The Safeway in the San Francisco Castro neighborhood is especially... exciting... relative to the surrounding area. It even has its own full time police officer.
One time as I was leaving I asked the officer why Folgers crystals of all things were locked up. His reply was "[ethnic group] gangs steal essentials in bulk, and sell them to the homeless."
From that point forward it clicked in my head, retail theft is about liquidity not value.
There is one reliable and consistent determinant for which groups of people commit crimes, and that is the incidence of poverty, unemployment, and injustice. When people lose hope, when they see the system as not cooperating with them and helping them when but rather antagonizing them and in opposition to them. When people perceive society as unfair and taking advantage of them. Then the idea of seizing their own advantage to the detriment of others starts to seem sensible. And it isn't necessarily a matter of moral decay so much as a matter of applied game theory.
This has been true for every ethnic group imaginable throughout history. In America it's been true of the Irish, the Italians, the Polish, the Chinese, and so many others. So many now celebrated "model" ethnicities. The existence of [ethnic group] gangs who regularly commit certain crimes at rates much higher than others is not a sign of the uniquely fragile moral fiber of [ethnic group], it's a signifier of their continued mistreatment by society and continued ethnically biased socio-economic inequality. Only a tiny minority of any [ethnic group] are criminals, to take the actions of a minute sub-set of a very large group of people as a bad mark against the entire group is entirely unjustified, especially in light of the issues I've described above.
I can't believe that it's 2016 and I still have to explain this.
Only a tiny minority of any [ethnic group] are criminals, to take the actions of a minute sub-set of a very large group of people as a bad mark against the entire group is entirely unjustified, especially in light of the issues I've described above.
I agree with you, and presume 'dsl' does as well. I assume the use of [ethnic group] instead of the specific minority was head off misinterpretation. What caused you to interpret the comment as claiming that crime was the result of the "uniquely fragile moral fiber" of [ethnic group]?
Edit: I do think it's fair though to characterize the propensity to commit crime as a "moral failing" even if the causes are primarily economic.
Interesting. I just assumed it was homeless stealing that stuff directly. I've seen it happen in SF at Safeway and Walgreens a few times. (so just anecdotal data)
Actually once at the Safeway you're talking about. Last year I saw a man with an open duffle bag run out of there with security half heartedly following into the parking lot. They looked around for a few moments and went back in. Lots of homeless hang around there, especially by the Starbucks around the corner.
The Safeway (or Unsafeway as my wife calls it) near Japantown on Webster St is frequently a source of drama too. The last instance I saw was where a homeless woman got caught by a guard at the door with some items under her coat. She dropped to the ground screaming about being pregnant.
Interesting that everybody is getting hung up on the [adjective] gangs part of this... To the extent that ethnicity tends to be a defining characteristic of many street gangs, is it any worse referring to them that way than saying biker gangs, or Crips, or Bloods, or white supremacist gangs, or whatever other general organizing principle the gang has coalesced around?
Every time I walk into this Safeway I see someone stuffing something down their pants or into their bra. The problem has gotten a lot better though on account of them removing the recycling center from the parking lot that attracted a lot of questionable people.
Why is it strange and concerning? Given the tragic history of race and the way it still informs the way people think about race, it's really unsurprising it's still a delicate matter. Think about how the 'one-drop rule' still applies to whom considers themselves black.
If that weren't enough there is a large body of scientific evidence that supports the fact that race makes little biological sense and is mostly a social construct. Take the example of the Basque you picked: it turns out the Basque are much different from the rest of people in Europe due to their being (mostly linguistically, but also genetically) the only descendants of hunter-gatherer societies in Europe.
I suggest you read Genes, Peoples, and Languages on the subject: it's really fascinating.
> Think about how the 'one-drop rule' still applies to whom considers themselves black.
Does it?
> there is a large body of scientific evidence that supports the fact that race makes little biological sense and is mostly a social construct
Given the topic, I'd be skeptical - a large body of evidence might still not be conclusive. However, maybe a more relevant question is why it matters - you are what you might be perceived as, so far it might affect how you are treated.
What value do you see in identifying the specific race?
(I think that including it struck the perfect balance between flavor and a refusal to propagate racism. Without it, there's a simple report of information that was relayed. With it, I can better put myself there.)
So you're saying it's purpose in the comment was to accuse the officer of 'racism.'
That's silly.
What purpose is served by accusing the officer of racism in the comment? Is it some kind of weird virtue signalling, like "she's racist! but not me, I'm a good guy!"
Furthermore, if we agree that the subtext is the officer is being accused of racism, there is in fact no basis for that accusation. Noticing a facet of reality and verbalizing it, is emphatically not racism.
