San Francisco petty theft is becoming a meme.
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- čas přidán 12. 12. 2021
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Asking for a friend, are there any Californians that can give me tips on the best areas to go shopping for $949.99 worth of goods that tend to sell well on eBay?
I think I know your friend. He asked if I could ask the same question, too.
Priceless
Flea market. I like to stroll by and see things that are obviously stolen and curiously I ask how much it costs but never buy lol
@@omarmontes90 I remember going to flea markets in the 1990's and seeing those table full of all the small (pocketable) things sold in retail pharmacies.
Like I would buy a bottle of Tylenol that has been sitting out in the sun for six hours, with an expiration date about two weeks away...
LOLZ
Remarkably, reported theft drops dramatically when you make theft legal and make reporting it pointless.
Spunds the same as Drug crime drops after we made it legal.
exactly. and number of reports says nothing about the value of goods stolen. a business can survive a couple small items hidden into pockets every now and again, but not a single horde of people carrying out armloads full of stuff.
@@RipleySawzen "These crime statistics are atrocious! What can we do to fix this?"
"How about we take crime... and no longer call it 'crime'?"
"But... there will still be crime!"
"Well, yeah, but it won't show up as such on statistics, now, will it?"
"ಠ_ಠ"
@@satoau1 Great point. When I ran a pharmacy there were a handful of shoplifting/robbery events that counted for almost all of our shrink budget for the year with months yet to go. When that goes unchecked I becomes unprofitable to have a business pretty quick.
@@arnowisp6244 Not the same at all. "Drug crime" usually refers to crime such as violent acts and more ASSOCIATED TO drugs as well as possession crime. If that crime drops when you change drug laws, that is not a relabeling, it's a drop in crime.
I got a kick out of a Reddit post which was a screenshot of a news article of a gas station(?) manager who priced just about everything at $951 so potential thieves actually could be prosecuted in California. There were coupons at checkout for (guessing) 99.9% off each item so it was all good for honest people.
Random Cali Judge: Nice try, dismissed with prejudice. 👌
@@interstellarsurfer Hit the judge with a reddit horde and L+Ratio. That'll do the trick.
Unfortunately, it was a satirical article.
made up story that never happened
Back when I had a café/market here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I suffered a lot of theft, which My bookkeeper declared as such on taxes, however that is done, and as a result I got audited. The IRS auditor did not believe that I could have had so much shoplifting - and so I had to be doing something dishonest or fraudulent in their opinion. Appealing did nothing and I got hit with an enormous fine. Not only did I lose the inventory, I then had to spend a few years paying off the penalty. Thanks so much to the thieves. Not a victimless crime.
thanks for sharing, most people assume theft gets written off or compensated for by insurance
Wait, but the worst thing that happened to you was because of the IRS, not the shoplifters.
If they had shoplifted and you DIDN'T call the IRS, then you would have just been out some merchandise.
But you DID call and they ruined your life.
I'm thinking the IRS is the real problem in your situation here.
It's almost like they're the biggest thieves lol
@@maximumdunk2656 He wouldn’t have needed to report it if it wasn’t stolen in the first place though. And if it was as unbelievable as the IRS believed, it must have been quite a bit that was not just negligible to him
I think in South Korea there's this store that these big LED screens that showed all the products so there wouldn't be a need to have the physical products within reach of the customers to touch. Can this thing be done in America?
In good old days, you would just shot the thief. Oh god how I hate this low level scum. That was good old America, not this communist shit in SF
My $50 kids bicycle got nicked when the lock malfunction and did not engage. I noticed it stolen on a Friday evening, made an online police report on Saturday morning, officer met with me on Saturday afternoon for more details, that very night they caught the thief and brought my bicycle back.
All that work for a $50 bicycle that I have already written off in my mind. Felt slightly embarrassed at the troubles caused but the police assured me it was their job and that theft of property is a serious concern.
Obviously I don't live in the USA
I could tell after finishing the first line you obviously don't live in San Franshithole
Where do you live? It sounds like a great place.
What the fuck haha. I live in England. Once, there was a canceled bus so my bicycle stayed in the town for hours longer than I expected.
When I returned to my bicycle, which was locked inside the bus station, someone had clearly spent a good amount of time brute-forcing it. A desperate addict inside the station. Evidently nobody called the police, people can get a little scared of the crazy addicts.
I called the police. Within this very built up area by a station? All the cameras are "for show" I am told by the officer the next day. There is absolutely no surveillance footage. Within a week of this happening, the bus station's bicycle lockup had massive banners secured all around it: "STORE YOUR BICYCLE HERE AT YOUR OWN RISK. BICYCLE THIEVES OPERATE IN THIS AREA". Those banners are still tied up to that lockup now, and it has been seven years.
I never saw my £400 ($540~) bike again, and I never would have left it there if it wasn't for our shitty, unreliable public transport. :D
If you don't live in the USA why were you paying for the bicycle in US dollars?
@Adam Meme
That's why I always ran two locks, always anchored it by a D-lock and a chonky armored cable lock. If the bike is over £200 don't leave it anywhere.
"I've shoplifted here"
Look at his pupils, that guy is flying!
dudes off more meth than walter whites custys
Dude's eyes were like oO... LOL
He's got a mask on and nobody knows his name. So why not spill the beans? Anyway, AOC says it's not happening. So there.
The fact he's willing to say it on camera (masked of course) reinforces how the city is doing nothing to mitigate the problem.
much easier to get away with shoplifting if you can fly
Another store manager set the value of each item at 960$ but you get a "discount" to the real price when you pay them off. Intelligent solution.
While that sounds very cool and definitely helps, I imagine that technically violates some law regarding coupons/sales, but I'm not a lawyer and I am talking out of ass. It just seems like some kind of consumer protection law that would exist.
Didn’t hold up in court.
It would in the UK, the price displayed is an offer, when you take the item to pay and if the price is different, that is the price. Many stored don't do this as it pisses customers off but its legal
Saw that on social media, but it looks like it's just a meme. When I searched for it, I only found fact checkers claiming it was satire and nothing at all proving the story.
Louis forgot another factor that encourages people to steal when there is an atmosphere of non-prosecution: the "tragedy of the commons" - the honest citizen who would not otherwise steal feeling like a fool watching the dishonest citizen walk out with $900.00 worth of stuff while they wait in line to pay for items that have an inflated cost because of all the stealing.
sf has that all too much, their was a mental patient who got out for saying he was getting mentally dull for staying in too long and literally at the doors of the institution he kicked a man in a wheel chair over and ran away.
All of the problems discussed here are VERY preventable.
The only thing making this a death spiral is the refusal to acknowledge the problems.
@@taralewis9375 I'll happily vote in a better Democrat candidate.
@@NickRoeder he was the best you all had to offer apparently.
@@KirkFickert Personally, I don't think either party has ever given the best they have to offer. The candidates are picked before the people even get a say, really.
Some people love to funnel all of these complex issues into arguing about executive level figureheads...
@@KirkFickert And he was enough to get Trump out
It's what I call "chump factor". People will pay high prices. They'll obey the law. They'll do both, even when it's hard. What pushes an honest man over the edge is when not only are his efforts given to the dishonest (some of this is, unfortunately, expected), but he's told that the dishonesty isn't worth bothering over. It tells the honest man that, as dishonesty doesn't matter, neither do his efforts to stay honest. He's a chump for putting in the sweat when he can get the reward for free.
Yeah, I don't think any of these incidents came from honest men pushed over the edge. I'd say 100% of them are from young people who were raised to think they have been purposefully wronged (for hundreds of years) and that they never had any chance to make an honest living because the entire country is literally rigged against them.
@@gorkyd7912 I'm going to hazard a guess and say you're a Republican trying to insert some commentary on the black experience in America and uhm... how we should all just get over slavery. I bet you also scream out "Let's Go Brandon!" every chance you get.
@@jamesfaucher4588 I'm going to hazard a guess you don't do critical thinking and instead rely on throwing every idea you encounter into one of the two boxes you use to categorize the world.
@@jamesfaucher4588 im gonna state the fact that black immigrants on average make more than white people. get over it, if anything your at a advantage if your black in this America. ill also say this-its much easier being the few black kids in a school of all white kids than being a white kid in a school full of black
kids.
no one is to blame that black kids idolize rap music and actually get perverted by the whole culture. its a cultural problem and if you cant see it you’ll as a culture remain in the state that it currently is in.
