
Wal-Mart Suspends a Controversial Shoplifting Punishment - ourmandave
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/wal-mart-suspends-a-controversial-shoplifting-punishment/ar-BBH7s4z
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barsonme
Would this be as controversial if they money went to a third-party (i.e., not
a Wal-Mart-run) charity?

The idea is something good—keeping low-level, non-violent offenders out of the
legal system and saving taxpayer dollars. But it does seem to fit the bill for
extortion: Wal-Mart protecting the shoplifter from the government in exchange
for money.

I wonder if there's a way to get the best of both worlds?

~~~
shkkmo
> I wonder if there's a way to get the best of both worlds?

A non-profit first-offender education program funded by the police department
and/or stores that doesn't require payment by participants would not be
extortion and would have the same positive effects without the same incentives
for abuse.

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dotancohen
Why was this insightful comment downvoted?

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barsonme
You are aware what website you're on, right? ;)

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dotancohen
Certainly not that one with stuff that matters!

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ourmandave
At a lot of big retailers try to make you sign a "confession" whether they
call the police or not.

Later you get a letter from a law firm demanding hundreds of dollars or
they'll take you to small claims to recoup their cost for "investigative
expenses". With the promise that the amount will go up if you don't settle.

This is completely separate from any criminal charges and paying them doesn't
effect any outcome of that at all. But if you don't know that you're likely to
pay to get them to "drop the charges".

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/retailers-demand-shoplifters-pay-
secu...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/retailers-demand-shoplifters-pay-security-
costs-1.912834)

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username223
> ...allegations by a woman who said a security guard at a Goodwill store in
> Orange, Calif., threatened her with jail unless she paid $500 for the
> education program,... The woman, Debra Black, left the store without paying
> for a $2 purse she had placed on the arm of her wheelchair while she was
> browsing and forgotten about,...

Jesus. I was just reading about this somewhere else, and the deal is basically
that suspected shoplifters are locked in a room, given misleading information,
and pressured to sign a confession which will be used against them if they
later have second thoughts about paying $500 to the "education" company. These
companies make payday lenders look good.

~~~
bsder
> the deal is basically that suspected shoplifters are locked in a room

I find this difficult to believe in the case of places like WalMart and Target
with phalanxes of lawyers. Goodwill ... I could believe might not be quite so
competent.

Target, for example, won't even let their security people so much as _touch_
someone who is literally walking out of the store with something like a stolen
TV. The possibility of getting countersued is so high that it isn't worth it.
The simply follow them with a camera to their car and record everything and
later turn it over to the authorities if they decide to pursue.

I imagine that with facial recognition, what's going to happen is these people
will get blacklisted from the stores and flagged if they try to reappear.

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im3w1l
I thought "extortion" (ask for money and threat of legal action) was how
settlements were supposed to work. Will this set a precedent and have broader
consequences?

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jessriedel
Settlements are for civil cases, not criminal. This was demanding money in
exchange for not revealing evidence of a crime to authorities, which is
extortion. It would be perfectly legal for Walmart to settle with the
shoplifter under an agreement to not _sue_ them.

Criminal cases are the state vs. the citizen, whereas civil cases are citizen
vs. citizen. (The same action can result in both types of cases.) You're not
supposed to profit by inhibiting the state from prosecuting.

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Houshalter
That's an interesting legal difference, but what's the moral difference? "Pay
me to drop the lawsuit" and "pay me to drop the charges" feel like pretty much
the same thing to me.

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umanwizard
Because the state has an interest in punishing criminals whether the victim
wants them to be punished or not.

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Dylan16807
In theory, but it's hard to punish a criminal in a minor crime when the victim
doesn't want to cooperate.

So the end result again feels pretty similar.

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will_hughes
Change the values there a bit and see how you still feel.

Walmart won't report you to the police if you agree to

\- pay them $5000?

\- undertake a voluntary 'community service program' at a Walmart designated
location (store cleaner on the shift nobody wants at Walmart) for 20 hours per
week for 12 months

Remember, that one conviction for minor shoplifting could permanently impact
your life. Eg: limiting job opportunities, places you can live, whether you
get to see your children in a custody dispute, whether you are entitled to
vote or stand for election.

If Walmart knew someone had virtually no other option, they could press their
unfair advantage.

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Dylan16807
A civil suit could easily be $5000, so what's the big difference?

