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>Are you really so focused on just this one sort of crime, or does your opinion extend equally to all other crimes? In the US, there are thousands of crimes on

>Are you really so focused on just this one sort of crime, or does your opinion extend equally to all other crimes? In the US, there are thousands of crimes on the books, which are not enforced and are ridiculous [1]. So no, I do not think that all crimes should be punished. >So why must all shoplifting by punished, with the police doing most of the work at the store? This is a loaded question. I don't think the police should be doing most of the work at the store, but I think the police should take the apprehended criminals from the store when called. And DAs should prosecute those, and the judges should try them, that's all. Nothing of this happens right now. This is why stores do not try to apprehend criminals as the same police, DA and judges will happily go after the business and its employees if the criminal is hurt in the process or claims to be hurt[2]. 1. https://www.distractify.com/p/ridiculous-laws https://www.distractify.com/p/ridiculous-laws 2. https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/11/us/new-york-bodega-stabbing-murder-charges/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/11/us/new-york-bodega-stabbing-m...

eesmith 3y ago
Since I meant to be serious, and not present a sophomoric straw man, let's narrow things down to a specific example I gave: Which should police investigate more - shoplifting from Walmart or wage theft at Walmart, and why? My question is meant to probe what goes into your decision to prioritize investigating two related types of crime which can both take place at Walmart. It is meant to be more head-to-head than jliptzin's series of questions early in this thread "Someone want to explain to me why my tax dollars should go towards protecting target and Walgreen’s inventory? When they have one security guard in their entire store? When police could instead be spending that time finding the driver of the truck that smashed into my car and drove away?". How is your [2] at all related to shoplifting? It feels like you are trying to raise the emotional level by switching to manslaughter. This alternative topic has consumed endless discussion over the years. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_New_York_City_Subway_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_New_York_City_Subway_shoo... and https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-12-16-8604030893-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-12-16-860403... from the 1980s as two examples. NYC has had a long time to refine how to handle something like your [2], and there is no way it makes sense to discuss it futher here. > I don't think the police should be doing most of the work at the store, but I think the police should take the apprehended criminals from the store when called. Right, but the top-level topic centers more about Target is locking things up, and how shoplifters can grab-and-run, and why Walgreens seems to only have "one security guard in their entire store". Larger companies already expect "shrink" (theft by employees and customers) and factor it into their calculations of how much staff to have, how much security to have, the effect of locking up particular items, the use of self-checkout vs. cashiers, etc. They have long ago figured out how to maximize profit in the face of shoplifting. In your terms, Walmart already allows crime to go unpunished because they don't want to spend enough to identify those crimes. The police response - no matter how good! - is rather useless if over-worked employees don't notice the shoplifting so never contact the police, or if the police physically can't arrive until many minutes after the thieves have left. Low wage employees of large companies, as a general rule, do not get paid to risk bodily harm to stop thieves. Your [2] is a rare exception, ... and also not an employee of a large company. In general discussion, the argument is the city should direct the police to do more to help prevent shoplifting. Which means the big companies will go to their spreadsheets and figure out how to spend even less money on security and staff, ending up with more profit as the government ends up subsidizing their security.
- pandaman 3y ago
  You are using the term "straw man" but I don't think you understand what it means. The discussion so far: "Why police should prosecute theft in Walmart?", "Because Walmart pays taxes", "Are you sure (some examples of Walmart avoiding paying some federal taxes)", "Yes, these examples are irrelevant". Now enter you "There are other crimes that are not prosecuted, tax avoidance, wage theft blah blah blah" and then you proceed to accuse me in straw-manning, from what I understand. You might be serious in your mind but you are not making such an impression on me, sorry.
  - eesmith 3y ago
    Ahh, I see. You read jliptzin series of questions: > Someone want to explain to me why my tax dollars should go towards protecting target and Walgreen’s inventory? When they have one security guard in their entire store? When police could instead be spending that time finding the driver of the truck that smashed into my car and drove away? As saying the police should not prosecute theft in Walmart at all. That seems an extreme and unjustified reading - a "straw man", if you will. I read it as a complaint that these stores are not paying enough for their own security, so why should should cops help Walgreen’s inventory when they don't even help "finding the driver of the truck that smashed into my car and drove away" even after "I gave police the license # of the truck that hit me, but they said it was an out of state plate so they said there was "nothing they could do."" (quoting https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38763356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38763356) jliptzin pays taxes, so should get support from the police for property damage on the order of hundreds of dollars, just like Walgreens/Walmart can get support from the police for shoplifting something which costs a few tens of dollars, right? I also wanted to focus on the question "probably more than you do?" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38759837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38759837 . In terms of "taxes per acre", jliptzin almost certainly pays more than Walmart. Choosing to prioritize total tax revenue vs. taxes per acre gives a very different metric about which of those two crimes - car crash or shoplifting - to prioritize.
jliptzin 3y ago
When I set up a public-facing web server, I take every precaution to make theft of my data (and my customers) as difficult as possible for thieves. Firewalls, frequent security patches, defensive programming, etc. Walmart and others seem to do the opposite. They fire cashiers and install self checkout lanes that are so hard to use that even honest people end up shoplifting accidentally, I can’t even imagine how much theft dishonest people are able to get away with. They have the antitheft alarms at the exits but whenever they go off, 90% of the time there’s no security guard to deal with it or employees just don’t care. So, it’s clear they don’t take it seriously. I don’t run my servers on Windows XP and allow anyone in the world to connect on any port and leave my database open with no authentication controls and then complain when the police aren’t arresting every person who is stealing my data.
- pandaman 3y ago
  I am pretty sure Walmart does the same with their webservers. I am also pretty sure that your home is less secure than a Walmart store, for one Walmart has armed guards and your home does not. Will you apply your reasoning to yourself and won't complain when your home is robbed eventually? As I said in another reply, there is nothing a store can do against theft if the police, DA and courts do not enforce the law. Private business cannot arrest and punish criminals.
  - jliptzin 3y ago
    I don’t leave my front door wide open and let people walk out with my TV while the alarm goes off and don’t even try to stop it from happening…so no, I am not expecting to get robbed. I have cameras at every entrance and window and always keep my doors locked. The point is, they don’t make a serious attempt to stop shoplifting, because they want it to be as frictionless as possible for their customers. In theory they could lock up every item in the store and require an employee to unlock a cabinet every time a customer wants something, but obviously that creates so much friction that it would greatly reduce sales. So it’s a trade off. They’ve chosen the end of the sliding scale where almost all merchandise is freely available for customers to take off the shelves with very limited oversight, coupled with self check out lanes so they don’t have to hire as many cashiers. They know full well that some people are stuffing merchandise into their pockets and not scanning everything at the check out lanes and that tradeoff is clearly working for them because their annual profit is higher than ever: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/gross-profit#:~:text=Walmart%20gross%20profit%20for%20the%20twelve%20months%20ending%20October%2031,a%203.54%25%20increase%20from%202021 https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/gross-.... So no, I don’t think Walmart and others have any problem with shoplifters whatsoever, and I certainly don’t think that my tax dollars should go towards trying to catch every last person who steals a tooth brush from Walmart when they have little to no interest in making any kind of investment in curtailing shoplifting themselves. It sounds like you’re in favor of Walmart maximizing their private profits by making it as easy as possible to buy their merchandise (so easy in fact that you can find yourself stealing something accidentally!), making no effort whatsoever in theft prevention in their stores, and then putting the burden of enforcement on the public dime, which is a curious position - are you a large Walmart shareholder? If there’s a particular store that is having too much stolen from them by shoplifters, they are more than welcome to shut it down and make way for a local business who I can assure you will be way more careful with its merchandise. I am 100% in favor of that. When we’ve solved every murder and violent crime, then we can get to Walmart shoplifters.

