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I would normally be appalled by this, but... Slate couldn't find 1 person who felt coerced? I kept expecting them to have someone claim to have paid because he
by latch 12y ago
I would normally be appalled by this, but...
Slate couldn't find 1 person who felt coerced? I kept expecting them to have someone claim to have paid because he or she felt traped, but nada.
Related, while security guards might not always right, there's nothing in here that says that the choice is offered to every suspect. Maybe they only offer it to people who clearly shoplifted. The author tried, and failed, to get comment from retailers.
Those are two big missing pieces, imp.
Finally, being particularly cynical today, don't see why law enforcement should have a monopoly on coercion.
- jacquesm 12y agoThe people that paid up were paying to see the end of it, not to get interviewed afterwards. Of course they would stay the course and still want to make it go away. Going on the record to say they felt coerced would be counter to that.
- konstruktor 12y agoThey have also signed admissions of guilt, which makes them very vulnerable.
- latch 12y agoMaybe it's just an issue of scale, but there are plenty of concrete cases where people speak out against coercion (either by law enforcement of private entities, like banks). I agree the system can be abused, but I don't think it's unreasonable to want to know how widespread the abuse is. I think the author failed to provide that. Saying that, it's now clear to me that CEC is also failing in this respect. What system do they have in place to make sure people aren't being coerced? The hands-off approach is rather convenient to not having to be accountable.
- markvdb 12y agoThe people alleged to be shoplifters might have to sign a kind of NDA as a part of this settlement...