@@gorkyd7912 I'll take that. I believe slavery goes in the box marked Bad, along with racial profiling, disproportionate prison sentences for the same crime, and a history of racial inequality in housing. All these situations have been studied with actual data to back them up. Look it up. But forget all that though. The video showed a white guy saying he shopped lifted. You steered the conversation toward black vs white.. That's on you and where you're head space is at. If we continue to be divided by stupid shit like skin color, the rich will devour us and this country, leaving only a war-torn wasteland.
Maybe it's the culture and morals that also have an effect. In Japan I saw the craziest stores where there was no one watching the business. The product was displayed, you pick up what you want, the price chart is posted so you drop your money into a box with a slot on top. Everything was on the honor system. It was incredible. I saw the same thing in the U.S. at Peak Island. Bottles of honey was displayed on top of a wooden box and I dropped $10 bill into a box with a slot. Trust me it felt weird especially because I'm from NYC. How does businesses with honor systems exist in this world now?! Boggles my mind.
In Australia (probably like a lot of other countries) ppl have an unmanned stall with veges or eggs or plants on the road outside their home, using honour system.
Remember what honor means the japanese killed themselves for their emperor during war it has its extremes well not only Japan but yeah that is honor is it good, bad idk
I know some farm stands upstate and in PA that work on honor system. It’s shocking to people like us from NYC area. Lol
I’ve seen those in farms in upstate ny. Selling milk and eggs. I was flabbergasted being from the Burroughs.
We used to have a high trust society like that here in the US. Something changed in 1965.
The one time I shoplifted was by accident. A puppy collar I had intended to buy got stuck on the cart and I didn't notice until I was at the car. So I brought it inside to customer service and paid for it, as I had intended. The lady looked at me in total confusion and actually asked "Why didn't you just take it? You had it, why come back and pay for it?" I had no idea how to respond, so I just shrugged, took my change, and went back to my car. The very fact that the workers expect people to steal blew my mind. I was only 21 at the time, so I was still very nieve and had a high moral code.
My point is when people steal, they don't often walk off with bulging shirts and carts of merchandise. They'll take something small but expensive, and slip it up their sleeve, or into their pocket. Disabling the carts from leaving or having security doors won't cut down shoplifting in the least. Especially with teens and kids, who steal candy, makeup, and other stuff for the thrill of stealing it or because they're short on pocket money.
ive nearly stolen so many small products by accident, that i could totally gotten away with without repercussions, but i still choose to be forward and to pay for; and it was insimilar instances to that you describe, specially when you use non-plastic bags, small bars of butter maybe left at the end and go unnoticed, and the workers dont ask to check what's left, etc. none of those measures will do anything
Good for you! I commend your honesty. Living out a high moral code does more good than you know. Who knows what impact you made on the workers discussing this in the breakroom or the kids with their mom at the counter beside you.
"Yeah I shoplifted here. Do it all the time! They never send anyone after you, and even *if* they did, you're out in an hour anyway. It's really no big deal."
LMFAO
The punishment is not the issue. It’s the lack of prosecution.
I would say a combo of bail reform, $900 or less is misdemeanor, Soros Prosecutors. All of these result in higher crime rate. But hay, this is what commieforina voted for. So you guys enjoy.
The problem is poverty and homelessness.
People were happy with honest work back when a person could support themselves on it. Didn't have crime spikes like this in the 90's did we? When honest work was worth a damn.
Some people need to steal if they wanna eat
@@blackrazer22 the 90s? You mean the decade that was famous for its insanely high crime rates?
@@cosmicllama6910 We didn't have spike like there because crime was punished and criminals stayed in jail.
3 strikes laws
server 80% of time before parole
Mandatory Mims
More CC States.
All but the last has been undone. Now we have cities that are pro-crime. Doing everything possible NOT to put people in jail Even when racing out a store with $900 in goods.
Last year we had movers steal $2 worth of cigars from us. We told them we're not going to pay them and call the police. While they were trying to get away 3 cop cars showed up and arrested them. When curiously asking the cops whether they minded that it was just a "minor thing" they told us that as a matter of principle they try getting everyone of these crooks off the street. In a later court hearing it turned out these guys had a dozens of "smaller" crimes on their list that lead to a verdict. Thank you Germany for having common sense.
Germany having common sense?? Ahhahahahahhahahahahahahhahahaa I guess you haven't looked very hard at their renewable energy compared to France going nuclear or their mandates for covid
Centre of the EU, its de-facto leader lorded over you for over fifteen years. Imagine if America had a president for fifteen years. Sweet, petty theft doesn't go unpunished. Don't go thanking your own nation for having common sense just yet.
2 million worth of cigars? it's better for your health that they were stolen.
In the Philippines cops would say "too bad, nothing we can do" when the thief is confronted and admits to having your property (in the hundreds of dollars). 3rd world s51tholes will always remain so.
@@bobspizza7444 you can say about the politics what you want, and in many ways, I agree with you, but regarding public services like police, firefighters, ems, and THW, Germans have their shit together.
I'm surprised more stores haven't turned into vending machines with people in them. The same way gas stations lock up the doors and you have to do transactions through a window late at night
Get desperate enough and you can break the walls
@@joeybanks18 Breaking the wall is a crime, still an improvement.
But I heard that it was a store who put each item at 960$. If you go pay them, you get a "discount" to their real price but when you try walking out with it you can be prosecuted because the value is high.
@@elenabob4953 sounds like alot of mistakes could happen
It’s honestly only a matter of time before that happen because I don’t think these big corporations are going to just stand by and watch their money literally going out the door for much longer. Shoplifting has gotten astronomically worse over the past couple of years and it just can not go on like this for much longer. Something drastic is going to happen to the retail industry in America and it’s not going to be for the better for regular people. One way stores are dealing with this is encourage people to shop online with things like delivery and curbside pick out, I wouldn’t be surprised if walk-in stores get phased out in the very near future and everything move online. And honestly you can’t blame these companies for doing so, they’re businesses who need to make money to pay their shareholders and more importantly their employees, they’re not charities.
SEVERITY of punishment is almost irrelevant.
ASSURANCE of punishment is what provides a real disincentive to breaking the rules.
You can sentence shoplifters to a year in jail, but if the risk of getting caught is 1%, they'll still take their chances.
If you sentence shoplifters to a fine that's the value of what they stole plus $100, and you catch 95% of shoplifters, pretty soon shoplifters will go extinct.
Yeah. I think a lot of the issue is some people being given way too many chances and other people being given too few. Lots of middle class thieves are given slaps on the wrist for impulse theft while homeless folks are locked up for stealing food.
Problem 1 is that catching them requires effort, while increasing the sentence looks good on TV and costs nothing.
Problem 2 is that many of the perpetrators caught will be members of one or another "favored" group, and thus result in the whole catch-&-punish process being discredited by boosters of that group.
SO much easier to simply blame your political enemy of the moment and watch the campaign contributions come pouring in.
Yea that's not gonna work, people will steal regardless of punishment because the root of the theft hasn't been addressed, rampant homelessness, wage theft & lack of employment that doesn't pay you like a slave, drug pandemic & mental illness, has yet to be mentioned.
All this "tough on crime" bullshit is just another ploy for lazy ass sadistic liberals & conservatives to pretend as if they're actually helping but in reality just increasing their passive income on the prisons they keep building stocking filled with "criminals"
@@joeybanks18 Exactly. Tough on crime for someone stealing toiletries and fucking snacks? Are these people complete sociopaths or what?
Oooooffff!
Basically you wait until no one can profit from opening a store and then people wonder where they can buy/steal things from.
No stores, nothing to steal, no crime.
And then the govt can give us everything...
@@jamesd3412 "You will own nothing and you will be happy"
That's basically communism
@@marcogenovesi8570 Without the internet? Shaky maybe. With the internet? Not at all, everything just moves online.
