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Reading the comments here, I’m left feeling like I’ve misunderstood this article. But I’ve now reread it three times and came to the same conclusion: this artic

Reading the comments here, I’m left feeling like I’ve misunderstood this article. But I’ve now reread it three times and came to the same conclusion: this article does not say crime statistics were exaggerated. Could someone help me understand what I’m missing? If I’m reading it correctly, they exaggerated the amount of _organized_ crime. This article seems to say the amount of shoplifting that was attributable to organized crime was 5% when originally they claimed it was 50%. My understanding from that is that we originally estimated disorganized shoplifting to be less than 50% of missing merchandise, and organized crime was making up at least half. In other words, the crime statistics are the same, but it’s actually randos walking into a CVS and stealing stuff. That doesn’t seem like it is better?

HideousKojima 3y ago
>That doesn’t seem like it is better? It will lead to more people saying things along the lines of "They're only stealing so they can feed their families (oh and by the way this is "capitalism's" fault you should totally support the socialist/communist policies that I do)" but yeah otherwise it doesn't change the facts on the ground much.
inerte 3y ago
It’s still theft, sure. The point of the article is to contrast the police and lawmakers reaction based on wrong data. It’s a convenient story for police budgets and fear based politicians, and also much ado about nothing. Edit: not that the thefts are nothing, but there is no surge, increase, things are not getting worse, thieves are not bolder, etc…
iudqnolq 3y ago
The industry uses a very amorphous metric called "shrink". It's the total delta between inventory the computer says should be there and inventory actually there. It includes product mistracked or mislaid and sometimes even includes product deliberately discarded for economic reasons. Shrink has always been 1-2% of sales, and retailers have long decided it isn't worth it to spend a lot to try and push the number lower.
devmor 3y ago
It’s not better, but the underlying cause of the situation is entirely different, meaning the solution to the problem probably has to be different. If it was organized crime, the likely answer is investigations and law enforcement presence. You would have specific centralized targets to take out and restore order. If it’s instead a widespread epidemic of individual shoplifting, the issue is going to be social (or likely socioeconomic, in any reasonable guess) and probably requires a complex solution that is way out of the hands of what retailers can reliably put resources towards. This is important information for the businesses, their shareholders, the communities they are located in, the politicians serving those communities and likely many other minor interested parties.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
alright2565 3y ago
The reason they're focusing on organized crime is due to media attention on really brazen mob shoplifting in places like San Francisco. Certain media outlets are interested in making major cities, which lean left, to appear to be lawless hellholes in order to gather support for anti-leftist policy and candidates.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  There is the flashy flash mob videos that make for good news media. But a lot of organized shoplifting is more like some fence giving drug addicts a list of stuff to walk out of Target with. It’s organized in the sense that a fence is getting a group of people (who are otherwise freelancers) to steal specific things that they can easily exchange for drugs. There is also the right wing exaggeration, but at the same time if you live in Ballard of Seattle, you’ll see it happen at least weekly, if not more. Whether it’s organized or not is more of a behind scenes thing.
  - PM_me_your_math 3y ago
    [dead]
aeturnum 3y ago
You have misread the article, I believe. The article opens with this quote: "The National Retail Federation earlier this month retracted its April assertion that nearly half of the $94.5 billion in merchandise that went missing in 2021 was stolen by retail rings." It later clarifies that the $94.5 billion number that the NRF used is the "total shrinkage" - i.e. all unexpected inventory loss including theft (but not just theft). > "Overall shrink accounted for $112.1 billion in losses in 2022, up from $93.9 billion in 2021 [This is where the $94.5 billion number comes from I believe]. Internal and external theft of all kinds, “on par with previous years,” accounted for about two-thirds — or $73 billion — of retailers’ shrinkage" So they released a statement that implied that theft was up ~28% year over year (by using total shrinkage instead of the theft numbers), and that organized groups were responsible for half of the total theft. The truth is that theft was more or less the same as last year.

HideousKojima 3y ago

>That doesn’t seem like it is better? It will lead to more people saying things along the lines of "They're only stealing so they can feed their families (oh and by the way this is "capitalism's" fault you should totally support the socialist/communist policies that I do)" but yeah otherwise it doesn't change the facts on the ground much.

inerte 3y ago

It’s still theft, sure. The point of the article is to contrast the police and lawmakers reaction based on wrong data. It’s a convenient story for police budgets and fear based politicians, and also much ado about nothing. Edit: not that the thefts are nothing, but there is no surge, increase, things are not getting worse, thieves are not bolder, etc…

iudqnolq 3y ago

The industry uses a very amorphous metric called "shrink". It's the total delta between inventory the computer says should be there and inventory actually there. It includes product mistracked or mislaid and sometimes even includes product deliberately discarded for economic reasons. Shrink has always been 1-2% of sales, and retailers have long decided it isn't worth it to spend a lot to try and push the number lower.

devmor 3y ago

It’s not better, but the underlying cause of the situation is entirely different, meaning the solution to the problem probably has to be different. If it was organized crime, the likely answer is investigations and law enforcement presence. You would have specific centralized targets to take out and restore order. If it’s instead a widespread epidemic of individual shoplifting, the issue is going to be social (or likely socioeconomic, in any reasonable guess) and probably requires a complex solution that is way out of the hands of what retailers can reliably put resources towards. This is important information for the businesses, their shareholders, the communities they are located in, the politicians serving those communities and likely many other minor interested parties.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

alright2565 3y ago

The reason they're focusing on organized crime is due to media attention on really brazen mob shoplifting in places like San Francisco. Certain media outlets are interested in making major cities, which lean left, to appear to be lawless hellholes in order to gather support for anti-leftist policy and candidates.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
There is the flashy flash mob videos that make for good news media. But a lot of organized shoplifting is more like some fence giving drug addicts a list of stuff to walk out of Target with. It’s organized in the sense that a fence is getting a group of people (who are otherwise freelancers) to steal specific things that they can easily exchange for drugs. There is also the right wing exaggeration, but at the same time if you live in Ballard of Seattle, you’ll see it happen at least weekly, if not more. Whether it’s organized or not is more of a behind scenes thing.
- PM_me_your_math 3y ago
  [dead]

aeturnum 3y ago

You have misread the article, I believe. The article opens with this quote: "The National Retail Federation earlier this month retracted its April assertion that nearly half of the $94.5 billion in merchandise that went missing in 2021 was stolen by retail rings." It later clarifies that the $94.5 billion number that the NRF used is the "total shrinkage" - i.e. all unexpected inventory loss including theft (but not just theft). > "Overall shrink accounted for $112.1 billion in losses in 2022, up from $93.9 billion in 2021 [This is where the $94.5 billion number comes from I believe]. Internal and external theft of all kinds, “on par with previous years,” accounted for about two-thirds — or $73 billion — of retailers’ shrinkage" So they released a statement that implied that theft was up ~28% year over year (by using total shrinkage instead of the theft numbers), and that organized groups were responsible for half of the total theft. The truth is that theft was more or less the same as last year.