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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.
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.
The article this thread is about is talking about Target losing 2% of their $27 billion annual PROFIT (as in the money the shareholders keep after they pay their employees) to theft. And here you are blaming poor people for the state of their communities.
"The fantastic journalists at Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) did an analysis and found that this single video spawned 309 separate articles about the Walgreens incident in the 28 days after it was posted. The researchers found that there was not a single article about a multi-million dollar wage theft settlement paid out by Walgreens to its California employees. (On January 5, 2023, after I wrote this essay, a Walgreens executive admitted publicly that the company had overblown their claims about retail theft.)"
https://equalityalec.substack.com/p/the-volume-of-news
You are the lemming, buddy.
That was absolutely NOT what I was doing, but I get the impression you're just here to start a fight, so I'm not going to bother with you further except to point out that
"Lemming" is a term used to refer to Lemmy users, which is how I meant it, not as an insult.
I don't know, man. The comment that is getting downvoted proposes a narrative where people steal things from Target and then Target has no choice but to move out of the poor neighborhood to open up stores in a nice neighborhood, and therefore the people stealing are responsible for that harm to their communities. I'm downvoting that because it's wrong in like a thousand ways, some evidence for which is illustrated by the quote and article I linked to.
My bad on the "lemming" thing. I'm reading this on kbin so that's not in my vernacular, and the patronizing "tiny worldview" insult had me reading your comment in a certain tone.
Anybody who is not a simpleton with zero life experience is aware that being an "underdog in society" doesn't mean somebody is inherently a good or bad as a person: plenty of powerless people out there when given a little power are revealed to be complete total shits.
It's perfectly compatible to be anti-capitalist/anti-corporation (well, most corporations) whilst thinking theft without need is also morally wrong. Assuming the corporations involved are exploitative and use lobbying and other forms of political corruption to gain unfairly advantage positions and these people are not stealing due to need, that would just mean that what we have here is two wrongs, and those don't make a right.
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.
"People don’t steal unless in a serious situation or mental illness period, full stop."
How do you know this?
Because I’ve done it. Usually the ones stealing the stuff aren’t even the ones selling it. But, when you don’t have money and the only way to get your fix is to steal a list of stuff, you’ll do it.
No sane person wakes up and says “I have everything I need, and I feel safe and comfortable. So, time to go risk my freedom and future to start the day!” It just doesn’t happen.
Sure you have those outliers. You know, the house wife with plenty, but she steals for a thrill, but those aren’t the people stealing to sell either.
Damn son. That's not how that works and not what I am talking about.
It's not the theft for need that is shutting these stores down. It's the theft rings that pay people pennies on the dollar to steal shit because that is easier than getting a real job. These goods are then resold on the "black market" or used to make drugs like meth.
You claim you did it to survive. I don't actually believe that you stole anything more than someones hat and you are definitely extremely naive to the world around you.
Check my history, you’ll see that I make no secret about having been a homeless heroin addict for over a decade. I went through over 5 years of methadone treatment, but I finally weaned myself off of that too by slowly decreasing my dose over time.
I’ve been completely sober now for about 2 years. Don’t clap it sucks, and it’s not by choice. I can’t find anything that makes me feel good except heroin, and I’m not doing that again.
Hell, it’s 5:14 am as I’m typing this, and the only reason I’m awake is because my partner still goes to the clinic, and I have to drive them every morning, 7 days a week, because they won’t stop smoking weed.
My best friend from the age of 6 died from an overdose 8 years ago, and I’m now raising his kid as well as my own, and if you do the math that means I was still an addict when I came into their life, but got in treatment soon after. But nah. I’m just full of shit. I don’t know anything about that. The scars that trace the veins in the backs of my hands must be my imagination.
I joke around about a lot of things, but desperation, and the stories about people I’ve known are all true.
Edit: Stealing wasn’t my main go to. I made it a point to look super respectable, and would beg. I used to could look like a very nice guy. But I absolutely have done it when I was at my worst.
I posted a comment mentioning it 4 days ago.
Part of that bigger issue is most likely fentanyl.
I agree wholeheartedly. The opiate epidemic is insane in America. Rather than treat our addicts. We’ve chosen as a society (in America) to demonize them and let them die out.
Did you grow up in a convent?
I said nothing about it being a job prospect.
Go touch some grass and learn how the world actually works, then get back to us.
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...
I don't think that's what they are talking about. Police forces used to have walking beats and the officers on those beats knew the entire neighborhood. The presence of authority tends to slow down some forms of crime.
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.