And minor shoplifting is not a felony.

I'm not sure you understand my point. I'm not saying the extortion is a good
idea, I'm saying it's not all that different from civil not-extortion tactics.

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downandout
This would likely be legal if they took a different approach. They can't say
"pay us or we will report you to the police," because that is textbook
extortion. However, that doesn't need to be said. Shoplifters know what the
worst case is. They could simply say "you have the option to sign this civil
agreement, which includes fees that you must pay and a non-disclosure
agreement - we will not disclose the existence of this matter to anyone
outside of Wal-Mart". Lawyers do this in civil negotiations all the time, with
the _implied_ threat of criminal prosecution without the _actual_ threat.

I also find it ironic and somewhat disturbing that prosecutors are mentioned
throughout the article essentially saying that the State should have a
monopoly on extortion because of the legal protections afforded to criminal
defendants. Legal protections in the US are only as good as the lawyer you can
afford to hire, and if you're shoplifting from Wal-Mart, the odds that you can
afford a decent attorney are about zero. A cynical person might say that
perhaps prosecutors are making such a big deal about this because a decrease
in shoplifting calls will result in less work, overtime pay, etc. for police,
jail/prison guards, probation officers, prosecutors, etc. They don't want to
stop feeding the monster.

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konschubert
> with the implied threat of criminal prosecution without the actual threat.

I wonder how much difference this really makes. A stronly implied threat might
be just as much a threat as an actal threat.

Law isn't maths, after all.

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downandout
They can go pretty far with it. I've seen attorneys actually say "if you don't
pay us, we will file a lawsuit detailing all of your illegal actions, and that
will be a matter of public record that may open you up to other kinds of
actions by various agencies". In that instance, the person being threatened
filed a police report for extortion against the attorney involved, and...it
went nowhere. So they can get their point across and the law seems to be OK
with it.

~~~
bb88
This might be just a case where the law hasn't caught up with what the lawyers
are doing.

Extortion is "Pay me ${X} or I do ${Y}".

"Pay me $10,000 or I release these naughty images of you on the internet." is
extortion.

"Pay me $1,000, or I will foreclose on your property" is not, because likely
you signed a contract agreeing to such a scenario.

Now "Pay me $500, or I'll file a police report..." is extortion (at least
according to here: [https://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-
law/violent_cri...](https://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-
law/violent_crimes/extortion.htm) )

Even though you may have broken the law, the extortion of money to prevent the
police report is still illegal.

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justboxing
> Shoplifting suspects at stores that use Corrective Education are shown a
> video and given 72 hours to decide whether to enter the program. The video
> describes a six-to-eight-hour online course that promises to explain “why
> you make decisions that are harmful or illegal” and teach “life skills.”

6-to-8 gours sounds ridiculously long / excessive. "Life skills", really? I
smell a scam here, some "educational company" partnered with them and sell
them pay-per-participant exhorbitant fees for watching their "video course".

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crispytx
"violates state extortion laws." That's great. Hope they lock up those
criminals in suits. Our country has a bad problem with letting guys in suits
break the law as long as they do so while working for a corporation.

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drewmol
I'm on the fence. It's always interesting when a victim has a say in wether a
crime gets prosecuted, which often leads to a situation where said victim may
use that power to encourage an outcome that is preferable to both them and the
perpetrator than letting the justice system handle it in typical fashion.

I'd prefer if home break-ins don't get handled in a "Pay me $x and watch this
video or we'll be forced to prosecute" BC while that may be better for both
parties, it's likely worse for the rest of society.

Not sure how I feel about petty theft being handled this way.

~~~
bb88
You have a good point on the home breakins. But I think it's the way Walmart
is doing it that's the problem.

