Ok, I wouldn’t vote for Hitler, or even a Hitler-curious Republican like Trump. But the response to the non-spike of shoplifting has made shopping for basic goods in D.C. miserable. I’ve noted before that there are three CVS drug stores, within several blocks of each other and my home, and each of these stores locks up different items. Are criminals so discerning two blocks apart? (that’s a rhetorical question by the way).
What sent me over the edge is my closest CVS is now locking up napkins. Yes, paper napkins. Not the fancy paper napkins either, just plain old Bounty napkins. Why? Meanwhile, cosmetics, which are small and relatively expensive are… not behind plexiglass.
I’m not trying to humblebrag, but I live in a well-off neighborhood, so if we’re being ‘plexiglassed’ like this, I doubt there are many other D.C. neighborhoods that aren’t.
It’s as if CVS wants customers to buy (possibly fenced) goods online. Which, alright, I’ll do that more often, but this is just stupid. And I doubt that five to six years ago, in the pre-plexiglass era, the ‘shrinkage’ rate was any different.
I realize that unlike moral panics about violent crime* or the existence of trans people, the moral panic about shoplifting is unimportant, but moral panics are just stupid, and they usually have consequences, even if they’re just annoying.
*There are places where violent crime is an issue, but most of the people panicking about violent crime never come close to setting foot in those neighborhoods.
mikethemadbiologist
The effectiveness of an intervention is largely irrelevant. Executives must be Men of Action, therefore they must Do Something. Tide jail is the Something, so now management is getting on with Doing it, and damn the torpedoes.
Nearly the only thing that will change these guys’ minds is if Daddy Hedge Fund spanks the board and gets them fired. It’s not like they are personally hurt by declining revenues. At least, not yet; there are still scapegoats to sacrifice.
This has been developing over 10-15 years. I SF, Safeway, for example, started letting shoplifters waltz out with 6-packs of beer and other obviously unpaid-for goods. Security guards were told to just let it go, perhaps to prevent them being shot. (A Bay area grocery store worker WAS killed a few years ago while trying to prevent a theft.)
But now the large stores are trying to have taxpayers cover the costs of theft-prevention and punishment over their retail losses with a new California ballot item, Prop 36, recriminalizing petty theft. Looks, sadly, like it will pass, too, for the same reasons you mention, Mike.
I’ve read dollar stores are now locking stuff up too…
This is the primitive response to crime (“Americans are a primitive people, disguised by the latest inventions” – George Santayana). I’d suggest we change the motto from “e pluribus unum” to “The beatings will continue until morale improves”
Although Hollywood may make it look like police, courts, and jails (even product jails) diminish crime the vast majority of the time–after all, what murder plot can’t Perry Mason solve?–the truth is that the actual solve rate for crime is about 14% (actually 13.2% in 2022). That’s the marketing for the local version of the military industrial complex–the criminal justice system.
And it’s been very successful. US population from 1982 – 2017 increased 42%, but spending on policing increased 187%. They’re still solving less than 1 in 7 crimes, too.
It shows up in our incarceration binge, too. With 5% of the world’s population, the US has 25% of its prisoners–five times the world’s per-capita average, seven times the per-capita incarceration in Canada and France. So are Canadian and French crime way worse than US crime? Actually, they’re a little less.
One difference between the nations: The US has 500K+ medical bankruptcies annually. Canada and France have single-payer healthcare. In fact there are several studies that demonstrate that better unemployment insurance, and better social safety nets reduce crime more effectively than police. But the beatings must continue until morale improves.
Yep, treating people better is not on the menu at the moment, but it’s more effective than militarizing the country in the hope that people will submit to “labor discipline” — the message that you had better take whatever crappy job is on offer, or suffer the indignities of poverty (and we’ll make sure it’s plenty undignified), even homelessness and starvation…. And if you’re extra rebellious, we’ll put you in a cage.
All these indignities are the whip in the hands of the plutocrats, and the smug patricians who are running things now.
“You Yanks don’t consult the wisdom of democracy [new info from dissent]; you enable mobs.” – Australian planner
If all three CVS outlets lock up different items, then I don’t see the problem. Just visit the appropriate store as the need arises…