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Comment by AngryData | Hacker News Reader

Im not sure we should allow such premeditated charge stacking, it is just further weaponizing the law and fueling our prison industrial complex for zero gain to society. Who is to say many of those people wouldn't have stopped after being caught and charged the first time? Imagine if cops sat on the side of the road not pulling people over, just recording minor traffic offenses in a file, and then a year or so later drop 10+ charges on a person all at once and turning the collective charges into felony reckless driving charges? People would be outraged and nothing of worth would be gained.

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I thought it was because the stores can't press charges if it's a small thing, so the only way they can bring any action is to build a case.

I have yet to see any actual evidence of such a problem, just a bunch of outrage from social media commentators who also claim things like Portland was burnt to the ground by BLM and other hyper-exaggerated crap.

And even if it is true, I still don't see why premeditated charge stacking should be allowed. If someone comes into the store that they know will steal, they should be banned from the store and arrested for trespassing then and there. Shitty criminal justice policies does not justify creative abuses of the law by corporations or prosecutors. Having 25% of the world prison population, along with all the costs that go along with it does not benefit us, it only hurts us. And it has repeatedly been shown that stiffer criminal charges do not prevent crime, if it did the US would be one of the safest 1st world countries, not the most dangerous 1st world country by a large margin that makes countries without actual functioning government seem peaceful.

>Shitty criminal justice policies does not justify creative abuses of the law by corporations or prosecutors.

As we say over here, bless. your. heart.

...if you only knew how bad things really are [deadpan.face]

We are nations of loopholes, inside and out.

>I thought it was because the stores can't press charges if it's a small thing, so the only way they can bring any action is to build a case.

Firstly, stores don't "press charges." A store may report a crime, but it is the state that "presses charges" and prosecutes alleged criminal activity, not the store.

Secondly, in the US, we have statutes of limitation[0] which limit the time in which criminal charges can be brought. These vary by state and by offense, but IIUC Petit (sometimes referred to as 'Petty') Theft usually has a one or two year statute of limitations.

I bring that up as, again IIUC, other countries (notably the UK) do not have such limitations.

IANAL, but I'm not sure if multiple petit thefts (usually misdemeanors) can be aggregated into a single charge of grand theft[0] (a felony). I'd expect that also varies by state. YMMV.

[0] Once again, this varies by state, but petit theft (larceny) is typically charged for stuff valued at less than $5,000.00, while grand larceny is for stuff valued at USD5,000.00 or more.

Stores don't decide whether to charge someone with a crime, the prosecutor does. They probably wait for small to become big because shoplifting a small amount doesn't reach a high enough bar to make prosecuting likely.

Pedantics aside, it's more or less the same thing. Prosecutors in some places aren't charging misdemeanor theft. Stores know this.

Or if your dealing with forgetful / tech confused old people. Now your putting 75 year olds in jail when a sooner alerting system would've made them notice if they were not using it correctly.

I'm not a trained cashier, if I forget to scan something it's not the same as theft. Not sure how it would play out in a court situation but this is always my go-to when I get accused of fucking something up in the store; also why I decline the receipt check at the door (legal in my state).

Most professional cashiers are only trained in one merchant's POS. Suddenly, me a layman consumer is supposed to be a flawless operator of every variant of self-checkout POS that I encounter. It's a bit crazy to me that a court would side with a merchant unless some egregious evidence or pattern had could be demonstrated.

> also why I decline the receipt check at the door (legal in my state).

Costco can't enforce the receipt check, but they can terminate your membership - but that's only because they're a membered organization in the first place.

I've heard this but also I've never shopped there

It's thankfully still an option not to use self-checkouts. I sometimes do that if I have one item only, but basically always queue to an actual cashier.

That's not always the case.

Lowes got rid of all cashiers and went to 0 armed bandits (self checkouts).

Menard's has hidden policies which you don't find out until you're at the receiving end. Hut they have human cashiers.

I loved the early days when nobody touched the self-checkouts and it was like an additional choice.

Not surprising that they’ve titrated the cashier lines to always be much longer.

At least it’s not a government again giving you quick service if you sign away your rights with a lineup around the block for those that with to assert their rights.

I’m also thankful that my local grocery store is subject to a massive development proposal, so they’re not bothering with capital improvements like self-checkout.

The option is becoming rare amongst most large retailers I frequent and only exists in my local Home Depots if I go stand through the contractor lines in the lumber section.

I've gotten used to the expectation that I will be my own cashier at most places, but I'm not OK assuming any liability that comes with my lack of cashier skillset/training which is what they want.

If we weren't making shoplifting not a crime, then we wouldn't be having that worry right now.

Seems like proper punishment is only way to get deterrent effect. Or the courts to do their job. So to me this sounds like workable way, stack up the habitual offenders and send them to jail for a few months to few years setting them on straight path.

