
The Burden of Policing Walmart - subpar
http://tampabay.com/projects/2016/public-safety/walmart-police/
======
briHass
What, exactly, should Walmart's response to shoplifting be? The article seems
to make a point of the low dollar-value of some of the items stolen vs. how
much the police spend arresting the subjects. I fail to see why the value of
the stolen goods matters from a illegality perspective; it's not like Walmart
can punish the shoplifters themselves.

~~~
stellar678
Serious answer: Offer the accused shoplifter some alternatives to police
involvement. Pay for the merchandise, pay a fine, sign an agreement to never
be on the store property. I'm not a retailer - I'm sure there are plenty of
other ideas.

Flippant answer: Pay Target to train your managers in how to not abuse
community resources like police. They obviously figured out something that
Walmart can't figure out.

~~~
avalaunch
Response to flippant answer: I'm pretty sure the only thing Target figured out
is to cater to a higher income demographic.

I'm curious if there were less disturbances before Walmart, or if they were
just more distributed throughout the city.

~~~
kafkaesq
_I 'm pretty sure the only thing Target figured out is to cater to a higher
income demographic._

Whereas Walmart's genius lay in not only continuing to cater to the lower
income demographic... but to keep its valued customers addicted to junk food,
junk clothing, junk music, junk kitchenware, and just plain... junk in general
(peppered with vindictive, quite possibly career- and/or life-ruining arrests
for drinking a $0.98 iced tea before paying, now and then) so that they _stay_
in the lower income demographic.

~~~
michaelbuddy
>drinking a $0.98 iced tea before paying

Or shoving it behind something else on a shelf and not paying at all. When
people no longer have any respect for authority, social contract or
citizenship AND you can't crack them over the head to teach a lesson in hard
knocks, how are loss prevention supposed to deal with it? You let it go, then
it's suddenly a widespread thing (YES IT WILL BE) and it costs everyone. And
frankly it never ends. Certain people will go so low at the expense of others,
it makes for an unworkable culture.

~~~
kafkaesq
_How are loss prevention supposed to deal with it?_

In the normal, pragmatic way: wait until you actually _see them_ put the
opened drink behind something else on the shelf. Which, not all the time but
often enough, you surely will. If they're drinking it out in the open -- in
the line at the register, say? Most likely they're going to pay for it.

 _Certain people will go so low at the expense of others, it makes for an
unworkable culture._

By the same token, _treating people_ as if they're already "low" (by not
giving them the benefit of the doubt for an opening a $0.98 bottle of iced tea
before paying) makes for an unworkable culture, also.

------
rdl
If they pay sales tax, that should more than cover policing costs. I find it
hard to fault them for calling the police on shoplifting, even of $2 items,
since that's the kind of product they sell.

~~~
koolba
> I find it hard to fault them for calling the police on shoplifting, even of
> $2 items, since that's the kind of product they sell.

I'd take it a step further and say good job on actually following through with
it. Otherwise what's the alternative? A private police force for Wal-Mart?

~~~
crazypyro
In my opinion, it seems the police hadn't been able to effectively do their
job in the past (for whatever reason), causing other retailers to look into
private security options, yet now that Wal-Mart has essentially forced the
police uphold the entirety of the laws (such as theft for small items), the
police are complaining that nobody else is making them do those things.

It likely comes down to a lack of proper resources given to the police
departments....

~~~
monochromatic
> Wal-Mart has essentially forced the police uphold the entirety of the laws

Good! That is their job after all.

------
zeveb
Were Walmart instead employing more-extensive private security, then I can see
people complaining about that instead. Heck, I remember angry articles about
how private security guard persuade folks to sign documents admitting guilt
&c.

Instead, Walmart is handing the problem over to the public authorities. This
seems intuitively fair: why _shouldn 't_ a poor person accused of shoplifting
have access to the same presumption of innocence and procedural safeguards as
a rich person?

People are going to steal. Theft hurts Walmart, but it also hurts poor people,
who will have to pay the increased prices (or decreased service) that Walmart
would require in order to offset the cost of theft (or perhaps Walmart will go
out of business, and poor people will be stuck paying even higher prices
still).

The real problem is the amount of crime. Fix that, and none of this is a
problem.

~~~
SEJeff
Actually you have it somewhat inversed. Fix the poverty and you fix the crime.

------
rustyfe
The fact that Walmart generates much more burden than similar competitors, but
the same amount of tax revenue, is kind of alarming.

This feels like a fairly successful attempt to push private costs onto the
public. Of course Walmart doesn't deserve to be robbed, but when they create
the kind of environment where theft is easy and common, it also doesn't feel
right for the taxpayer to be on the hook. If they had more employees
patrolling aisles or more security, there'd be less cause for police to get
involved. But that would cost Walmart money instead of the city.

~~~
brandonmenc
> when they create the kind of environment where theft is easy and common, it
> also doesn't feel right for the taxpayer to be on the hook.

This smacks of victim-blaming.

Would anyone suggest the company were at fault if we were not discussing
Walmart?

~~~
rustyfe
That's a fair point. It's certainly wrong to blame the victim, although I feel
like that diminishes when we're talking about _any_ company, not just Walmart.

Still, you're right to bring up the idea that I simply dislike Walmart and so
would take whichever position is against them. I don't think that's what I'm
doing, but it's an easy mental trap to fall into.

~~~
brandonmenc
> I feel like that diminishes when we're talking about _any_ company

Agree. I should've put scare quotes around "victim blaming."

------
rlpb
Could the troublemakers simply be attracted to Walmart and would go elsewhere
if things were different? Walmart might even be doing the police a favor by
concentrating them all in one place.