@@marcogenovesi8570 that's kind of the sarcasm I was going for
dawg, that "limited area" you're pointing to is literally the entire city limits of SF lmao.
they are from NY so i bet their scale is off
I had the same thought, but then I realized the map doesn't show all the Walgreens in San Francisco, it only shows the ones that are closing. Louis is just speculating that the closure of those five stores could possibly be because there are too many of them too close to each other. I'm sure we've all seen a Walgreens across the street from a CVS or an Eckerd's or whatever you have in your city.
When people have no problem going on tv to admit to committing a crime, you know you got a problem.
Works for politicians.
Actually society has a problem. If someone needs to steal to survive, then society has failed. End of story.
“I bet this doesn’t stand for File Transfer Protocol” lmao I saw you trying to keep the grin in
What else could FTP stand for? “For The People”, “Friendly Town Puma”, “Free To Play”?
Friendly Theft Place...
@@internetmovieguy it stands for F*** The 🚓
I thought it was FJB after a half hearted attempt to clean the window.
Not File Transfer Protocol, but rather Felonious Transfer of Property, hm?
plot twist, the "reported" theft number is just grossly under-reported and in reality it's a shitshow. I mean come on, a shop that got 0 thefts for a whole year? Gimme a break
its plausible.... my electronics department had the lowest shrink (theft / inventory issues etc...) but i had everything locked up --- rule was there was always an employee nearby and we had visible cameras everywhere
but then again, if you are a store in my area and you call the police about a potential theft they will be outside your store in 5 mins... we had 4 people (sometimes groups) apprehended or brought in shortly after....
theft was never 0 for the whole store but not many people tried to steal from my electronics department when it was known to be a fools errand
we got less theft in the store overall after walmart got rid of all their loss prevention after a lawsuit (one of their guys went overboard and beat a person half to death that was trying to flee... so instead of paying up they just got rid of all loss prevention company wide) surprised ppl don't just steal from walmart....
yeah that's just reported theft and doesn't account for just general shrinkage
white community
store wasn't open that year?
@@wnxdafriz In an ideal world that former employee would've gotten employee of the month and a raise. Too bad we're in the worst timeline.
I ran an electronics store for six years. I ruled it with an iron fist for two reasons. One, cops don't give a damn about thieves. Two, if I make it clear that if you mess with me, you are going to hospital, you will go and steal from someone else. No one EVER stole from my store. Several people tried though.
I didn't used to be that way. I believed cops would help. Then I learned that they don't care, even when you have ABSOLUTE PROOF with CCTV, ID, etc of someone doing stuff they shouldn't. It isn't worth the paperwork for them.
So I did it myself. Every manager that I know that takes no BS from people never has issues. Stop taking crap from people and they stop giving you crap. There will always be crazy people, but nine out of ten, people back down when people stand up to them.
Having said all of that, when you live in an area where there is basically no law against theft - wow, I don't even know what to say. At that point, if I did something about it myself, I'd probably be arrested. What a time to be in retail...
Well that sounds all well and good. Until you get shot.
@@mushafasa Luckily I live in the UK - so much less likely :)
The more we rely on authority, the worse everything is, in virtually every category.
No laws against crime, tons of laws against defending yourself against crime. Either people start attacking evil indiscriminately (that includes cops, politicians and MSM that punish citizens instead of criminals), or this country is finished.
@@manictiger Absolutely. Stare down BS whenever and wherever you encounter it.
If people were allowed to protect their property without fear of lawsuits, crime would fall.
This culture of not being able to do anything, while also seeing that the cops don’t do anything… is ludicrous
Property isn't worth your life. If you arm up they do to and it doesn't end well. An arms race is a loss for all
@@whatistruth_1 your life is the ultimate property, the right to self preservation of you and your shit isnt showing how terrible society is
LUDAAA
So lets start with killing someone who is stealing is murder. Simple theft is not a threat to life and limb and use of deadly force to stop a robbery at a business is an unreasonable use of deadly force that will get you life in prison in California, and the death penalty in other states.
The idea that police don't do ENOUGH while we live in the largest police state in the world suggests you are operating from a place of privilege and need to wake the f*** up. We incarcerate people to the tune of almost 5 times any other country in the world. I know people that have served month long jail sentences for failure to appear bench warrants. Maybe, this is a big maybe, but maybe if we diverted the resources we waste to fight the "war on drugs" to community policing in places like this there would be a decrease in crime, which is what studies show happens, but also you would have trust that police will not just blow your neighbor away for "furtive movements" which I don't think I am inclined to believe.
Anybody advocating for vigilantism or police as the answer to shoplifting might be one of the more moronic suggestions I have seen today. Thanks internet.
@@ididthisonpulpous6526 it’s called dont steal and you wont get shot kinda easy to follow
re: carts with poles. You can lean the cart back and still get under the door. Source: our Rite-Aid.
that was my first thought lol. clearly the people behind that haven't carried a ladder or anything
yes. The carts with poles have been around in LA - off and on since the 90s. It becomes a sign that a customer does not want to got to that particular store.
I thought it was so carts don't get left in the aisles. That was an annoying problem in the store I worked at
I always thought it was to find the person you went shopping with if you split up lol. Never occured to me that it was a theft deterrent for the reasons you mentioned
It mostly only needs to obstruct people with an IQ of 85 or less.
There was an independent grocery store in Saint Louis Back when I was working an extremely poor area. In order to get your groceries you walked up to the counter which was walled off behind bulletproof glass and handed the proprietor your shopping list. He would then total up your bill charge your money and then go get your items which he would then hand you through an airlock set up in his door system. Mind you this was in the days before cell phones, As things continue to evolve with technology I suspect that this will be a solution employed by big chains sooner or later, With grocery stores in these sorts of areas basically becoming closed off warehouses Which fulfill orders from people who are using smartphones That are waiting outside in the parking lot.
This is what liquor stores were like in most places i have lived in NYC (born and raised), the first time I went into a liquor store without bulletproof glass it seemed fancy to me.
Must make the woke happy to have more things to complain about, treating poor communities like criminals etc
There was an alta dena where a friend worked that was a full service drive through store. People would drive up, the attendant got your stuff, charged you and then handed your stuff over. It was very convenient. The only theft was employee theft.
And honestly you can’t blame these companies for doing it. They’re businesses that need to make money to pay their shareholders and more importantly their employees. I work in a store in a poor and predominantly people of color area and see these same people treat the store and it’s employees like crap every single day. People coming in grabbing whatever they want and just casually leaving with the police being too scared to do anything to them. I don’t think people realized how bad things are, it’s not just petty theft it’s an organized criminal activity. We are a small store and we looses about 700 dollars a day to theft so that just goes to show you how bad things are. It’s just a matter of time before walk in stores are a thing of the past and everything is moved online. And when that happen these same people who’s been taking these stores for granted will be negatively impacted the most.
That sounds like Chicago now
Amazing that guy was so casual on camera to say he shop lifted at that store. Like as if its an acceptable way of life now days. There needs to be more consequences for crime in general.
How many years of jail he should he get for stealing a slim Jim? IMO 10 years, all the butt fucking should put his morals back in place
dude was based fuck yall
He knows he won't be punished, that's why he was so casual.
@@MrArielK Bro calm down
San Francisco won't do a single substantial thing about it. Theft will be ingrained into the culture.
this is basically what happened here in brazil, there's no real consequences to small crimes, and the police is already full of cases to investigate that they're not gonna bother or even have the time to deal with one more guy. If you guys don't get your shit together you're gonna end up like us.
I'm in america. We don't learn from mistakes here.
Its already terrible, thank you for your warning but we are operated by idiots :/
Same as in Peru too
I give you Switzerland. I was in court as a victim. The offender was there based on multiple cases. One of them was the biggest national grocery chain suing him for stealing a 3$ pasta salad. Even the judge laughed. Yet it reached the courts and affected his punishment.
Damn right, pasta is serious business!
It all adds up
I believe it's similar in Canada.
and Switzerland even has a high gun per capita ratio, yet manage to be normal about it, honestly Switzerland is like the antiAmerica.
also neutral during wars.... and the list goes on lol
@endless The high per capita gun ratio is due to their compulsory military training which ends in being issued a weapon to take home as part of being in their National Militia (neutrality prehibits a standing army as we would recognize it) . Almost everyone who has a weapon is also military trained.