eesmith 3y ago

Since I meant to be serious, and not present a sophomoric straw man, let's narrow things down to a specific example I gave: Which should police investigate more - shoplifting from Walmart or wage theft at Walmart, and why? My question is meant to probe what goes into your decision to prioritize investigating two related types of crime which can both take place at Walmart. It is meant to be more head-to-head than jliptzin's series of questions early in this thread "Someone want to explain to me why my tax dollars should go towards protecting target and Walgreen’s inventory? When they have one security guard in their entire store? When police could instead be spending that time finding the driver of the truck that smashed into my car and drove away?". How is your [2] at all related to shoplifting? It feels like you are trying to raise the emotional level by switching to manslaughter. This alternative topic has consumed endless discussion over the years. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_New_York_City_Subway_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_New_York_City_Subway_shoo... and https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-12-16-8604030893-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-12-16-860403... from the 1980s as two examples. NYC has had a long time to refine how to handle something like your [2], and there is no way it makes sense to discuss it futher here. > I don't think the police should be doing most of the work at the store, but I think the police should take the apprehended criminals from the store when called. Right, but the top-level topic centers more about Target is locking things up, and how shoplifters can grab-and-run, and why Walgreens seems to only have "one security guard in their entire store". Larger companies already expect "shrink" (theft by employees and customers) and factor it into their calculations of how much staff to have, how much security to have, the effect of locking up particular items, the use of self-checkout vs. cashiers, etc. They have long ago figured out how to maximize profit in the face of shoplifting. In your terms, Walmart already allows crime to go unpunished because they don't want to spend enough to identify those crimes. The police response - no matter how good! - is rather useless if over-worked employees don't notice the shoplifting so never contact the police, or if the police physically can't arrive until many minutes after the thieves have left. Low wage employees of large companies, as a general rule, do not get paid to risk bodily harm to stop thieves. Your [2] is a rare exception, ... and also not an employee of a large company. In general discussion, the argument is the city should direct the police to do more to help prevent shoplifting. Which means the big companies will go to their spreadsheets and figure out how to spend even less money on security and staff, ending up with more profit as the government ends up subsidizing their security.