Walmart should just get one choice, either a criminal charge or a civil
agreement. They can't be allowed to threaten both.

~~~
drewmol
Hmmm... I don't know how it should be handled, but trying to prevent Walmart
from taking this couse of action seems like it would be difficult to enforce
within the constrainst of our legal system. Maybe a blanket policy that if you
attempt to blackmail/extort/coerse someone into participating in some
arrangement of alternative justice (outside the legal system) by using the
threat of prosecution, you lose your legal standing as a victim, and therefore
your ability to enforce prosecution? Let's say I was raped, and then attempt
to extort money from the rapist in leiu of filing charges, I certainly think I
would lose some credibility as a victim, and it's unfair to society who
deserves knowledge of the potential threat, at minimum. It's important to
recognize that the law someone violates is a crime against society as a whole,
not just a crime against the particular victim. In this situation, the law is
against shoplifting in general (society as a whole can be the victim), not
against shoplifting FROM Walmart, so we should be careful to not let Walmart
deprive society of our ability to enforce the agreed upon consequences.

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danschumann
K.. So on one hand, security guards are going mad with power, and not wise
about it, threatening people and basically shaking them down. On the other
hand, if there was a real educational program that worked, and it was only
used on actual criminals, it could provide competition to the state's very bad
recidivism rate. I think rehabilitation is one of the hardest things you can
do, since you almost have to care about someone more than they care about
themselves. It's why I wish Tony Robbins would run for president.

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adventured
> It's why I wish Tony Robbins would run for president.

When he isn't busy pushing real-estate bubble investing in Canada and other
shady financial ideas. Whatever Robbins was 20 years ago, he isn't that any
longer. I suspect he simply acquired the desire to make a lot more money with
his platform, which lured him into becoming a financial guru. Lately he has
been talking about Bitcoin, because he's now Mr Investing Guru.

~~~
danschumann
His book Money: Master the Game was really good. His in-person stuff can be
really expensive. Hopefully he doesn't end up like Jim Rohn, who was great,
but then spent his golden years at herbalife. Jim Rohn's early stuff was so
great though.. yea.. I haven't seen Tony totally sell out though, hopefully he
doesn't. Where does Robbins push bubble investing in Canada?

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menacingly
My opinion hinges on how sleazy the conversations are in those rooms. On the
surface, it's a cool idea to give shoplifters an option before you involve the
police.

You can't ensure that the sell is universally honest, so it's always going to
have that risk. Then again, from my understanding it's not as if the police
are either, so I guess any public conversation about innovative solutions to
deal with common minor crime is good.

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holografix
I wonder if there's someone in Walmart, an accountant of sorts, who sits down
and runs a report on all the money they made from desperate people shoplifting
stuff on a yearly basis.

Prob the same person who looked at that 0.01% of revenue been squandered away
by shoplifters and thought: What if we made that a source of revenue?

Where would this perverse incentive lead? Using commonly stolen goods as lure,
maybe in a spot of the store where there's a false sense of privacy then
waiting for the perp at the outside and saying: "Surprise, pay us $300 for
that $100 dollar thing you were going to stole or you go to jail!"

Boggles the mind

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bahmboo
1 - making companies pay for their own property security. good. 2 - having
those programs pay for themselves (so they aren't cut and put back on
society). good. 3 - coercing people in a compromised state for profit. not
good. 4 - Room for improvement. Yes.

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bsder
The fact that these programs even exist is a gigantic indictment of our
justice system ...

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scoggs
I'd think so long as the government got their tax portion of the money paid to
Walmart / Corrective Education Co. and Turning Point Justice by offenders that
they wouldn't care?

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trav4225
Mercy == hate, apparently.

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QAPereo
I’d hate to trust in the mercy of WalMart.

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trav4225
then let them bring charges. :-) no one's being forced to do a single thing
here. it's a fake injustice.

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QAPereo
Of course the typical Walmart shoplifter will be educated about the law and
have ready access to legal advice. /s

Edit: To Rowdown... Even better HN could charge a fee for throwaways and
donate the proceeds to legal aid funds. You’d be doing a lot of good.

~~~
trav4225
I hear ya. I just see that angle (education) as being a tangential issue.

If Walmart's purpose here is indeed to exploit people's ignorance rather than
to give them a second chance, then I'm with you 100%. :)

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gumby
> officials questioned the legality of asking people for money under threat of
> criminal sanctions

Thank goodness -- the state is supposed to have a monopoly on violence. You
can argue as to how effective that is (I believe it's commonly believed to be
ineffective, though for reasons that are polar opposites depending on
political views).

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gumby
Holy cow, -1 points. I'm not complaining, just amazed there are enough people
who really think private sector criminal enforcement† is a good idea. No
thanks, the word for that is "vigilanteism". I am concerned that there is a
privatized legal system and glad that at least Wal Mart has stopped.

†(private sector _civil_ resolution --arbitration -- is often a good idea when
there is not a huge power imbalance)