It's amusing that the Swiss so the second amendment better than Americans do
If you have fairly flexible morality and you see people just taking stuff with impunity on a daily basis, it's really only a matter of time before you ask yourself why the hell you are paying. There are certainly some people who are just honest, moral, and can afford to pay; they will always pay. Many, particularly those with tight finances, will end up feeling like the dumb one for doing the right thing and end up joining in the rampant theft.
Flexible morality could be used in such better ways. Like robbing the houses or cars of people whom you know shoplift, after they leave the car or house (to go shoplift). Then you use the money (after selling their stuff on ebay) to buy from those stores. Close the loop!
we aced it last year when the government was paying us to become unemployed. People who stuck with it lost precious time, and potentially left money on the table
@@HewroPreez I actually lol'd at this. No lies detected.
Lmao this is how I feel about the SF situation, even though I live in NYC. Like damn, free shit? I'll take it.
This. I don't shoplift but it's definitely a slap in the face to keep paying for all of my groceries as the prices keep going up while people around me are getting theirs for free with zero consequences. It's almost as if I'm indirectly paying for their groceries because of the increasing markups other shoppers have to make up for.
I like the idea of increasing the pricing on everything by $1,000 and having a $1,000 off each item coupon at register..
Like the laws won't change to readjust to the new prices.
Have a friend who works "Asset Protection" for Walmart. Last year while helping him out (tire blow-out on a lonely stretch of Montana highway about 25 minutes out of town) I asked him why he was driving back from a nearby town, to which he said he was assisting/observing at a store inventory. I asked him how that went, and he said that the store had lost a bit over two million dollars in merchandise that year, which actually was not terrible in terms of overall losses for Walmart Corp nation-wide. (Evidently if your losses are under ~4% of revenue, that's okay.) Thing is, that store is in Kalispell, Montana, a town that I grew up in as a kid, and a store that serves a mostly rural area with relatively low population density. It boggles the mind that such a large quantity of merchandise is just walking out of the store on a yearly basis, especially when you consider the actual value of most items stolen. Sure, there are high-end items lifted, but most of it is small items that aren't that valuable.
The quantity of shoplifting that is going on is staggering.
According to him there's a policy of no confrontation with thieves. If they get out the door, they're clear. The policy is to "aggressively help" anyone who looks like they might be engaging in larcenous activity. People generally get a little more honest if someone else is actively interacting with them.
Which means that replacing staff with robots is likely to not turn out well for rates of theft, but that's another discussion entirely.
Maybe it's because people are dirt poor and don't get paid livable wages
@@pippincovington1348 I'm poor, so give me your stuff! And you wonder why rich people hate the poor? Lol
@@TheWebbNasty I've been poor and even then I still thought that any vermin holding that gibs me mentality should be killed on sight, I still do! Property rights are human rights, people's property is an extension of their life and those who can't respect the rights and life of others forfeit their own as a consequence!
So that store makes 50 million a year?
@@RicardoSantos-oz3uj That's not how the math works. Net does not equal revenue which also does not equal profit.
Police statistics and how they are used politically are what you are missing. If all the thefts are changed to misdemeanors, then it looks better on the crime statics that they can tout during speeches or to the media; even if the actual theft is out of control. Basically a police department can let misdemeanors slip, but they cannot let felonies out of control or it "looks bad". That's basically what's happening: a battle of statistics vs reality.
AKA: "You can prove anything with statistics" :P
Like Gerrymandering to get voters instead of, ya know, having policies and ideas that serve the people and letting voters vote for you.
"Jukin' the stats".
They did that in Chicago a few years back to get the murder rate down. They redefined 'homicide' to be when people are murdered instead of when each person is murdered.
Killing 5 people in a row years ago was 5 homicides.
Killing 5 people in a row today is 1 homicide and the homicide rate drops dramatically.
Yeah, the difference is 100% "Punishment" vs "No Consequence". If people figure out there is no punishment for petty theft, or even fairly large theft, they will steal constantly.
N a heartbeat, the went from not making shoplifting a felony to just not responding at all.
I wouldn't even operate a store or business in an area like that.
I'd maybe do specialized online sales, but there's no way I'd sell things like electronic goods where some dick will send an empty box back, or send his old smashed laptop back in the brand new box as a return and you have 0 recourse.
@@whohan779 Always check the carton before you put it into your cart/basket man. While we don't have the problem of an egg or two missing, oddly in an area with high crime. We do have a problem with people being too rough and breaking/cracking eggs. However I wonder about the employees there considering it's pretty common where I'm from for employees to inspect the eggs and combine packages that don't have the full count due to the breakage problem.
I saw a guy in a store once open a carton of milk, drink from it, and then put it back.
@@eideticex they aren't supposed to mix eggs from different packages together. If there's a recall on certain cartons, you don't want to risk missing recalled product because it's no longer in the right package. There's a lot of waste in grocery around stuff like that, because if someone gets sick because of a mixed product like that, it's the grocery store that gets in trouble.
I don’t know about Louis, but over the last decade of living in Manhattan - I’ve sought out the police 5 times, each for physical altercations I’ve stumbled upon. I’ve only seen them respond once, when I flagged down an officer in a parked squad car.
It’s pretty clear to me that if any sizable number of us decided to subvert order there would be little the police would or could do about it. Our only hope I’m afraid is to make it easier for people to be part of society than to work against it.
Enforcement is part of that puzzle but so is affording people opportunity and getting past the myth of rugged individualism.
Nail on the head.
"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother, that person is a piece of shit, and I’d like to get as many of them out in the open as possible." - Rust Cohle, True Detective
The only thing keeping me decent is not divine reward. But because I can understand that my actions can harm others. I am intelligent enough to get away with any crime if I wanted to. But this world already has too much evil. It doesn't need me to add to it.
someone stole the wheels off my car, and I found them for sale on ebay. He had a whole online store with used stolen parts. I gave the cops the info so they could contact ebay, since ebay won't allow regular peasants like me to report sellers. The cops of course did nothing, and dude still sells stolen parts on ebay last time I looked. not sure what the fuck I'm paying taxes for, because I certainly get nothing for it.
Purchase a part, send it back with a tracker and...
Where do you live ?
Come on man, grow up. Don't you know the police have more important things to deal with, like busting pot smokers? Theft? That's nothing. Cannabis? That's the real crime!
/s
@@zacharysmith4787 especially since if they "smell" it in a car, that's a pretext for search and then civil asset forfeiture, which is totally not theft regardless of if you aren't convicted on charges, even though good luck getting your property back
Heh, irony, recently had my car burgled, first time in near three years at my apt, and yeah, nobody really cares. Not landlords (open space parking), not police (too little), not insurance (auto not damaged).
I think eventually no one will call cops and will just draw on anyone they see stealing. They'll get blamed for the response...and will care about as much as the admitted thief on camera.
And then the government will call for gun bans.
LMAO same thing recently happened to me on my block except a lady “fell asleep” at the wheel and caused a 5 car collision (my vehicle included) no license no registration no insurance $$$ worth of damage done... do you think the police came?
Heh, irony.
There's a fight or flight response. Most people just move away, leads to Detroit-like cities. Others take the law into their own hands and we have Arbery-like incidents.
@@tkjspeaks1491 *legally* they're supposed to at least show up to document the collision for the sake of a report for the insurance company and that's where their obligations end
people in Portland have just decided to hire mercenaries and if you think I'm joking about this I'm not,
that's what happened this last summer wear a lot of police were getting killed and a lot of other people or ending up dead,
when there is no way to say justice justice finds a way I guess more people just get sick and tired of it and say the hell with it this is easier usually just the path of least resistance
One important distinction is you are looking at reported theft, which can vary greatly from actual theft. Its possible that all 5 stores have a higher than acceptable percentage of hidden shrink and some stores might be better than others at loss prevention. Most retail theft never gets reported.
5:40 - Agreed. The difference between 0 and 1 is not just 1. It's the difference between NOTHING and SOMETHING.
The spike in shoplifting the past couple years is crazy.
the dude that admitted shoplifting got a legitimate laugh out of me, my stomach hurt, lol - very meme worthy.
You're right, and it's very unlikely anything will happen to this guy.
@@GenerationXT even if cops talked to him, all he'd have to do is say he was joking or something
Weirdly only one of his eyes are dilated.