I think it's a journalistic failure that this simple explanation has not been
addressed in what is a very long, biased article (they didn't even ask Walmart
for comment as far as I can see).

------
FussyZeus
Walmart purchases go to sales tax, Walmart no doubt pays property taxes, they
generate a ton of income tax, and who knows what else.

I'm sure all these figures are true, whenever I stop off at Walmart where I
live to grab whatever I would say about 40% of the time there's a squad car
out front, but the article plays it out like if the drunk wasn't causing
trouble at the Walmart, he wouldn't be causing trouble anywhere. In my
experience, those who walk into public intoxicated and yell at others will do
so irrespective of their location. Same goes for dumbass kids (of which there
was actually a group last time we were there, go figure, watched the manager
haul them out by their collars) or shoplifters, if they weren't causing
trouble at Walmart, they'd be doing it somewhere else because if you're that
kind of person, being disruptive and annoying is how you pass the time.

~~~
athenot
> if you're that kind of person, being disruptive and annoying is how you pass
> the time

So instead, with a few extra layers of abstraction, these kids could be
disruptive and have their startup. :)

On a tangential note, it's fun to observe how disruption is a good thing if
you're the disrupter, but a bad thing if you're the one being disrupted.
Personally, I'd rather celebrate innovation, regardless of whether it involves
disruption or not.

------
RangerScience
Seems like a question of incentives (Walmart has insufficient incentive to
deal with this without the police) that could be solved by looking at how
insurance handles things: If I'm in an accident, regardless of whether or not
it's my fault, my rates go up.

It's like... So corporations are people. But they're a drastically different
kind of person than you or I. They're divisible, they come in hugely different
sizes, they have no incarnation, etc etc.

Dealing with people as mere statistics is dehumanizing. But corporations?
Aren't corporations basically just a complex bundle of statistics to begin
with?

So, a human who calls the police a lot gets a talking to, maybe goes in front
of a judge, maybe something else happens. They don't have to pay more taxes to
repay society; for the sake of this argument, because they're a human. They're
not divisible; they're not a statistic.

But, a corporation who calls the police a lot... Well, why not treat them
statistically? It's not like they can get a talking to (it's an abstract
entity with no emotions or capacity for reason), go in front of a judge (it's
an abstract entity with no physical incarnation), it's not like the "something
else" can be the usual for humans: jail (it's an abstract entity around which
you cannot put a wall).

But a corporate IS a set of assets; so work with it on that level. Charge it
based on the requirements it makes to society. Pick a cut-off range (like a
tax bracket) where it transitions from "not responsible for local crime" to
"clearly responsible for local crime".

The taco stand down the street is clearly not responsible for local crime.
It's a truck.

The Walmart super center is clearly responsible for local crime. It, in an of
itself, _is_ a locality.

Or... Well, I don't know, so I've got to ask: How do large buildings "pay" for
other emergency services? Fire, hospital, etc? (I know for fire at least,
there's also passing inspection)

~~~
Aelinsaar
The problem is that by definition, such bills would be endorsed by people
without huge amounts of property and money, while being utterly condemned by
the likes of Wal-Mart. That asymmetry only ever ends in one way.

~~~
codys
And which "one way" is that?

~~~
Aelinsaar
Given time, it ends in favor of the people with influence and money. They can
experience setbacks, but they can literally afford to be a bit patient.

------
mahyarm
I think the reason why partially walmart has more problems is because they
have a poorer client base, and poorer areas in general have more crime. Even
if they changed policies, hired more private security and so on and it reduced
everything by %50, they would still have about 3x the amount of police calls
than more upscale target.

It's pretty unfortunate. Like how much police activity does foodmaxx and
grocery outlet have compared to safeway and whole foods? Or mcdonalds vs
subway?

------
walmert
Am I the only one that's inconsolably disappointed this turned out to not be a
text-based adventure about policing Walmart?

------
fiatmoney
I would _love_ a system where private businesses were responsible & empowered
to enforce sovereignty over their own premises. Is that what they're
advocating?

Oh wait, no. They're advocating a sort of anarcho-tyranny where depending on
who you are, you gain all the costs of complying with the law but none of the
corresponding benefits.

My heart bleeds for the police heartlessly forced to enforce laws against
theft etc, instead of kicking down doors at 3AM for the thrill of it & robbing
travelers of their cash on the highway.

------
bsder
Most of the reason is liability transfer.

Walmart can be sued for detaining someone wrongfully. The police, not so much.

As for the solution: the police simply start showing up at Walmart much more
slowly. Once a Walmart gets a bad reputation, its business will slip away.

The fact that the police actually _hang out_ at the Walmart tells me that they
really don't have something better they should be doing.

~~~
tiatia
"Walmart can be sued for detaining someone wrongfully. The police, not so
much." No, you can sue Walmart and the police. No difference. The outcome may
be different. But you can sue.

Detain someone for drinking a 99cent drink? Have YOUR security personal walk
him out and tell him he is off limits on the premise for the next 5 years.

------
lloyddobbler
Voted this up not for the article, but for the discussion. Lots of stimulating
thought here about what the role of police, individuals, and corporations in
society should be - and almost all of it very civil (in comparison to the
normal Hacker News MO).

Glad to see an article generating this level of discourse on HN. Good stuff,
people.

------
0xffff2
So get rid of all of the WalMarts... Do the shoplifters stop shoplifting? Do
the panhandlers stop panhandling? Do the homeless stop sleeping wherever they
can? I doubt it.

------
areyousure
I'm really impressed that the police in Tampa show up for crimes of such small
value.

The police in Oakland (where I live) explicitly refused to show up for child
prostitution.

------
awinter-py
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_parasite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_parasite)

