2y ago

This isn't theft of need. A more insidious type of crime is pushing some stores to close

www.cnn.com This isn't theft of need. A more insidious type of crime is pushing some stores to close | CNN Business

Target’s decision to close nine of its stores in major cities, citing persistent large-scale theft at those locations, is the latest signal that retailers may be struggling in their battle to contain a growing and dangerous problem.

41 comments

I don't care at all about this. I hope people steal every last thing off the shelf of WalMart and Target.
- I sort of understand that impulse, but you're just going to be left with an even more giant Amazon overlord if you don't have proper competition in brick and mortar.
  
  Hopefully not now that the FCC sued them and wants to break up Amazon. We could turn a Walmart our target into housing for the homeless, or split it up and create shopping centers for cheap so people can open their own shops.
  
  Then we start stealing from Amazon
- Who needs neighborhood supermarkets or drug stores anyway?
  
  Wouldn't Target and Walmart disappearing just open the market for a locally owned small business, or maybe even multiple, to take their place?
  Doesn't need to be a corporation that fills that niche.
- Jesus. And who do you think will come fill in the blast crater?
  
  I think people will simply do without. Such businesses are not profitable without massive public subsidies for the workers, anyway. Good riddance.

The greatest theft which is causing thousands of stores to close is called rent-inflation, only that stuff is 100% legal because the politicians themselves often get more income from their "realestate investor" side occupation that from politics.

When the people see the rich getting away with crimes against humanity, the little crimes seem way less important.

I work at a community mental health center in a major urban area and this affords me a lot of contact with the lower-SES people in my area. While not many, I do know of some of our clientele who engage in this sort of "flash robbery"-style theft, wherein they'll go into a store with a group of people (while the store is open) and just start walking out with merchandise, not even bothering to hide it. The stores security personnel are under strict orders to not physically intervene, due to the potential for lawsuits against either the store or its security company, and so all they can do is call the police. These sorts of operations are always done in mere minutes, so the police never get there in time, and they're often not even called. The stores have policies that essentially require them to eat the loss and just try to make it up, which obviously they're failing at as these kinds of burglaries become more common.
I'm sure it's not just poor people doing this crap, but the ones in my community that are definitely are not doing it out of need. From what I've seen, these are also the type of people that everyone in their community tends to hate, the "trashy" people that make neighborhoods bad places to live. They have poor emotional control, get into arguments easily, pick unnecessary fights, etc. Also worth noting, although I'm sure this isn't representative of the overall trend: all of the people I know of in my clinic's population that do this are women.
It's a very serious problem, because it's obviously much more economical for these companies to simply close down the burgled stores and open up new ones in areas with lower crime and lower rent, which ultimately just harms the poor communities they move out of, making them poorer and less attractive to other retailers. So, a very tiny group of thieves can harm their entire community in some pretty severe and systemic ways. Sadly, i think the best solution would be for cities to increase police presence in major shopping areas, which will cost taxpayers rather than corporations, but it's ultimately for the good of the affected communities and the cities as a whole.
- Who is downvoting this?
  Certain items are being stolen to be resold. This isn't about someone stealing food to feed their kids or unable to afford tampons or pads. Name brand dish detergent and other stuff gets stolen and then resold as the "fell off a truck" at a discount. There are also people who steal on demand, basically personal shoppers but they don't pay for it.
  I have no idea what the answer is but the comments here that say they hope everything is stolen from wmt, tgt, etc shows unfathomable ignorance as to what happens when stores close and not only do people lose their jobs, the area becomes a food desert if that was the only place to shop for those without reliable transportation.
  
  Who is downvoting this?
  I've noticed the downvotes too and I suspect there's a sizable number of lemmings here who are so anti-capitalist/anti-corporation that they think flash-thefts and smash-and-grab raids are good things, don't understand how these crimes harm the communities they take place in way more than they harm the companies being burgled, and downvote anything that pokes a hole in their tiny worldview. It's one of the shittier parts of the Lemmy community that I've been putting up with so far.
  
  You say people are stealing to resale these items like that is just a normal job prospect. People don’t steal unless in a serious situation or mental illness period, full stop.
  What would it take for you to wake up in the morning and decide to steal a bunch of stuff and try to resell it? How desperate would you have to be? What makes you think these people are any different?
  When people are safe, comfortable, happy, healthy, all needs are met, and some of their wants they don’t resort to desperate measures. The theft is merely a symptom of the bigger issue.
- Bring back community policing
  
  That to me seems like it would turn it to vigilantism fast, and that's exactly what maga wants though... thats why they walk around with their open carry, intimidate people they don't THINK belong and feel like a slippery slope...
- Yeah the people who are responding to this saying "who cares, it's just corporations being harmed" are thinking too small picture. The corporations aren't going even harmed that much by this, not on a global scale, they'll just shut down the most affected stores. Then who suffers? All the residents of those communities.
  Look, I don't like big mega corps like Target and Walmart, but the fact is that they can afford to sell goods to people at way lower prices than small retailers. Don't misunderstand me, I know that's because they've put a stranglehold around suppliers and built giant monopolies, but the effect is the same. The world would be a much better place if giant retail monopolies all disappeared, but it would have terrible consequences for them to only dissappear from the poorest and most crime laden communities
- Uhm .. it's called dystopia.. read up on it. 😋
  Isn't this how the book Ready Player One worked? Everything outside a metroplex was a lawless wasteland.
  
  That's not what a dystopia is. It sounds like you need to read up on it a bit more.
  At least two things are at play here.
  Personal shoppers but they steal instead of paying for it
  Items like tide detergent getting stolen and resold.

I actually assumed the Target in downtown Seattle was one of the ones closing. I was unaware there even was one in the U-District. I could easily see a lot of theft there.
I'm a little surprised about the one in Ballard. While that spot is not exactly the epitome of high class, it is far from dangerous and does not have a large amount of homeless anymore. This kind of makes me think that revenue is shit and they are just using theft and safety as an excuse. If it was really about that, the one downtown would be closing instead.

ORC wrangling is sort of fun. They think they get away with it but then get involved in a police blitz and go to jail for quite a while. What happens is They police and store asset protection / loss prevention allow them to steal products until they hit the federal $ limit to be a federal crime. A blitz occurs and they get funneled to police waiting outside to arrest them. I’ve probably seen 5 ORC rings busted using this method.

Retail theft isn't really increasing or that high. This is the excuse companies give to close stores in underserved (poor) areas do they can focus on opening stores where they can make more money.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/26/organized-retail-crime-and-theft-not-increasing-much-nrf-study-finds.html
They get videos of a flashy theft and then blast them across the Internet & TV.
It's especially telling since in the OP article they even say they're not going to give data to actually back up their claims.
- From your source:
  It’s not necessarily the amount of theft taking place that most concerns the industry, but rather the increased violence associated with it.
  Sixty-seven percent of respondents reported more violence associated with organized retail crime than a year ago. In the last survey, 81% reported an increase in violence.
  Meanwhile, 45% of retailers in the survey said they have reduced specific store hours to deal with crime and violence, nearly 30% said they somehow changed store product selection, and 28% reported closing a specific location because of crime.

41 comments