@@GenerationXT the mask hiding their faces tends to make thieves feel safe from prosecution. That’s why I say dump the mask. Let’s sketchy people get away with sketchy shit.
Yeah we gotta admire the guy's sincerity
I work for Walgreens as an overnight manager and i just cant help my self from laughing at those "reports" to the police. The media was bashing Walgreens for closeing those stores because they said that the increase of "reported" thefts wasnt huge from year to year and that it was just a poor placement and management that lead to there closer and that it will effect the local community poorly for those failed stores. I work at a Houston, TX location mind yall, I DONT report every single theft that happens only those that are very obviously douche bags that run out the door with a full cart or arms wide holding as much as they can. We dont bother reporting the metric ton of "Empty packages" that are left in our store/bathrooms and all the hidden yet obvious items walking out our door. I let the few people that come every once in a while to steal food/underware/socks slide as long as there not coming in every night and not bothering anyone and not doing it like in 7:43 but if they start causeing any kind of issues I ask them to leave or call the police. We lose a hell of alot more from the Un"reported" than from the "reported". So the media can suck it, can only watch these vids and think how it would feel like working at anyone of those stores in cali.
Perhaps your store SHOULD report such unreported crimes. Then as reported, then it becomes a thorn as someone is wasting time filling out such reports and showing true crime and the costs that go along with it.
@@MrPir84free Sorry i dont understand what your saying other then the first sentence. There is something called the "Sunk cost fallacy" or the boy that cryed wolf story could be best to describe if we tryed to report every petty theft that happens. Police resource's are limited , even more so when the Defund the police mentality was rising though not so much her in TX thankfully, at best all this would do is waste resource on getting a more accurate numbers on paper, then dealing with real(serious)crime that could be happening at that time.
The US sounds dystopian.
That amount of petty theft is unheard of here in Romania.
@@ancalyme I'm fairly sure human nature is close enough no matter the location. Its just about population density at that point, if you live in any city numbering in the millions or close to them like the suburban areas the chances of anything like this happening increase linearly with the population. So you either don't live close enough to one or don't actively listen for these kind of things until its in your face. Mind you just because it is unheard(unreported) doesn't mean its not happening.
@@timiaus My mother works as a branch manager at a supermarket
"What do you think of higher retail theft in San Francisco?"
*_Purrs cathartically_*
I work for one of Albertsons/Safeways sister stores. Corporate literally says we can't stop shoplifters and if we see anyone walking around fast/erratically with a backpack, it is "discrimination" to assume that they're shoplifting. Literally, like 3 minutes later, we see that same person walking out behind an empty register or through the entrance with a multiple bags stuffed with who knows what. It's not hard to point the shoplifters because they all literally do the same movements thinking they're smart at being sneaky. We just don't want to risk getting fired and it is getting very tiring watching so many people walking out with $100-$700 worth of product, possibly even more if they have multiple bags with multiple people.
How do these people end up in corporate?
@@DefinitelyNotAMachineCultist eh.. usualy the policy isnt because "it could be discrimination" but that at bigger stores the value lost by theft isnt worth the potential risk of a major scene(ie a confrontation with the shoplifter) potentialy injuries to staff(do to said confrontation) and other things.
@@weberman173 Yeah, it makes sense that it wouldn't be worth it over one isolated incident (and apparently no one gets paid enough to want to be the guy to start something to end it, even if it wasn't isolated, in most places). The way this usually gets phrased though, makes it sound like a 'death of a thousand cuts' situation. I'm guessing even people higher up in the chain just pass the buck as soon as it gets clear the mall cops (not to mention the real ones) won't help much?
There might be a move to cage shops or similar. Everything is on display behind a cage, you tell the cashier what you want. It gets stacked into a drawer, you pay, then the drawer is slid over to collect your stuff.
Or prepaid pickup.
1:1 like in prison... fucking great lol
There are several shops like that in Santiago, Chile, specially in the more dilapidated areas. They give out a horrible demeanor to the neighborhood, obviously...
Diversity is our strength.
In the case of theft of Louis's bag, he needs to regularly follow up with the police to get someone to look. A single complain = they take a note and forget about it. You need to regularly follow up to ensure that they collect footage in time. Also mention that they do not retain footage for a long time, to ensure that they collect evidence more quickly.
Just on principle I would have an attorney subpoena that footage and credit card info. Then hunt down that person.
@Ataco Sadly in many cities in the US, they make it the job of the person reporting a crime to regularly follow up and remind them that the crime happened. It is either that or your report is instantly a cold case before any police time is put into the case.
try to get footage from Walmart from something that happened in the parking lot and see how much luck you have at that. You're not going to have any luck that's what I'm trying to tell you.
unless you have an attorney or actually happened to file the paperwork yourself for a subpoena for getting the footage you are not able to go ahead and actually access it and good luck with the cop sharing it with you.
If the police can't be assed to investigate the theft then maybe they also can't be assed to investigate why the criminals go missing.
Its like that in a lot of cities. Police won't do the job and you're not allowed to ( ie. They won't share information with you ).
Two things: 1. I used to work in a Safeway and we had people door-dashing all the time. No security. Staff was encouraged to interfere, but were not given any support if they did. 2. The too many stores in one area is the sign of a greedy franchise. Starbucks is well known for this, but Subway is perhaps the worst example, as they might have a store per block, making it extremely hard for their franchisees to compete. This is allegedly done because Subway cared more about initial franchise fees than retaining franchisees.
All franchise fast food places make more money off of the renting fees than they do off of food, feel bad for the franchise owners
Pretty soon we'll return to the days of closed stores with listed goods in a small public storefront. You'll hand the employee a list of what you want and your payment, then they'll bring it to the window.
Honest people pay for what criminals do, in terms of theft. The lack of a penalty for even relatively large theft is what is called a "moral hazard." It in effect encourages the commission of a crime or unethical act.
people will still do theft even if the sentence is death. you have to unfuck society so people don't need to do crime
@@user-fs9mv8px1y Yes, of course they will (in the past, there was a death penalty for theft of over a relatively small amount). People will do murder, as well. But reasonably swift justice can reduce crime. Just because something isn't 100% successful doesn't mean it has no success.
@@joannleichliter4308 Punishment is just treating a symptom, you can't fix a fucked society by throwing everyone in jail
@@user-fs9mv8px1y If one assumes that humans in a state of nature are perfect, but corrupted by society, or that they are limitlessly perfectable, then "fixing society" might solve the problem of crime. If, however, you see humans as flawed creatures who may nevertheless improve individually if they are willing, you have less faith that manipulating social conditions will solve the problem of human intransigence. Since I fall into the latter category, I am pleased to see social improvement (depending on its definition) but have no faith in its ability to perfect himan nature.
@@user-fs9mv8px1y You're 100% right. The issue is that correcting this society would be bloody. Not saying it isn't necessary.
Seattle: My local Safeway went from 24hrs to closing at 12. Every time I go, I see multiple people just wandering out with baskets of goods, then often just dump the items out maybe ten feet from the door and ransack it with their buddies. They often just tear a bunch of stuff open, like eat half a chocolate cake and just leaving the rest. They tried the carts that lock when they breach the parking lot. The thieves break the locking mechanism, the cart doesn't work, they just leave the broken cart there. I'd say someone walks out every ten minutes with something. Others are just eating in the aisles. Seattle doesn't really arrest for theft under $750, the prosecutor never prosecutes, everyone stops calling the impotent cops. It's a dystopian cesspool and getting exponentially worse every year. Oh well, it's what the people here want, they vote for it every time, so we deserve it.
for me personally, the embarrassment when caught stealing is the thing that keeps me from it. I stole a rubber band once tho. Yep one single rubber band from a pack which I opened in the store and took one out and stole it, cuz I really just needed 1 and didn't want to pay 2,99€ for the whole 50 piece pack.
RE: having multiple Walgreens in a particular area: Isn't this the desire of most city dwellers? Ways to get your medication or goods without having to get a car or catch the bus/taxi to go shopping?
Edit: Whether it be Walgreens or some small mom and pop shop doesn't matter. People want convenience of having a shop nearby and thus closing doors is a deterrent to city living.
Thomas Sowell also talked about how it’s more expensive to be poor when talking about grocery prices
The Mafia in some areas actually protected your business if you paid the protection money. They probably charged less than the government does and provided way better services. The police in these areas certainly don't hold up their end of the bargain.