It might be 'racism' of the sort that everybody is desperately searching for in every nook and cranny to hang their ideologies on, but it's not actually racism.
(what I find confounding, is that from reading your comment, the officer hasn't just been accused, but in your mind seems to be fully guilty and worthy of condemnation, based on the evidence that she simply spoke what she had observed. so strange...)
> It might be 'racism' of the sort that everybody is desperately searching for in every nook and cranny to hang their ideologies on
It seems to me as though you're looking in every nook and cranny to find people doing this!
I wasn't there, so I don't know if it was racism. But the author's inclusion communicated to me that the police officer was racist. The author could have made that more clear by writing "[racial epithet]" rather than "[ethnic group]" but following the principle of charity makes me think the author found it relevant, and I think we agree that that shows the author thought the officer was racist.
If the officer had just said "black gangs" or "Mexican gangs" or something like that, then maybe the author read too much into it. But the author was the one that was there, and who heard everything else the officer said, and clearly thought that the racial bit was worth communicating. So why automatically dismiss that?
If the officer had just said "black gangs" or "Mexican gangs" or something like that, then maybe the author read too much into it.
I thought it was something exactly along those lines, not necessarily one of those two groups, but something along those lines given that 'mexican' and 'black' are common descriptions for ethnic groups in the US.
by writing "[racial epithet]" rather than "[ethnic group]"
What do you think 'ethnic group' means?
An ethnicity is not an epithet, there's really no connection between the two at all, other than an epithet is a mean name people might call people. And all people happen to be of one ethnicity or another.
communicated to me that the police officer was racist.
Given the weight that some people give to such a charge in today's society, you're really doing no one any one favors by being so brash and cavalier in handing it out, given the paucity of evidence. Even OP should be very cautious with such a label given such a brief interaction.
I think we agree that that shows the author thought the officer was racist
No we don't, I think you may be confused about what an ethnic group is, or the meaning of the term. There is nothing racist about using the proper name for a group of people.
It seems to me as though you're looking in every nook and cranny to find people doing this!
I really should get better at self-editing, I notice how people will commonly grab onto to one little minor supporting snippet of a post while ignoring the real substance of what's been written.
Well the implication is that the parent assumed that the officer was racist against [ethnic group]. It's not a fact that that's who was stealing, it's an observation filtered through the man's biases.
Not that I think it's appropriate to assume malice on the part of the police officer, nor to censor everything race-related that you find objectionable.
There may be no such thing as a racist fact, but there's definitely such a thing as racist dissemination of a fact.
If, for example, you post a list of facts about crime rates among a particular ethnic group apropos of nothing, it's probably racist, regardless of whether or not the facts are true.
That said, in this case I think it's just the bad taste that one often gets in their mouth knowing that a racist might read a comment you make and have it confirm their prejudices.
As for how it's combating information: is there meaningful information lost here? He could have told you what colour his pants were, too, but it wouldn't add a whole hell of a lot to the story.
I agree it carries that implication, and I think it's right.
Very little is added to the discussion of curbing gang crime by bringing race into the picture. What are the specifically Black solutions to gang behaviour? What are the Hispanic ones?
On the other hand, the culture of racism and intolerance such discussions engender has real and measurable downsides. Cf. every discussion of police interactions by minorities.
The culture of black Americans is unique. It's different than the culture of Asians, Hispanics, Whites, ect, and initiatives will effect each culture differently. That much seems certain to me.
To say that there is a one size fits all solution to gang violence is to ignore important cultural differences.
To just look at family structure: 75% of black families are not married and 60% of mothers with multiple children have them to different fathers.
As for how we tackle gangs, I'd need to study to problem longer. But its a hunch of mine that the above family statistics play a role in their formation.
If a fact shows an ethnic group in negative light, then its possible its better to ignore that fact and not speak of it. By not speaking of it, it may make the overall problem of racism go away faster.
I don't find that theory very sound. Facts that are unspoken become "things everybody knows but can't speak of", and in a society governed by things everybody knows but can't speak of things that aren't actually true can't be refuted.
How does reality being racist imply that a fact is racist? And not other things? Is everything racists under a racist reality? How do we draw these lines?
I don't see why you think it's a jump in logic. And I'm saying facts are racist. I'm not saying other things are not racist. I'm not really sure where you're leading with this point.
Let me be more concrete and give an example.
Blacks living in the U.S. have (in a statistical average sense) a higher sensitivity to sodium than whites, leading to higher rates of hypertension in that demographic. If you're a physician treating black patients or you're a black American yourself, this is an important fact to know. This is a racist fact, because it differentiates reality along racial fault lines.
