Reporting theft to the police department is a waste of time since police will not pursue or investigate the petty theft. After spending much time filing reports with police, people realize that they are wasting their time, and they stop filing reports. As a result, the official police stats in places like San Francisco are completely unreliable.
If the numbers go up, it's a sign that crime is increasing. If the numbers go down, it's merely a sign that people have lost their faith in enforcement because of the overwhelming nature of the crime.
> After spending much time filing reports with police, people realize that they are wasting their time, and they stop filing reports.
People file reports for reasons beyond just expecting enforcement. For example: insurance companies often require a police report before they'll accept a claim for theft.
On the other hand, what evidence there that this effect is not more pronounced than it was in the past?
I would consider their statistics, but I don’t think they have released any — they have just made claims that Shoplifting has increased.
Have they released data showing that shrinkage has increased nationwide or in California, and that shrinkage has been driven by increases in shoplifting?
The viability of your claim that petty crimes are less likely to be reported now than they were in the past depends on you producing evidence to support it. You haven't offered this, or even a hypothesis to explain why you think it might be true.
Again, I'm not debating that petty crimes are under-reported, but whether this phenomenon of under-reporting has increased over the past few decades to the point that police statistics are now "completely unreliable," as you put it. On a personal level, 20 years ago, I had something stolen from me in SF. I didn't report it, but I'd be just as likely not to report a similar theft now- no more, no less. What changed for Walgreens?
I think a much more reasonable explanation for the perceived surge in crime in the face of police data indicating the opposite is 1) Walgreens was one of the few retailers that remained open during the pandemic, thus raising their risk profile, and 2) there's a self-reinforcing effect of viral videos showing people getting away with brazen shoplifting at Walgreens.