Police can't do anything when the politicians pass law that only $900 dollars or more must be stolen before the police act.
Police can't do anything about this. If you look at some of the records of these people they have looong rapsheets of arrest after arrest, but the judicial system lets them out. That's the problem in these cities, it's not that the cops aren't doing their jobs, it's the DA letting them off easy or not prosecuting. But that's what the locals voted for, these people are true believers.
@@zeeiii6857 It's a combined effort. Cops have been neglecting petty theft for a long time before the activist DAs came along.
Make mafia great again
@@danielboyas7645 You're right. The police don't carry the full weight of blame. It's the entire system.
There is a youtuber in NYC named Daniel Mackler that got mugged and made some vlogs about it. The prosecutor dropped the charges against the guys that mugged him, even though they were caught red-handed, on video taking money out of the ATM... etc... The prosecutor dropped the charges because Daniel didn't hand over his entire diary. Not just the pages where he talked about the incident because he did that, but the entire diary. Prosecutor blamed Daniel for needing the drop the charges for not wanting to turn over the entire diary.
Fun fact: I’d never even heard of Duane Reade until I took a vacation to NYC, I’d asked an employee at a clothing store where I could find deodorant since I’d forgotten mine and she told me ‘Dwayne Reed’ and where it was and I was completely bamboozled until I spotted it and went in. Thought she was sending me to some kind of fancy boutique or maybe misheard me, not NYC-Walgreens.
I live in a middle class/upper middle class suburb about 45 minutes outside of Houston and our local grocery stores, drugstores and hardware stores are adopting similar measures.
My local Ace Hardware has such a terrible shoplifting problem that almost every product that costs more than $15-20 has some type of physical lock on the hook or is stored inside of a cage that must be opened by an employee. And the employee won’t even hand you the item, they walk it up to the checkout counter and have them hold it for you until you’re ready to check out. It’s absolutely shameful that this is what people have to resort to in order to mitigate the risk of losing their business because of shoplifting.
We used to tar and feather people who were caught robbing people and stores. I say we go back to that approach. If you decide to steal a bunch of shit from somebody’s business, we’ll put you into the stockade for 3 days, let kids spit on you as they pass by and then you’ll be tarred and feathered and sent to prison. And if you’re a repeat offender, you’ll be publicly hanged by the end of the week or perhaps dragged behind a horse until you die. Let’s get serious about law enforcement for a change. We’ve got spineless mayors and activist DA’s who hamstring the police and never even bother pressing charges against these scumbags. When you stop enforcing the law, you get a lot more criminal activity. This shit is pretty simple.
You can't steal if you don't have hands...
Kingwood?!
@@tybarker5038 good guess, I’m actually out in Cypress.
Right on !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It does not even need to be that severe of a punishment. Take the trash, and move them into the desert or island or middle of a swamp or such - i.e. some place remote and inhospitable. Put up a barrier, like fencing with razor wire and such, but for shelter, give them ONLY tents, bread and water. Summer time, winter time, same punishment. when jail is no longer a resort, and punishment is taking their time which they'll never get back, they'll figure it out. The punishment would need to be at least 3 months for first offenders for lesser offenses and 6 months or longer for repeat offenders; but once word gets out what the punishment is, well, such crime will curb itself. No heat. no air conditioning. No tv or internet. No doctors.. just guards, a fence, and no parole..
Not surprising. I visited a Walgreens in San Francisco and there was only one cashier and a bunch of self checkout machines. Given the store had barely any payroll, the prices were ridiculous, even by manhattan standards.
A good rule of life worth remembering:
Any behavior you incentivize... you get more of.
So I guess that's why we got a police state.
Police is the only job in which the shittier of a job you do. The more money you make.
As departments will get more funding where there is more crime. And will have their funds cut, if there is not enough crime.
We reward the police based on how bad they do their job. Instead of how well they do their job.
I remember In my high school and early college years I was working at the gas station for a Pakistani guy. Location was not too bad, however robberies were happening. Gladly not during my shifts. I remember some young people will just take a candy and just put it in their pocket openly. Once even looking at me like what are you going to do? It was in 2006-2008 years. I cant imagine what is going on nowadays at these little c stores and gas stations.
2025 SF Conversation be like:
- Hey man what do you work?
"I'm a machine gunner"
- Wow, being in the army is really honorable!
"No I work at the local Walgreens"
I was thinking more, hand guillotene specialist...
Nope. The criminals have rights. Victims don't.
At some point people will start to protect their property and stores with force. And that will just keep escalating.
No they won't because the amount of goods stolen is 1) already calculated into the price with a *generous* margin and 2) negligible in their annual revenue.
@@insu_na fool
It's comifornia so unless you're protecting one of the corrupt "elites" then you would be just be made an example of
@@wades623 California is one the most capitalistic places on Earth, but I suppose this is another "everything I don't like is communism" comment.
PS: Since I feel like I'm going to be accused of being a communist: communism in practice is one of the worst political systems, ever.
@@wizzyno1566 Your thesaurus is amazing.
Whoa, I never thought about one of the reasons why grocery prices can be higher in poorer areas is because there is higher theft. Nthe cynic in me just thought that it was predatory pricing because they figure people won't be willing to travel to another store.
Love that you referenced my favorite book! Thomas Sowell does an incredible job of explaining what economics actually is and why it matters to everyday people. I’ve read that book 4 times and I’m still learning more!
I'll never understand how people think food deserts IN THE MIDDLE OF A CITY are due to companies not wanting to make money.
Cities are glorified prisons anyway.
Exactly, even in my country where we don't have malls and other such large stores like walmart. Cities are going empty for 2 to 3 main reasons. First of all, Crime (and that seems to be the main issue in the case of a lot of US places), second is unhealthy shopping environment that's things like limiting parking spaces, parking tolls and other things that make shopping more expensive than it needs to be or more cumbersome. And lastly one thing that feeds into to former 2 is competition from online shopping.
@@relo999 Crime is at a multi-decade low, but the media wants you to be afraid of everything
@@idontwantahandlewhymustidothis No. On a national level the lowest point was in 2016. Granted it's still quite low compared to the 90's (which was an all-time high, right now on a national level it's roughlt as bad as it was in the early 70's).
However on a localized level it's quite different. Crime and riots has steadily increased in the last decade or so in part due to restrictions on stop and frisk in high crime area's and decreasing police presence in those area's (mostly due to a political push from typical "woke" yuppies that don't live in those area's to begin with as a way to fight discrimination). And in part because rioting has become more socially acceptable (or at least more acceptable in the media).
And guess what places are increasingly less stores? Centers in high crime area's and places with riots.
Remember a lot of these stores are moving, they aren't out of business. It's much more profitable and safer to have a store that isn't consistently stolen from and doesn't have to deal with riots.
@@relo999 did you just cite stop and frisk as a good thing??? wat?? lol
They havent changed punishment for shoplifting, theyve got rid of punishment entirely.
Its changed the shop lifting culture completely in california.
Its funny because theyve brought it on themselves.
That’s cause we filled jails with low level druggies.
We already world leader in jailing so keep adding!
@@abdiganiaden so removing the penalty for theft isn't the solution is it?
@@smdnsnnd7254 cost of living is approaching survival level for current generation thanks to baby boomers.
So no, let the hedge funds owned by baby boomers lose a dollar instead of depriving people of freedom for petty crime.
Let the rich who own big box stores figure out, were not gonna utilize state resources to keep them comfy when more desperate people need the state resources.
@@abdiganiaden are you nuts? If this theft is the result of costs of living, why are we only seeing this in democrat shitholes?
@@abdiganiaden thank you for ruining california
Law enforcement in San Fran is monitoring cars, especially parked cars. They are there to generate revenue, and that comes from drivers, not shoplifters. If cops were fining shoplifters with the vigor they go after drivers, shoplifting would stop.
Our shrink target for 18 months at an autozone was 0.6%. We hit 0.3% by the end of inventory, I was astounded at how little seemed stolen even though it seemed like customers walked out with shit all the time.