There are plenty of examples of situations where I could get you to say that one course of action is the rational or best option, but if I keep the same logical structure and swap out some nouns and adjectives, what was once the best option is now racist, and I'm a racist if I take this course of action. I won't give any examples because they're too inflammatory, and I don't feel like getting downvoted into oblivion. I'm pretty sure you can fill in the blanks if you're so inclined.
Since realizing this, I no longer view "racist" as a derogatory. It's the way the world already is, so my choice is either to have an accurate view of reality or an impoverished one.
The irony is that the inhabitants of the "San Francisco Castro neighborhood" also form an ethnic group by virtue of living in the same place. Notably, it's a gay neighborhood. Takeaway? Gangs rob stores in gay villages. Oh, and cops are racists. Moral? Let people think for themselves, you can't get away from prejudice.
> An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on common language, ancestral, social, cultural, or national experiences.
If the parent didn't want to associate a group of people with stealing, they could have just started the quote at "gangs" and it would have worked just as well...
But really, any reader who doesn't already have racial prejudices will recognize that the operative word is "gangs", not "[ethnic group]". It's a bit of an insult to the sensibilities of HN readers, and it doesn't protect anyone from anything.
What's with everyone getting offended over "[ethnic group]"? What probably happened was that the employee said it and the GP censored it before quoting, without much thought. No need to get all worked up about it.
Yeah, the (G)GP probably wanted to avoid the thread derailing into conversation about how "[ethnic group]" is a victim of racism. But it seems that HN is entirely capable of having that conversation with "[ethnic group]" being a free variable...
William Stanley Jevons, Money and the Mechanism for Exchange (1876) discusses many of the characteristics of money and exchange, including in chapter V, the properties which make money useful: utility and value, portability, indestructability, homogeneity, divisibility, stabilityof value, and cognizability. The merchandise stolen for use as "street coin" as described in the article meet most or all of these characteristics.
Jevons' work is recommended -- it's a classic study of the subject, but one which still carries strong weight. Rather more useful than many of the misdirected rantings of more recent vintage available online.
Yes, soap has phenomenal storage value! Depending on its ingredients you can keep soap bars indefinitely, and they will maintain 100% of their value. If necessary, you can (re)pack it with food storage tools to ensure it stays dry, like vacuum-sealed mylar bags in plastic bins, but as I understand it, soaponified oil won't go rancid even with moderate O2 exposure. For friends looking to save for their future, I advise putting soap near the top of their list and making a full space for it among their shelves.
If we're talking about shoplifting, I have no experience in this but surely the penalties for stealing a $2 item are different than for stealing a $200 or $2,000 item, and indeed a store will be less likely to press a prosecution for a low-valued item. Thus, particularly if you are a small-time or casual thief, it is safer to target very cheap goods, even taking into account the fact that you need to be a lot more prolific to realise the same income.
I have no experience either, but from watching a few reality crime TV shows, there is not much difference in the penalty. Offering to pay for the item after the fact is not accepted by mall security.
The pain of the penalty (at least in the show I watched) was less about the crime & any charges, but that the shopping mall was banning them from the mall for a year. It was a bigger deal to them that they would have to find another mall and drive further away to buy their groceries to feed their kids.
The Priconomics article mentions and links the New York Magazine article that your link is based on.
The NYM article reads an awful lot like a submarine piece for that amazing technological wonder, Tide, the expensive to produce detergent that gives anything you wash with it a quality feel.
...and reminds me of this[0] where residents of hard-hit Beattyville Kentucky use Coke or Pepsi as currency to support their addictions. Both this soap situation and the cola situation are horrible, but it's fascinating to see how people cope.
Maybe Walgreens or Safeway should simply open a cheap unbranded store down the road that sells the typical thief goods in a no name version at competitive street prices, catering to the people who need that stuff but can't afford it at store price. That would dry up the stolen goods market. Their normal customers wouldn't buy there anyway, if the store is sufficiently awkward.
> Thieves can sell items for around a third of their retail value, according to the report, or for roughly half their value if they sell them to second hand shops.
I think even with no name brands, they'd still have to sell at a loss to be competitive with that kind of markdown. Hard to compete when the other guy's cost is $0.
>I think even with no name brands, they'd still have to sell at a loss to be competitive with that kind of markdown. Hard to compete when the other guy's cost is $0.
Corollary: for a big store, selling at a loss could still be more profitable than having stuff stolen.
Actually just giving stuff away could still be more profitable if it cut big store security costs.
