieves. You say this, but Prohibition and the Drug War both provide direct counter-evidence to that statement. There is always someone desperate enough to be on the bottom rungs of criminal organizations. You reduce organized crime by taking out the leaders.
didntcheck 3y ago
I've just come to never underestimate the ability of people to deny reality and insist something is working when it isn't, and instead attack anyone who calls out the new clothes. It helps that a significant amount of the media class are vocal supporters of these policies, though are usually too privileged or remote to be significantly affected

c420 3y ago

What's missing from what Target and others are trying to have us believe is that employee theft and corporate ineptitude account for 56% of "shrinkage". Also, external theft is trending down while internal theft is trending up. "While retailers and the NRF are increasingly saying crime is cutting into profits, losses from internal and external theft last year were largely on par with historical trends. They made up 65% of total shrink, the survey found. External theft, which includes organized retail crime, was again reported as the largest source of shrink last year at 36.15%, but that was slightly below 37% in 2021. Internal theft, or goods stolen by employees, rose slightly to 28.85% from 28.5% in 2021. Process and control failures and errors made up 27.29% of shrink in 2022, up from 25.7% the year prior." https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/26/organized-retail-crime-and-theft-not-increasing-much-nrf-study-finds.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/26/organized-retail-crime-and-t...

credit_guy 3y ago
> Target and others are trying to have us believe I doubt Target or other are "trying to have us believe". Closing a store is quite a big business decision, it's not likely they are doing that in order to promote a thesis. While I don't dispute your numbers, it is entirely possible that they are correct as an average, but Target has 2000 stores in the US, and they are closing only 9.
- Avshalom 3y ago
  Is it a big business decision or is it just 9 out 2000.
  - credit_guy 3y ago
    Closing a store is definitely a big business decision. I mentioned 9 out of 2000, hoping that it is self evident that a statement about stable average theft over 2000 does not contradict the fact that in the extremes you can have a large increase in theft that results in unprofitable stores.
- actuallyalys 3y ago

polka_haunts_us 3y ago

Ha, one of the Seattle ones shut down is the former Dollar Tree on the Ave in the U District. They started a big remodel of the building right around when I left in 2017, thing barely lasted 4 years apparently.

reverius42 3y ago
The other Seattle store also lasted just under 4 years (opened November 2019). Seems more like they're closing recently-opened under-profitable stores.
- jytrhtegrfw 3y ago
  both are shitty small format stores -- all the full size stores in seattle are staying open
  - reverius42 3y ago
    Makes me think corporate simply made some bad investments, and is trying to avoid egg on their face now by blaming theft.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

novia 3y ago

Similarly, out in Atlanta, Walmart closed both of the main stores [1] and cut hours for several of the remaining stores surrounding the city. [2] I suspect all these store closings have less to do with theft and more to do with rent and cost-cutting measures. [1] https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/vine-city-howell-mill-walmart-update/85-783dc26e-e8d4-4f10-8ddf-cac5d5fc0214 https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/vine-city-howell-... [2] https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/these-walmart-stores-across-metro-atlanta-will-start-closing-earlier/C47K7TVVMVHUXJFR2PNYZG26N4/ https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/these-walmart-store...

hattmall 3y ago
In Atlanta they are definitely theft related. Thieves literally set the stores on fire as part of a shoplifting plot. They did it at target as well. Vine City will reopen because the city promised a police precinct in the store.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
Walmart also closed all their stores in Chicago. Claimed that in their 17 years of existence they never once turned a profit.

someonehere 3y ago

There was general strike in Oakland today with all the local businesses closed down and they organized a rally. People got up, admitted they were Progressives and that they were wrong about the ideals of rehabilitation instead of punishment. I think Trump polarizing left vs right caused this knee jerk reaction of Progressives to push harder on no cash bail policies, restorative justice, etc.. Being tough on crime does not equal being a fan of Trump. It means you want people to take responsibility for their actions by being removed from society for a predetermined time.

reverius42 3y ago
> no cash bail policies This has nothing to do with Trump or right-vs-left. Cash bail is simply a privilege that those with money enjoy (to not go to jail while awaiting trial), that those without money don't. Perhaps some have suggested that in order to right this wrong, everyone should get free bail, but I think it would work equally well to hold everyone awaiting trial in jail (no bail).
- Master_Odin 3y ago
  There's also the issue that some number of people tossed into jail are there on suspect evidence and later exonerated, and then in the meantime, they lose their job, miss payments on stuff so it gets repossessed, and suffer inhumane conditions. Good luck to them to then struggle to get their life back on track.
- didntcheck 3y ago
  Most other countries manage without going to the extreme of no bail or universal bail, yet manage it with no money involved
  - reverius42 3y ago
    I like how every possible solution involving treating poor folks equally to rich folks under the law is an "extreme".
- 3y ago

janalsncm 3y ago

As inequality becomes more stark, this is what it looks like. Stores need to increase their security because more people did the cost/benefit of stealing and chose to steal. This cost of security or in extreme cases forced store closures is the price of systemic inequality. Or in other words, the dividends of having a large, stable middle class can’t be cashed in everywhere.

Reubend 3y ago
I don't think this is a result of inequality. I think it's a complex mixture of local policies, culture, large scale criminal groups seeking profits, etc. Inequality is certainly a factor! But ultimately, large criminal organizations are turning shoplifting into a business. I don't think that efforts to support a "large, stable middle class" will help much with that.

Nifty3929 3y ago

It’s not just a question of how much is stolen. Compounding the problem are the 2nd order effects: putting toothpaste behind a cage, general deterioration of conditions, employee morale. All of these things and more are a consequence of theft and drive customers and employees away, and affect the business value of the store, but don’t show up in “shrinkage” numbers.

mensetmanusman 3y ago

One solution is to follow the northern European approach and remove criminals from broader society and teach them how to live in homes together with basic life skills and responsibilities (with no escape from the island). The US could set up an internal Australian where people are sent to learn to live proper community life away from distraction. This of course would be after institutionalizing the mentally ill.