pandaman 3y ago
You are using the term "straw man" but I don't think you understand what it means. The discussion so far: "Why police should prosecute theft in Walmart?", "Because Walmart pays taxes", "Are you sure (some examples of Walmart avoiding paying some federal taxes)", "Yes, these examples are irrelevant". Now enter you "There are other crimes that are not prosecuted, tax avoidance, wage theft blah blah blah" and then you proceed to accuse me in straw-manning, from what I understand. You might be serious in your mind but you are not making such an impression on me, sorry.
- eesmith 3y ago
  Ahh, I see. You read jliptzin series of questions: > Someone want to explain to me why my tax dollars should go towards protecting target and Walgreen’s inventory? When they have one security guard in their entire store? When police could instead be spending that time finding the driver of the truck that smashed into my car and drove away? As saying the police should not prosecute theft in Walmart at all. That seems an extreme and unjustified reading - a "straw man", if you will. I read it as a complaint that these stores are not paying enough for their own security, so why should should cops help Walgreen’s inventory when they don't even help "finding the driver of the truck that smashed into my car and drove away" even after "I gave police the license # of the truck that hit me, but they said it was an out of state plate so they said there was "nothing they could do."" (quoting https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38763356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38763356) jliptzin pays taxes, so should get support from the police for property damage on the order of hundreds of dollars, just like Walgreens/Walmart can get support from the police for shoplifting something which costs a few tens of dollars, right? I also wanted to focus on the question "probably more than you do?" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38759837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38759837 . In terms of "taxes per acre", jliptzin almost certainly pays more than Walmart. Choosing to prioritize total tax revenue vs. taxes per acre gives a very different metric about which of those two crimes - car crash or shoplifting - to prioritize.

jliptzin 3y ago

When I set up a public-facing web server, I take every precaution to make theft of my data (and my customers) as difficult as possible for thieves. Firewalls, frequent security patches, defensive programming, etc. Walmart and others seem to do the opposite. They fire cashiers and install self checkout lanes that are so hard to use that even honest people end up shoplifting accidentally, I can’t even imagine how much theft dishonest people are able to get away with. They have the antitheft alarms at the exits but whenever they go off, 90% of the time there’s no security guard to deal with it or employees just don’t care. So, it’s clear they don’t take it seriously. I don’t run my servers on Windows XP and allow anyone in the world to connect on any port and leave my database open with no authentication controls and then complain when the police aren’t arresting every person who is stealing my data.

pandaman 3y ago
I am pretty sure Walmart does the same with their webservers. I am also pretty sure that your home is less secure than a Walmart store, for one Walmart has armed guards and your home does not. Will you apply your reasoning to yourself and won't complain when your home is robbed eventually? As I said in another reply, there is nothing a store can do against theft if the police, DA and courts do not enforce the law. Private business cannot arrest and punish criminals.
- jliptzin 3y ago
  I don’t leave my front door wide open and let people walk out with my TV while the alarm goes off and don’t even try to stop it from happening…so no, I am not expecting to get robbed. I have cameras at every entrance and window and always keep my doors locked. The point is, they don’t make a serious attempt to stop shoplifting, because they want it to be as frictionless as possible for their customers. In theory they could lock up every item in the store and require an employee to unlock a cabinet every time a customer wants something, but obviously that creates so much friction that it would greatly reduce sales. So it’s a trade off. They’ve chosen the end of the sliding scale where almost all merchandise is freely available for customers to take off the shelves with very limited oversight, coupled with self check out lanes so they don’t have to hire as many cashiers. They know full well that some people are stuffing merchandise into their pockets and not scanning everything at the check out lanes and that tradeoff is clearly working for them because their annual profit is higher than ever: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/gross-profit#:~:text=Walmart%20gross%20profit%20for%20the%20twelve%20months%20ending%20October%2031,a%203.54%25%20increase%20from%202021 https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/gross-.... So no, I don’t think Walmart and others have any problem with shoplifters whatsoever, and I certainly don’t think that my tax dollars should go towards trying to catch every last person who steals a tooth brush from Walmart when they have little to no interest in making any kind of investment in curtailing shoplifting themselves. It sounds like you’re in favor of Walmart maximizing their private profits by making it as easy as possible to buy their merchandise (so easy in fact that you can find yourself stealing something accidentally!), making no effort whatsoever in theft prevention in their stores, and then putting the burden of enforcement on the public dime, which is a curious position - are you a large Walmart shareholder? If there’s a particular store that is having too much stolen from them by shoplifters, they are more than welcome to shut it down and make way for a local business who I can assure you will be way more careful with its merchandise. I am 100% in favor of that. When we’ve solved every murder and violent crime, then we can get to Walmart shoplifters.