this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024

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521

The shoplifting scare might not have been real — but its effects are (www.vox.com)

submitted 8 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

78 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It turns out shoplifting isn’t spiraling out of control, but lawmakers are pushing for tougher penalties for low-level and nonviolent crimes anyway.

Over the last couple of years, it seemed that America was experiencing a shoplifting epidemic. Videos of people brazenly stealing merchandise from retailers often went viral; chains closed some of their stores and cited a rise in theft as the primary reason; and drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens started locking up more of their inventory, including everyday items like toothpaste, soaps, and snacks. Lawmakers from both major parties called for, and in some cases even implemented, more punitive law enforcement policies aimed at bucking the apparent trend.

But evidence of a spike in shoplifting, it turns out, was mostly anecdotal. In fact, there’s little data to suggest that there’s a nationwide problem in need of an immediate response from city councils or state legislatures. Instead, what America seems to be experiencing is less of a shoplifting wave and more of a moral panic.

…

Now, those more forgiving criminal justice policies are at risk, in part because of a perceived trend that appears to have been overblown.

(page 2) 29 comments

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[–] reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Fuck these scum bag companies

[–] sndmn@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 months ago

The vast majority of retail theft is by employees not customers.

[–] xantoxis@lemmy.world 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean yeah, what did you think the point of this lie was in the first place?

[–] JustMy2c@lemm.ee 0 points 8 months ago

I mean yeah, what did you think the point of this lie was in the first place?

[–] Habahnow@sh.itjust.works -4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think this article is alright but doesn't quite address an important issue: for the cities that are encountering increased shoplifting, do we have an idea why? As the article states, most cities saw a decrease in shoplifting when compared to their lowest numbers before things got weird (usually around 2019, before the pandemic). Some important exception were Los Angeles and New York which have seen increased shoplifting numbers. So the idea that shoplifting has increased is technically true in at least those 2 cities. The council on Criminal Justice report, linked in the vox article, provides some of the following information on what may be the why:

It is possible that the growth in incidents in the three cities with the largest increases could be related to shoplifting “specialists,” such as those highlighted by New York City Mayor Eric Adams earlier this year.10 A small group of individuals committing a large share of offenses is a common finding in criminological research11 However, it is unclear why a group of specialists would drive such a large increase during this period compared to the pre-pandemic period. Bail reform is one possible explanation, yet the timing of the reform (at least in New York) does not align with the shoplifting increase, and research suggests that bail reform likely has no association with increased larceny.12 Another possibility is a change in the rate at which stores report shoplifting to police. This analysis is based solely on reported shoplifting incidents; the underreporting of shoplifting has yet to be systematically analyzed. However, data from the Anaheim (California) Police Department indicate that a major retailer reported 8% of shoplifting incidents in 2022 and 20% in 2023.13 According to one report, a spike in San Francisco shoplifting may have resulted from increased reporting.14 If retailers in some cities increased reporting, then that would increase the count of shoplifting offenses even if there was no actual increase. Researchers can use the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to gauge if reporting levels have changed for crimes that involve people or their possessions.15 But businesses are not included in the NCVS sample. In addition, the National Retail Security Survey does not provide data on the share of incidents reported to police.16

Sadly, it seems that we don't have a concrete reason for the increased shoplifting in select cities.

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[+] Dio@lemy.lol -74 points 8 months ago (9 children)

"Over the last couple of years, it seemed that America was experiencing a shoplifting epidemic."

You are, it seems to be obvious to everyone except some of you in your own country.

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online -3 points 8 months ago

I don't know if the facts in this article are strictly speaking true or not, but it is definitely written in a weasle-worded manner that is quite off-putting to have to read. e.g., it seems to be cherry-picking what it says vs. does not say. For one thing, despite how corporations have been shown to continually lie about this entire affair - closing down stores that are hundreds of miles away from the sites where the looting happened, while still citing that as their justification; which increases the number, size, and severity of "food deserts" where poor people have greatly reduced access to basic goods & services - yet now we are to take them at their word and use their "data" that they provide to us, over and above the (anecdotal) actual evidence that we have seen with our very own eyes (although...how CURRENT is the latter data? it most definitely was happening during the pandemic, but is it still? I mean yeah probably but how often)?

And now politicians are likely to come in and "make everything better", i.e. fuck it all up and make it 10x worse, not "reforming" the situation, nor even "punishing" either the looting transgressors or the corporations that continually lied about it, but instead using it as an excuse to make life more difficult for poor people, even as conservatives not merely do not care but take active glee in the people "getting what they deserve", again ignoring how it is not the same people receiving the punishment as that did the crime in the first place.

In any case, news articles were sold yesterday, but this media outlet would like to sell you another story TODAY, so they load it up with all sorts of wording in order to increase "engagement" in order to get you to click on it. Are you angry? Click it and find out more! Conversely though, they do not bother to even attempt to tell a balanced story - probably b/c that would lead to fewer clicks, but also definitely b/c that would take more investment into writing the story in the first place, and they have to continually churn out new content so as to make a quick buck:-(.

Late-stage capitalism sucks donkey balls.:-( In particular, it sucks how ALL the parties involved are greedily fucking over everyone else - the looters, the corporations lying about it, the politicians swooping in to take advantage, the media churning out their engagement content, and now probably you and me and all of the commenters here not perfectly capturing some tiny nuance of the situation so we all must be spreading "misinformation" to some degree or another (if only there was some place that we could go to find reliable, factual information and analysis! unfortunately, there are very few of those places left... and this article definitely does not seem to be one of them).

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