I will preface this by saying that I used to work at Walgreens, and I quit just after they implimented a non interact policy with shoplifters. Walgreens does not prosecute shoplifters. Even if they are caught directly by the police, Walgreens will not send a company representative to provide evidence. They will not provide camera footage, they will not provide employee statements, it is not worth their money or their time, they simply charge more for everything else and move on with their day. Prior to the non-interact policy, they required that the employee or manager Witness what was put in a pocket and where, and they could not lose sight of the person or they could not execute a soft stop at the door. Walgreens have gotten sued several times by shoplifters that were injured in the course of stealing from the company, and they paid out. They also had to pay out for the injuries to staff, which they shortly fired thereafter. When Walgreens implemented the non-stop policy with shoplifters, I watched my stores Seth number go from around 2% of gross revenue to around 10% of our gross revenue daily. Given that the store was running around $80,000 of front-end retail sales per day, that is quite a lot of money. Walgreens is not closing these doors because of the theft, that is an excuse they are using to publicly preface them closing stores that are not profitable, and those stores would have closed either way. Please don't like when you take away their Pharmacy and General goods stores, especially after they have killed all the competition. Walmart does the same thing. Walmart does not stop shoplifters, they do not even prosecute them in most jurisdictions in the United States. I am in Minnesota, not California, and I have never seen a prosecution success from a shoplifter, because it is not worth the prosecutor's time, it's difficult to prove, and it may not be an automatic win, and prosecutors don't like losing cases. So this is a two-fold problem, that starts in the prosecutor's office, because a prosecutor does not like having a low win record, and that it continues on further down the chain find it difficult to investigate, especially when stores will not hand over footage, or employee statements. This is a growing problem throughout the United States, driven heavily by inflation, and the massive divide and income equality. I'm spending about two times more on groceries and food now than I was just a year ago. Malaysian has gone insane, the government won't admit it though, and they will not raise interest rates to combat it, which leaves many low-income people in the position of either starving or stealing. Given that these companies don't give a single shit, and they are faceless representations of the income inequality, people don't feel so bad stealing from them.
Security should be legally allowed to rough up shoplifters.
@@MaaveMaave until the day where someone "looks suspicious" and gets tackled or manhandled just to find out that the security detail had an error. I don't believe that. because even the slightest fall can ruin someone's life, its unethical.
If you want to get people to stop breaking the law, convince them that the chance of them getting caught and punished is as close to 100% as you can manage. This means getting the cops to actually do something in these cases, or allowing stores to hire bouncers that can install knots on shoplifter heads legally. Personally, the former is my preference. The latter is too close to vigilante justice, and that is much less respective of 'innocent until proven guilty'.
If you want to stop people breaking the law, maybe give them no reason to break it in the first place...
Do you think people steal baby formula and food for fun? They do it because they're starving and they don't have any other ways. And don't come here with your "then they should just get a job!!" bullheck... Try getting a job with no permanent residence or an address in a poor area of town...
@@insu_na yeah no. We're not talking about "Oh I need to feed my family" theft. We are talking about "Yo dog I stuffed my bags and pockets with everything, gonna go sell it for a hot dollar down the corner.'
@@ShadowtheRenamon Except that you just made that up and have not a single data point to support your theory. If you actually look up the statistics you'll see that you're talking BS.
@@insu_na I yes I made up the stories of people down the street from the places they robbed setting up shop with their stolen merchandise.
@@ShadowtheRenamon And then everybody clapped. It's incredible how much of a stereotypical NPC you are.
As I was watching this video I thought back to your previous videos about things like "right to repair" and the destruction of your once beautiful city I came to a realization: Louis Rossmann is a good person. Keep fighting the good fight, many of us appreciate all that you do. Keep that fire burning within you, we see your kind soul.
My fiance worked at a Walgreens and there was a guy who would regularly steal soap , deodorant, and other toiletries. She never said anything because. If a person has to steal basic human necessaties there's something wrong with society.
They keep adding more of this stuff, but it doesn't fix the problems. I've been watching livestreams in Japan. Stores keep stuff outside, just totally unguarded. No security, no trash, no graffiti. Must be so nice. 😭
Alexa, what's the racial makeup of Japan?
@@mladizivko not many blacks so it's safer
I've only seen carts with poles at one store and it's a dollar store and that was more so employees didn't have to go out and round them up and also to stop people from taking the carts, not what's inside them. I work for a big box grocer and would never shop at one that didn't let me push my cart full of heavy crap out to my car.
More stores need to adopt Aldi's quarter-per-cart system.
@@zacharysmith4787 Having used it before, I legitimately have no idea how that system makes *any* kind of sense.
@@InfernosReaper You're incentivized to return your cart to get your quarter back, thus keeping some poor kid from having to push around carts all day. They also give their cashiers chairs, which is pretty cool too.
@@zacharysmith4787 Exactly. And if you instead decide to leave your cart laying around anyway, the quarter in it will give some random kid an incentive to return the cart to get a "free" quarter for themselves. No employee needed. This is how pretty much every store with shopping carts is setup where I live.
@@laupit That's pretty brilliant.
OMG the Walmart near me has those same auto opening gates. I wondered what the F they were for other than to annoy people. Thanks for clearing that up for me. They have also added an associate asking some people to see their receipt on the way out.
The one thing in my life that I stole on the daily was my subway fare as a kid in NYC. We saved the money our parents gave us to buy tokens, bought candy instead, and just hopped the turnstile which was just about as much of a deterrent as those flimsy little Safeway gates. If 11-year-olds laughed at this, an adult criminal will not even register this as an obstacle.
Insurance also becomes more expensive, and when the store closes people lose jobs. Not good for a community in the long run...
It is actually pretty easy to get out of the spiral.
Simply enforce the law.
Have enough cops actually do their job.
Prosecute the criminals.
Hold the politicians responsible for making sure that the laws are enforced.
It doesn't help when the state protects the criminals...
That wouldn't be woke at all...
@@gustavrsh In which case the police is not enforcing the law, the criminals are not prosecuted and the politicians are not held responsible.
You can't say that my solution won't work when you take out my complete solution.
@@henrydillard6217 Well, maybe, just maybe that is because being woke CAUSED the problem?
IMO a large amount of the inner city problems are caused by the lack of law enforcement (not all).
Young inner city kids see the "cool" "rich" drug dealers and gang bangers, they see the stupid assholes struggling to make a legal living, always being taken to the cleaners by the criminals, and nobody is doing anything against it.
So of course they aspire to become gang bangers them self.
@@alfredkugler3043 How about the lack of housing and property to live in that is a factor on people becoming criminals in California due astronomical housing costs. The causes of the massive homelessness and drug abuse.
I once read that the biggest difference in crime is not the size of the sentence/ticket, but the chance of getting it.
I’ve watched a thief empty shelves into a big bag at Walgreens here in Miami. I informed the security guard and she said it was company policy not to confront thieves for safety. This was earlier this year. It’s not just an SF issue.
That is the policy everywhere. The liability from injuring people during a confrontation would be multiples in cost of what someone could steal.
@@angryfan370 That’s such a stupid argument to make. (And it’s probably not your own point, but just something you wanted to refer to, which is fine.) In my country, if the policy is to not put yourself in harm‘s way, you STILL call the police and secure the camera footage. Aka, call in the very people qualified for in-person confrontation, and secure the evidence. 🤷♀️
Prop 47 has been around since 2014. It's not just the lower punishment that is causing the problem. The SF DA has openly turned a blind eye to retail theft since 2020. Less than 44% of shoplifting cases were prosecuted in 2020. I believe it's still less than 50%. That's a lot of wasted resources if the DA only prosecuted 50% of the cases brought to him.
44% of reported cases.
When I was very young, like a toddler, I stole some raisins from safeway while in tow with my mom. I didn't know it was wrong. My parents found out and were furious. They marched my ass back to the store to apologize and pay for it that day. I was terrified. But I did not ever shoplift again after that experience.The police need to enforce the shoplifting laws in all the jurisdictions and stop making excuses about why they can't review the video footage or take down the credit card number. Police unions and politicians are not necessarily a good thing here. Perhaps eliminate the war on drugs and focus on real crimes like burglary and shoplifting rape, murder, etc if resources are so limited.
In the last week or so I saw footage of a mother walking around a store with her 2 kids, both under 6 or so. She walked down an aisle, touched a few wigs and the kids would take the wigs and stuff them in their jackets.
