As most grocery stores aren't open 24 hours there is plenty of opportunity for people to break into grocery stores with no one in them and steal but that isn't a common enough issue to worry about.
What a load of rubbish. Most medium and large retail stores have a security guard at the door, and nobody is claiming they are treating all customers as criminals. Everyone understands they are there to stop the few malicious people from stealing or causing trouble.
So the presence of a store lead to people shoplifting in said store? I suppose if the Wal-Mart were not there, the shoplifting wouldn't have happened. Perhaps we shouldn't have stores then.
Do you have any evidence of a crime increase aside from the existence of a store allowing people to shoplift from the store? I'm not asking for your perception here, because it has little to do with what the real crime rate is.
Most stores have far fewer controls than they could, because they'd rather be nice to their customers. This changes if the level of fraud/theft increases.
Stores places where few people steal are nice and open, have nobody watching the doors, and basically rely on the honor system to ensure that you pass by a cashier before you leave. Stores in places where theft is common have all sorts of unpleasant security measures.
Society only works because most of us behave. Look around you, and you'll see an incredible number of structures that only work because 99% of people are basically decent and honest. Don't be in the 1% who aren't, and definitely don't encourage that 1% to grow.
But retailers in some places are having to shut down stores because theft is so high and the law is not enforced and for some reason private security is not an option.
We clearly live in different jusridictions if someone can go into a store, shoplift, in plain view of private security, and not get detained by them where you are.
But say having someone present at an entrance for much of the day clearly cuts the number of shoplifting incidents. It's pretty reasonable for the police and town to push for that staffing if it is less costly than handling the displaced incidents.
Why is it specifically a problem here in New York then, but wherever else I go in the country I don't see things nearly as locked up? Geography presumably shouldn't be a factor if shoplifters are only selling their loot online.
I remember Fry's used to have cops visiting daily to pick up the shoplifters they had detained. I think policies tended to be more along the lines of try to detain them, but if they become dangerous to let them go.
Just watching a thief pocket something and walk out the door without saying a word to them seems nuts. I still have difficulty believing this happens in most of the country, apart from urban areas. Certainly where I live there's lots of employes working in stores and no homeless around. meanwhile downtown the stores all seem to have minimal staff and incidents seem to be pretty common.
Walgreens and such would not be pulling up stakes in places if it wasn't for rampant shoplifting. Other stores would not be pulling back on self-checkout either.
Since police are mainly following up on serious crime, people ease up on reporting lesser crimes like break-ins, window smashing, porch thievery, etc. And then politicians point to statistics --which given dampened reporting, means they "look" okay, but on the street it's not okay.
Never in my life have I see so much open selling of "not for individual sale, only for sale at $retail_store" on the sidewalks.
Yeah it sure is hard to believe that shoplifting is a non-issue when all the stores are reducing hours and putting merchandise behind an expensive to install and operate lock and key system.
> the doors of the store just not opening for shoplifters (or at all, while shoplifters continue to be present — to prevent shoplifters from sneaking in ahead/behind a non-blacklisted customer.)
This is illegal in my state. And, I'm guessing, in most other US states as well.
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