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Comment by ZeroGravitas | Hacker News Reader

This appears to be part of a long running PR campaign by large corporations that are happy to lock up poor, mentally-ill and drug-addicted people at the taxpayers expense if it lets them fear monger, while at the same time stealing from their own employees.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/...

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/16/923844907/when-shoplifting-is...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/San-Fr...

There's some telltale signs that people are trying to swap between thefts and violent organized theft in a dishonest way, trying to conflate the two.

They're also using it as cover for closing stores that they were going to close anyway.

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You believe that retailers secretly hate the mentally ill and drug addicts, and are engaging in a decades long nation wide secret conspiracy to get them thrown in prison?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that they probably just don't like people stealing from them.

Are these two things different?

Did the fossil fuel industry take part in a decades long, ongoing conspiracy to deny and downplay the impacts of their pollution (we'll just skip over the wars and revolutions and lead poisoning) or do they just like when people give them money?

Why would they need "cover for closing stores that they were going to close anyway"? They can basically just close them, and no one's going to stop them or cause a problem. Why would they need "cover"?

They’re already lobbying for more policing and stricter sentencing, this is free PR from a gullible press, who won’t check to see that many of the store closures were previously announced with different reasoning given.

I don't care if they're rich, poor, mentally-ill, or drug-addicted - if someone breaks the law, there needs to be some sort of punishment. Letting them off is just enabling repeat offense and signaling to other criminals that this behavior is tolerated as we have seen.

I think I realized that America is lawless when no one who matters went to jail for torture during the Afghanistan/Iraq wars. Shoplifting is a drop in the bucket compared to that, so I have no sympathy for "tough on crime" rhetoric anymore.

s/punishment/response

Yes i have seen the articles to much if the same content in different places to be spontaneous

Let's suppose there is a real problem with shoplifters effectively being immune from punishment, would you expe t there to be little news coverage?

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