Part of the shoplifting issue is that a lot of the people shoplifting from a grocery store are people who need it to feed themselves or their kids and would otherwise go hungry. It's a tough issue that has a lot more nuance than people like to pretend it does. As the saying goes, if you see someone stealing food, you didn't. The way I see it shoplifting should still be illegal but if the police investigate and find that it was being done for a legitimate reason (ie. not wanting their kids to go hungry this week) there needs to be alternative solutions more focused on relieving the socioeconomic conditions involved rather than imprisoning them.
@@xanderkyron You're also ignoring some nuance. Regardless of the reason for shoplifting, it increases prices for paying customers. Instead of ignoring shoplifting because "they might need it" I'm going to report it if I see it. There are already alternatives to shoplifting for people who can't afford it, use them instead of shoplifting. I'm already paying taxes that go into welfare programs to help feed the less fortunate - I'm not also going to accept paying more for my food because some of them decide to steal instead.
War on drugs makes them too much money :p
@@mjc0961 that is indeed why I said that it should be illegal but if they investigate and find a valid reason they should use alternative approaches to solving the core issue rather than imprisoning the parent worsening the situation for everyone involved in a process that costs significantly more, yes
I agree 100% Louis. I am a ex Walgreens Manager that was "let go" after my store closed in OK. Those statistics don't even come close to the ones that are not reported! They said it wasn't from shoplifting but we all saw the writing on the wall as for 5 YEARS the thefts just started getting worse and worse in till we had no shopping carts in the store. They offered me positions in even WORSE parts of town that would make me drive longer then I already did. It blows my mind that it has gotten this bad and they will not do anything about it! Heard from a homeless guy that rumor spread that Walgreens was a easy target as we were not allowed to do anything to stop thief. Society is going to suffer from this trend and I'm going to sit back and watch it burn.
Might I also add when we tried to call a major shoplift into police as they are shoveling things into a cart. The response is "Are you sure they are stealing the 30 tubs of detergent?" No I guess they just have a lot of laundry XD
Sounds like the store was underfunded more than anything else. Too much profit got whisked away to higher ups than could be spent buying new carts
Back to having inventory behind metal bars and bulletproof wall: 1.put money in steel box, 2.get egg sandwich, 3.go away.
I live in France! My little sister got caught shoplifting the store, called my mother on the phone to come to the store and pay them a check to release my sister or to prison she would go! My mother made a check and my sister stolen the check without getting caught, and my mother is OK with that!
It's my belief that the factory default setting of a human being is to take the path of least resistance. Some are able to discover that the path of highest reward and the path of least resistance aren't always the same thing, but for every human who strives for the carrot, there are 8 or 9 who are only motivated by the stick, or only know of the stick.
As far as this thing goes, if you want to stop it, you have to create a solution where shoplifting is no longer the path of least resistance, or even a path of moderate resistance. What are the highest forms of resistance these customers face right now? What are their greatest incentives and rewards? If you can figure those things out, you can get a better understanding of how to mitigate them in favor of the business.
I also think you have to see things in terms of maximization and minimization versus all or nothing.
You'll always have shoplifters. You'll always have quickchangers. You'll always have a Danny Ocean wannabe trying to figure out how to pull off a retail and grocery heist. The question isn't so much about how does a business stop all shoplifting in general (although that would be very nice), but how you minimize it. How do you make it so the dumbasses and lazy people are easily caught and stopped while only the smartest and most cunning have a chance of getting away? How do you make it so that regular, honest shoppers prefer your store over the guy's down the street? How do you make it so people from further away will prefer your store to the one that's closest to them?
Understanding the paths of least resistance and greatest reward will be the key in coming up with solutions that work and are hopeully less draconian.
But I'm no business major and have never run a business, so those are my two cents.
Maybe if the path of least resistance leads to electrocution?
Edited to add: Your thoughts on maximizing and minimizing is a governing “law” in business already. Risk against profit, maximize output with the least amount of input, etc etc.
@@kdiggity41510 are you mehdi?
@@ncb4_69 that’s a loaded question . . . are we at end of days? 😉
I love your slow, methodical, detailed explanations of human behavior and thought... they are absolutely hilarious. Agree 100%.
You have the most random channel I have ever seen. Yet I love it.
UBI is already here. I noticed the same thing in Seattle... people can just walk out with stuff at a QFC, right past security guards who will see the whole thing unfold but not even be allowed to touch anyone or intervene. I specifically asked them wtf and apparently they are just a deterrent. All of a sudden I feel incentivized to collect my share of free shit as well.
The severity of punishment its probably less relevant to crime rise, than inevitability of such. Locking up thieves then letting them free ,before police can even process the paperwork helps fuel the notion that there will be no consequences
Petty retail theft isn’t enough of a reason to keep people locked up for an extended amount of time and violates the Constitution. The court process moves slow and it’s moving even slower because of the pandemic and backlog
Maybe store owners should be allowed to protect their property then
@@wyattlinscott5210 no. punishment is needed, id still be a worthless drug addict without a job if i didnt get punished. ive done over 2 years with only misdemeanors and these kids are getting no time therefore learning nothing. now im a drug addict with a job yay
@@lxLanarchyxl they are going to get punished but you can’t keep people in jail indefinitely for petty crimes while the court system plays out generally
@@wyattlinscott5210 i agree, but what do you do? idgaf about people stealing from walgreens but the ripple affect of them doing so will lead their neighborhoods to have none of them and more poverty. also most places that are really developed have fast turnover rates interms of getting convicted after jailed. dude goes to jail for stealing 500+ which was a felony he’d get out on probation within a month or maybe even sooner depending on his priors. then hes in the system and is in a revolving door of a hell hole but its up to him to change that. its very complicated
"I'm guessing this doesn't stand for File Transfer Protocol" 😆
if the market price of food goes up, my prices go up. and when people ask, i tell them, i gotta eat too, and i pay attention to the markets and those who are regulating it. glad to have you looking out as well Louis
Part of it is regardless of how much "time" you get for getting caught, the key part of that statement is "getting caught". (also, it's a universal knowledge that public servants generally think they are overworked and underpaid and will do as little as they can because other things they don't do anything about are a higher priority.)
It's been my experience that most humans in general think they are overworked and underpaid, no matter how much of either they get.
@@pearz420 Especially "public" servants.
I'm looking at this graph and I'm imagining that if stores 1, 2 and 3 close, a lot of that criminal activity will migrate toward stores 4 and 5. That said, I don't know how far apart they are or if there are any other stores in the scope of that map. Furthermore, the store probably isn't counting reported theft incidents when it makes this decision, but rather, determining how much product is lost. Even if store 3 only has 3 reported incidents, it's entirely possible that there is a lot of theft going unreported at store 3.
They didn't drop it from a felony to a misdemeanor........ Theft under $950 was never a felony...... It's not even a felony in Texas. San Francisco DA(Son of Weather Underground founder) WILL NOT PROSECUTE any theft under $950.
This means even if the police arrest someone they will be immediately released and charges will be immediately dropped. Police have stopped enforcing it completely because there absolutely no reason.
This is happening all over the country, even Texas. They don't arrest for theft under $950. It's just cite and release.
Same here in Chicago the new norm is to have a break in, wether is auto theft or a store break in.
I'm sure there are at least some cases where the shoplifter doesn't need to look up the punishment for the crime since they've already had that punishment and found it so mild they don't mind going through it again.
The idea that punishment must fit the crime basically codified the systemic ignorance of petty theft. Petty crime, petty punishment.
What is being stolen? Mainly food, "living items", or luxury items like TVs?
Also the fact that Police doesnt care/is unable to prosecute Louis' bag theft despite the evidence is handed to them is in my opinion a sign of a failed state.
Question is: why is that so?
Because everything woke turns to shit, states included.
because go woke go broke.
@@relo999 Woke: What was suppose to help a minority group that doesn't get much attention turned into predatory people taking advantage of inserting themselves into that group and just taking advantage of the benefits.
@@relo999 I guess that explains why all the economic powerhouse states are Republican /s
@@VeProducctions I guess that explains why so many upper and middle class people from Dem states move to Republican states /s
Also... I really loved the special guest interview at the end!
Mr Whiskers has such a way with words.