Do you have ANY evidence that sending someone to jail for a few months to a few years sets people on a straight path?

I am pretty sure the evidence shows the opposite.

Best available evidence is that:

- Punishment works to deter crime when it's immediate and high-likelihood. Particularly, if someone gets caught and faces some immediate consequence on one of the first few times they shoplift (especially the first time) then that makes a huge difference to the probability that they'll become a habitual shoplifter

- The vast majority of shoplifting is done by a small number of essentially lifelong career shoplifters. Imprisoning them is unlikely to set them straight, but taking them off the streets for long periods makes a significant impact on the amount of shoplifting the community experiences

So why we are even using it anymore? Why not then close down all the prisons? If there is no deterrent effect or rehabilitation effect. Wouldn't it be greater savings just to close it all down and let everyone out?

People don't need "rehabilitation", they need help. Nobody would need to shoplift if they could afford what they need. Prices should always be indexed to the customer's income. That's it - make it so everyone can afford things, and crime ends overnight. It works for healthcare. People with insurance pay for those without. Why not for groceries and TVs?

It's more complicated than this.

I agree that prisons are literally useless in stopping criminal behavior, and almost certainly accelerate it for most. Prison is only scary the first day on your first bit. The second time you get locked up you already know the system, know all the staff and know all the other inmates. It's less of a deterrent each time.

The issue is that a vast proportion of offenders aren't committing crimes out of necessity. A large proportion are doing it because it appears to be quick, easy money and regular jobs aren't considered manly or cool.

source: a lot of time spent inside

>prisons are literally useless in stopping criminal behavior

"Con College" — where you learn tricks of the trade, and further divide with racism / hatred.

>stealing ... [because] regular jobs aren't considered manly or cool.

This, but also too many lazier-mindset people think this will be an easy lifestyle to sustain long-term (it's not).

So if I report less income, prices for me go down and no penalty if I get caught.

This is only a half-response, but I think one beneficial policy to increase food-access would be to remove regressive sales taxes from grocery purchases. Replace lost revenue with a progressive tax.

Several states tax a considerable amount on even basic foodstuffs (e.g. Tennessee).

It seems like would require every business to be able to directly access every customer's income and credit history and would normalize price discrimination.

I think UBI would be better. Expecting capitalists to work against their own self-interest is doomed to fail.

No. When you look at it that way you need to consider the crime that's never committed due to the risk of being imprisoned poses. Given how shitty people in the US treat each other, just during minor disputes/traffic/misunderstandings/etc, I think it's safe to say we'd be a country overrun by murderous rapists in no time without a prison system. It would devolve into anarchy pretty quick. Think the wild west with cars and ARs and without the sheriffs. GTA becomes reality.

Yes.

Lol, I'm all for letting them all out in whatever county you live in, at least.

Because private for profit prison businesses can make money off them. Public is paying for private profits.

Doubly so since the 13th amendment enshrined slavery as a sole ownership by the state, if found guilty of a crime.

And who's the group who is overpoliced in this country? And who up-thread said to target black women? Yep.

The 13th amendment was terrible. It should have never had an exception for punishment for a crime. Instead, we have a states controlled slave state.

The USA should do, perhaps, four fifths of that. Despite having 4% of the world's population it has 25% of the world's prisoners, and one of the highest crime rates in first-world countries so it'd obviously not working.

They could also consider banning substances that make people more aggressive... There's a particular artificial pesticide whose name I don't remember, which is coincidentally banned in all the places with much lower crime rates, and has been shown to alter behaviour in monkeys.

It's shocking at times to see such these ideas parroted in a community that prides itself on critical thinking. Punishment isn't rehabilitation!

Rehabilitation and support is not what "people" want. Political parties that want more punishment seldom want to spend money even on punishments. So it becomes impossible to put people on a straight path. Having courts do their job is very expensive as well so instead people build their careers on getting fast convictions of people. The thing that helps is consistently building a society that cares, you have to know that the society will certainly react to your actions.

Having a hidden social credit system hidden and managed by a private actor seems like the worst way of doing it.

Pro money/business party wants/needs more people in prison so their private for profit prison businesses can make more money on legal slavery.

>stack up the habitual offenders and send them to jail for a few months to few years setting them on straight path.

I'm not sure if you have been to an American jail but they do not set folks on the straight path. They are basically Crime University, and the folks on the inside trade all kinds of information about how to crime more effectively, where to crime, what tactics police use and what neighborhoods are safest or most dangerous for police activity.

I was thrown in lockup for a weekend for not changing my tags after moving and letting it escalate out of control and what I saw in that inner city lockup truly shocked me. Folks had incredible amounts of illegal goods on them (despite having been searched and thrown in jail) and were openly performing transactions, sharing "industry secrets" and coordinating for future work once they were out.

