One Target store. One spike in shoplifting. What does it mean for SF?

> "Though the spike seen in the data generates more questions than answers, one thing is clear: A single (albeit large and busy) store’s decision to report a majority of its shoplifting incidents doubled the entire city’s monthly shoplifting rates."

Seems like the logical solution would be an objective academic study, where anonymous trained observers (e.g. present/former loss prevention types) count all the number of thefts. The stores would allow the observers to make the count by whatever means appropriate, e.g. whatever monitoring the stores currently use, additional hidden RF tags that wouldn’t be cost-effective otherwise, etc.. Then anonymize any stats for public release. No attempt would, or would be allowed to, be made by the observers to intervene. When the welfare of an entire City is at stake, it seems a worthwhile activity. For objectivity sake, the academics should be from out of state.

More direct and certified identification of actual theft than comparing units purchased in inventory v. actual purchases of said units. Should make it possible to then quantify thefts by employees v. shoplifters.

Arguing about data gets the City nowhere. Find out what’s actually going on. The sooner, the quicker.

It’s interesting that they would present statistics and then say “statistics are flawed so you can’t draw any conclusions”. If the number of reported incidents went down, even if retailers only report 10% of incidents, wouldn’t that still indicate a reduction? Are they suggesting that there’s a hypothesis that cases are going up yet, for some reason, people stopped calling the police?

It feels like a case of “we wanted the stats to show one thing, but it didn’t, so let’s cast doubt on the stats.”

How to respond to crime - Enforce existing laws, else voters will eventually make the necessary changes.

Non-paywalled copy https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/one-target-store-o...

> As San Francisco remains locked in a fierce debate over how best to respond to crime, shoplifting has become one flash point of the battle, dividing people across sharp political lines.

It's interesting how one political party is perceived as "pro shop-lifting." I never would have imagined that would be a position any reasonable person would take.