Flippant answer: Pay Target to train your managers in how to not abuse community resources like police. They obviously figured out something that Walmart can't figure out.
I'm curious if there were less disturbances before Walmart, or if they were just more distributed throughout the city.
Whereas Walmart's genius lay in not only continuing to cater to the lower income demographic... but to keep its valued customers addicted to junk food, junk clothing, junk music, junk kitchenware, and just plain... junk in general (peppered with vindictive, quite possibly career- and/or life-ruining arrests for drinking a $0.98 iced tea before paying, now and then) so that they stay in the lower income demographic.
Or shoving it behind something else on a shelf and not paying at all. When people no longer have any respect for authority, social contract or citizenship AND you can't crack them over the head to teach a lesson in hard knocks, how are loss prevention supposed to deal with it? You let it go, then it's suddenly a widespread thing (YES IT WILL BE) and it costs everyone. And frankly it never ends. Certain people will go so low at the expense of others, it makes for an unworkable culture.
In the normal, pragmatic way: wait until you actually see them put the opened drink behind something else on the shelf. Which, not all the time but often enough, you surely will. If they're drinking it out in the open -- in the line at the register, say? Most likely they're going to pay for it.
Certain people will go so low at the expense of others, it makes for an unworkable culture.
By the same token, treating people as if they're already "low" (by not giving them the benefit of the doubt for an opening a $0.98 bottle of iced tea before paying) makes for an unworkable culture, also.
They are already trying this, it's mentioned in the article.
"Instead of calling police, the store gives first-time shoplifters the option of paying restitution and completing online courses. Eight Tampa Bay stores are enrolled, he said, and the retailer is assessing whether it will expand the program here and elsewhere."
Urban food deserts are a recognized problem. I suspect that Walmart reduces the number of urban "general items" deserts in a way that Target does not.
I've seen quite a lot of Targets in low-income neighborhoods, often within a few blocks of a Walmart.
And you can stop right there. Remember that the Walmart principle is "we pay less and pass the savings on to the customer". That applies to how they treat their employees as well. Anything that requires the company to spend more money is going to be a no-go.
The problem with Walmart in this instance is that it attracts a different audience. For example, there's a stark difference in the type of shoppers one encounters at the Target and Wal-Mart in Mountain View even though they are across the street from each other. This difference has even gained some cultural credence with sites like People of Walmart (http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/).
Only Walmart and private prisons benefit from this; everyone else is worse off.
There must be a more effective solution.
Not just a 'better quality of "neighborhood"' at Walmart, but for our society as a whole.
I disagree. It's the most cost effective method that we have that prevents stores becoming a free-for-all for shoplifters. This response serves to prevent other, similar crimes. Hidden from the cost of this is the saving society gets by crime not being worse. Higher shoplifting rates would mean higher prices for everyone because stores' security costs would be much higher.
We don't have the data to come to that conclusion. What if police responded to a lower percentage of these calls?
It may not be, but the cost of the drink vs. the cost of enforcement alone is not sufficient to show that. What you'd need to know is the net effect of the enforcement costs -- what future thefts would have happened without them that they prevent by deterrence (general or specific), incapacitation, or rehabilitation (including the particular enforcement actions contribution to the broader deterrent effect of the collective enforcement of similar offenses throughout society.)
What if, when presented with video evidence of the crime, there was already a 'plea deal' that was always on the table. Lets say that for 10X the minimum wage cost of the affected items, you could provide community service doing some type of work the community needs and would have otherwise contracted out.
In that case, the offender would literally work off the (retail) 'cost' of the drink (maybe also a fixed 'fine' in money or community service time) to the community, also providing some rehabilitation, while the company in question would be pressed in to only writing off whatever loss isn't covered by insurance as at cost shrinkage on their taxes.
Note that in this case instead of all of that money spent on corrections and the /peace/ officer is not wasted making a mountain out of a pimple.
So your proposal is that it be legal to steal items of less than $1,230 in value? Or is it to deprive those accused of stealing items with no more legal representation than the value of those items? Or … what?
That seems a little hyperbolic. Stealing less than $100 in FL is a 2nd degree misdemeanor, usually just punished by a fine and probation. No private prison is making money from a misdemeanor shoplifting arrest. It would be hard to argue that Walmart is profiting: their loss-prevention staff costs money, they have paperwork, and they do lose some merchandise when the shoplifter isn't caught.
Walmart may have plenty of negative externalities to discuss, but theft is a crime, and I don't see why they should be expected to ignore it.
http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defe...
Fine collection and private probation is just as fucked up. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/pr... http://www.npr.org/about-npr/314011043/npr-news-investigatio...
Not to strawman, but for instance, I see no ethical argument that homicide is less serious if you murder a person with a net negative cost to society. Neither murder nor theft are wrong simply because they're expensive. They're wrong without the context of cost.
In both cases, cost effectiveness isn't what I would consider the most important thing. However, I 100% agree with you that Walmart is certainly benefitting from the public police force enforcing private security. It's a sticky issue without a clear solution.
Crimes are crimes, but there's also a reason we install locks and alarm systems in our homes. By maintaining secure systems, we reduce our vulnerability to crime and our cost to everyone else. I feel like Walmart should do the same.
> Local Walmarts, on average, generated four times as many calls as nearby Targets, the Times found.
Walmart continues to be the gold standard of reducing prices by increasing externalities.
Aside from the matter of whether drinking a $0.98 iced tea before you buy it really constitutes "shoplifting" (I've seen this quite often enough, in Whole Foods of all places, to conclude that while it's not exactly a classy thing to do, it's most likely a misunderstanding on the part of people who happen to be... very thirsty), the article isn't (at all) suggesting that Walmart ignore shoplifting.
Rather, the basic point it (very clearly) makes is that Walmart's very design and layout attracts criminal and/or nuisance behaviors in the first place:
Walmart stores, with heavy foot traffic and cavernous layouts, are natural targets for shoplifters, panhandlers and other opportunists. Many are located in disadvantaged areas prone to more trouble. The retailer knows all of that, experts said, but doesn’t do enough to address the problems, despite ample resources. Walmart, they said, lays out its stores in a way that invites trouble and often doesn’t have enough uniformed employees to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Oh -- and as to what Walmart's response to the premature $0.98 iced tea drinker be, you ask? How about the natural, human response: "Sir, can you please make sure to pay for drinks at the register before opening them in the store? Thanks!"
Specifically, since Walmart started hiring $8-an-hour loss prevention officers ("48% below national average", according an article that appears to be behind a paywall). And all the common sense, and capacity for independent judgement forbearance that buys you.
The article talks about the walmart store design. Narrow isles, limited sight lines, messy isles, etc. These all significantly contribute to shoplifting.
Make no mistake, walmart is taking a strategic approach to prioritize a certain store design that they know increases shoplifting. The solution of leaning on the local police is also strategic. The PR position of relying on people's moral sense of how they think law-breaking works is also strategic, deliberate and cynical.
The results is comments like yours. Making their argument for them, under the guise of 'what else can they do' and 'dont break laws' kind of middle-class sensibilities that are frequently thrown about.
Crime is entirely an issue of economics and oppertunity. Reduce the economic needs, and reduce the oppertunity.
Honestly, shoplifting and other small scale financial crime committed by individuals who are not conspiring, should be largely considered in financial terms.