If you have spent any time in an American jail or prison, I think you would be disabused of the notion that you can simply lock a criminal up for a few months and "fix" them. I would suggest that it's the opposite, a few months in jail turns a newbie criminal into a true amateur or journeyman with networking, education and future opportunities.

No, that's been disproved. Most people don't consider that they'll be caught and so the penalty isn't relevant to their thought process. What does deter is a high likelihood of being caught - so a small fine will be more effective if the detection/enforcement is sufficient. Also, it's often not feasible to tie up the courts and jails with minor offenders (e.g. speeding, using a bus lane etc).

cut off their hands as a punishment

I feel like if the rules are going to change like this, they should change fairly. A few months in jail for what would have been petty crime if not for the repetition seems excessive. If right now there's a lower cash value threshold for prosecution, the fair thing is that there should be a lower rate threshold. For example, someone shouldn't be jailed for stealing a thousand dollars worth of batteries over the course of ten years, I don't think.

Blame jurisdictions that made shoplifting up to $900 or similarly large amounts practically not-a-crime.

What you're describing is essentially the exact point system used for traffic infractions in many countries over the world. Driving 10 km/h above the speed limit? No biggie, you pay a fine. Do it three times? We take your license.

No, not "do it three times". "Get fined for it three times." That's the key difference; there's feedback from the system that's supposed to act as a corrective. What's being discussed here would be taking away someone's license sight unseen, with no previous lesser punishment having been administered.

In the U.K. you get points on a license for being caught speeding (and other offence). Typically 3.

Knock 12 points up over 3 years and you lose your license.

The problem is the time it takes from being caught to getting the letter can be a couple of weeks. You could literally go from 0 points to license loss for driving 10 miles on an empty road with changeable speed limits and have no idea until a week or two later when you get 4 letters arrive.

Now until the court takes away your license you’re still allowed to drive, but it gives you no chance to change your behaviour.

That's an imperfection of the system, not a designed feature of it. It's also possible you sometimes go over the speed limit and there are no sensors around to detect that condition.

*loicense

You are correct, I didn't realize this nuance.

I mean, if they walked out with a felony amount of stuff the first time the system would have tossed them directly in jail.

I can understand why the stores will do it this way. Each prosecution is very expensive. If you're going to go though the effort with the legal system bring a case that stops the culprit. More so, doing this tends to scare the hell out of people that think they've gotten away with something. Kinda like the thievery version of the Santa Claus song.

"Walmart knows when you are sleeping. Walmart knows when your away, Walmart knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake".

Well, maybe there should be some sort of public registry where this sort of in process evidence would be publicly viable for you and others. Then you could regularly check it.

If the store is going to be tracking this information, it could just as easily show a message to the offender. "Hey, we're on to you. Knock it off, or else." Going straight for the jugular is just rude.

How about stealing is just rude. Theft is terrible. Trying to justify stealing power tools “bec it’s a big corporation” further degrades society and creates a dishonest low-trust culture.

I live in Illinois and look forward to collecting my $2k check for this but the reality is that the only person to blame for the theft is the person committing the theft. The same way we don’t blame women for how they dress or just because someone is trusting that doesn’t make it right to attempt to steal.

If the company prefers to allow the theft to continue as long they get to press charges, instead of taking more immediate measures that would stop the theft outright, such as banning the person (which must be feasible if they're tracking the person by facial features), somehow I don't think it must be having much of an impact. Note that I'm not defending the thieves here. I'm just saying that this approach seems unnecessarily vindictive and not useful to solve the problem which, let's remember, is "people steal", not "thieves go unpunished".

> stealing is just rude. Theft is terrible.

you, I, and probably most people on HN have the privilege of seeing it this way. for others, it's sometimes not a moral question, but a question of survival or at least dignity.

I know, how terrible the thieves are so hard-up they have to eat that pair of Jordans. Or those Milwaukee power tools. Oh my, what a terrible world...

I’m not familiar with any stores that have Jordans that can be purchased via self checkout.

how easy the world is if you limit the examples to the ones which reinforce your way of seeing things.

You realize goods can be exchanged for money right? Also tools can be used for jobs which earn money.

The difference is that you are informed and penalised each time, rightly giving you the option to change your behaviour. A police officer following a speeder to deliberately have enough offences to take their license immediately would be at least frowned upon in most jurisdictions.

Target is also known for building cases over time until more serious charges can be used.

Time to change your laws and/or prosecutors I'd say so those 'minor thefts' can and will be prosecuted resulting in fines which need to be paid - no ifs and buts. Get them early and get them (hopefully not that) often and you may be able to keep the majority of 'proletarian shoppers' on a somewhat less crooked path. If crime pays more people commit crimes, if shoplifting is not dealt with more people shoplift.

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