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The whole retail theft epidemic (and the ensuing Union Pacific cargo theft ) was a corporate scam perpetrated by local news and law enforcement PR departments.

jnwatson 5mo ago
It wasn't at all. There's still a serious problem with shoplifting. Wal-mart would not be removing self-checkout if this were just a PR campaign. At my local CVS, they just started locking up the bulk candy. You don't take the the sales hit and the expense of those locking cabinets unless you have a real shrinkage problem.
- mrguyorama 5mo ago
  >Wal-mart would not be removing self-checkout if this were just a PR campaign They absolutely would. Shrink has not gone up The National Retail Federation, which publishes those numbers yearly, has stopped publishing those numbers to hide that fact. There are real shoplifting problems but they are extremely local. Your local police department needs to stand up and do their fucking jobs to identify and take down the organized crime perpetuating it.
- api 5mo ago
  I would not have believed the shoplifting thing if I hadn’t seen it. Walked into a CVS midday in SF. There were even cops not far away. Poor rent a cop in there is just yelling “police have been called” while three or four people are roaming around grabbing stuff and putting it in black bags. The rest of the shoppers are going about their business, so I do too. I figure if the robbers mess with a shopper or anyone else that’s felony assault and that breaks the grift. The grift is to rip cheaper stuff they can resell but below certain thresholds. Was pretty sure they’d have no weapons too since that would make it a felony. By the time I’m checking out with my melatonin gummies and toothpaste they’re taking off. I can break one stereotype though. They were white. They were wearing masks but looked like probably white teenage dudes. I mean why not. Teen hormones and free money. It was surreal in a way I’m not describing well here. People were not even reacting.
snovv_crash 5mo ago
I heard it was organised crime loading up on stuff it could sell at informal locations.
richwater 5mo ago
This is willful (intentional) ignorance.
- tardedmeme 5mo ago
  No, it really was a hoax perpetuated by companies that want to sell security services to retail chains and other groups that want more police funding. https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2024/01/the-shoplifting-epidemic-is-a-lie https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2024/01/the-shoplifting-... Like how Cloudflare wants you to think every unprotected website gets DDoSed.
- stevenwoo 5mo ago
  Have you ever read any investigative journalism about those crime stories? Or about local crime news via papers and television? Those two news sources are starved for news stories and law enforcement agencies have well funded PR arms (one should wonder why this is) and their associated affiliated unions/associations are quite eager to become the primary(only sometimes) sources for news (one should wonder why this is true for stories even from supposedly neutral reporting like AP and NPR). Theft has existed since there has been trading - we see plenty of examples of this with nesting/courting animals with rocks and sticks, but this "crime wave" whenever the USA status quo of law enforcement/prison industrial complex is threatened or new prisons/private prisons need to be justified is blatantly obvious.

jnwatson 5mo ago

It wasn't at all. There's still a serious problem with shoplifting. Wal-mart would not be removing self-checkout if this were just a PR campaign. At my local CVS, they just started locking up the bulk candy. You don't take the the sales hit and the expense of those locking cabinets unless you have a real shrinkage problem.

mrguyorama 5mo ago
>Wal-mart would not be removing self-checkout if this were just a PR campaign They absolutely would. Shrink has not gone up The National Retail Federation, which publishes those numbers yearly, has stopped publishing those numbers to hide that fact. There are real shoplifting problems but they are extremely local. Your local police department needs to stand up and do their fucking jobs to identify and take down the organized crime perpetuating it.
api 5mo ago
I would not have believed the shoplifting thing if I hadn’t seen it. Walked into a CVS midday in SF. There were even cops not far away. Poor rent a cop in there is just yelling “police have been called” while three or four people are roaming around grabbing stuff and putting it in black bags. The rest of the shoppers are going about their business, so I do too. I figure if the robbers mess with a shopper or anyone else that’s felony assault and that breaks the grift. The grift is to rip cheaper stuff they can resell but below certain thresholds. Was pretty sure they’d have no weapons too since that would make it a felony. By the time I’m checking out with my melatonin gummies and toothpaste they’re taking off. I can break one stereotype though. They were white. They were wearing masks but looked like probably white teenage dudes. I mean why not. Teen hormones and free money. It was surreal in a way I’m not describing well here. People were not even reacting.

snovv_crash 5mo ago

I heard it was organised crime loading up on stuff it could sell at informal locations.

richwater 5mo ago

This is willful (intentional) ignorance.

tardedmeme 5mo ago
No, it really was a hoax perpetuated by companies that want to sell security services to retail chains and other groups that want more police funding. https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2024/01/the-shoplifting-epidemic-is-a-lie https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2024/01/the-shoplifting-... Like how Cloudflare wants you to think every unprotected website gets DDoSed.
stevenwoo 5mo ago
Have you ever read any investigative journalism about those crime stories? Or about local crime news via papers and television? Those two news sources are starved for news stories and law enforcement agencies have well funded PR arms (one should wonder why this is) and their associated affiliated unions/associations are quite eager to become the primary(only sometimes) sources for news (one should wonder why this is true for stories even from supposedly neutral reporting like AP and NPR). Theft has existed since there has been trading - we see plenty of examples of this with nesting/courting animals with rocks and sticks, but this "crime wave" whenever the USA status quo of law enforcement/prison industrial complex is threatened or new prisons/private prisons need to be justified is blatantly obvious.