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Comment by ahoy | Hacker News Reader

Retail theft as a new/major issue is mostly a lie, told by corporations and parroted by the media who love a crimewave story, even if its fabricated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shopli...

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If you google the New Yorker and Atlantic articles on shoplifting issues in the US, you get a slightly more nuanced take combining them all.

What I take away is that retail theft 1) is technically on the rise, mostly due to the ability to then sell those goods online, including on Amazon 2) It doesn't impact major retail chains by much, basically they do what they've always done and just adjust prices. It actually helps amazon on some other online sellers. BUT 3) it definitely contributes to how shitty it is to actually work retail 4) AND it will influence where places like Walgreens set up shop (I'm neutral on this, I would rather have a bunch of local corner stores than walgreens)

No it’s not. My local grocery store has incidents hourly, heck, you can get lucky and see it for yourself where some guy just walks out with a basket full of stuff (security can’t really stop them given liability). If it were fabricated, we wouldn’t see it happen in person so much.

> (security can’t really stop them given liability)

what does this mean? Isn't that the whole point of security?

Security is instructed not to physically restrain anyone, that is a power for the police alone. Because they can get sued.

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