Of course you'd have to ration or otherwise control the volume of sales, otherwise you'd just cannibalise official sales from the big store.
even if you give stuff away there will still be people stealing other items. simple fact is that some people don't care and will just take what they want dismissing even discounted if not free items as stuff beneath them.
you discourage it by fixing what is wrong in the local area and that requires an effort by the support agencies of the government understanding what is wrong and wanting to fix it. it also requires those who need help knowing how to get it, seeking it out, or accepting it, which is not always the case
Do you have a reference as to the prices of branded vs no-name items? I don't have any specific knowledge but I suspect the brand markup is quite significant.. might be interesting to check that (I don't think there is any no-name shop around here or I'd go out and have a look at soap for instance)
Also, the other guys cost is not really $0 .. he also has to make the money to cover his costs, which could be anything from food and rent, or drugs, or paying off a loanshark or baliff, or greasing the palm of his crime boss. His costs don't go down, so if his profit is reduced then his exposure goes up as he needs to steal much more. That means more time spent on the job, and more chance of getting caught.
In German supermarkts, no-name vs branded side by side is very typical. I would say for small household items like soap, the price is often twice for the branded. So it's quite significant. And that's already branded products that have to compete directly, so the markup might be even higher in branded-only environments.
Some googling indicates that Laundersol liquid detergent for commercial laundries can be had for $534.95/55 gallon drum (about $9.73/gallon). At walmart.com, Liquid Tide costs $17.97 for a 150 ounce container (about $15.33/gallon). So the markup is indeed substantial.
The price difference would be lower, though. Hard to tell how low they'd need to go, but the other guy's cost is not $0. There is always opportunity cost, even for the other guy. (AKA it may push the other guy to greener pastures.)
TL;DR: Soap gets stolen because there is a market for it in the hood. No matter, if it's a corner store marking up the prices or an addict/door to door salesman, or people buying it from said addicts. There will always be a market for cheaper than retail goods.
I have multiple people in my neighborhood in Baltimore that sell stuff like this (detergents, soaps, deodorants, axe, febreeze, shower gels, razors, carpet, toothpaste and brushes, loofas, mouthwash). Including their food stamps. Well, not stamps but now they're debit cards that ironically say Independence on them.
So around the 1st-3rd of the month people get their stamps. They get enough in stamps that they can afford to sell some, maybe $200 FSD for $100 USD. Some folks actually budget and shop at the lower priced store like aldi, or food depot. So maybe a couple months out of the year they're able to sell sometimes more than half of the stamps that month. After that cash runs out for whatever reasons, a small minority, sometimes in groups steal from the local chain stores so they have quick cash. They're mostly drug addicts doing it for a fix or two for the day not for a living. But it's a daily thing.
One guy comes around often, sometimes everyday. He's got regulars sometimes he catches them on off-days and he'll need to come back to secure the sale. But fair is fair and he holds stuff for people. Most of his customers are the little old ladies you would imagine that spend hours peering over newspapers for coupons, or comparing the sales at store A vs store B. An $800 social security check doesn't go very far after expenses.
Seems like a way of life in the ghetto where I live. My family included, has always purchased these things from the guys in the neighborhood and still do. I'm not saying it's morally right. But as long as there is a cheap alternative to the corner store you will find someone in the hood willing to deal.
What a coincidence: yesterday I was doing shopping and it struck me, that on the package of sausage (kabanos [1], to be precise) of $2 value they put the same RF stickers as on $200 electronics (while they don't do it on many more expensive products). I asked a clerk about that and she told me, that thieves are really keen on this particular type of product, along with shavers and some cosmetics.
The article is a write-up of an 8 year-old paper based on research from 10 years ago and extensively quoting papers from 20 years ago, so current definitions of expensive don't really apply
One way to think of it is that torrenting movies requires an (expensive) internet connection, where all you need for a DVD player is electricity and some DVDs someone else ripped.
Great writeup. I've seen the same patterns in my locale. It's formula, Tide, soap, beer, meat, and other things that are pricey but useful for low-income people. Most of the thieves are low-income without any particular race dominating the role. They're not the only ones, though, as a number of people with plenty of money are just as happy to be thieving assholes. ;)
I read it all and thoroughly enjoyed it. It could be summed up as thieves like to steal commodity goods because they are easier to trade. Other than that they like to steal high demand luxury goods.
To be honest, when you're talking about tens of thousands of dollars of one brand of detergent from one store alone, maybe there is some value in examining the minutiae? After all, it's easy to sell a lot of things illegally, but most of them are not so incredibly widely desired by so many different people.
I love the soap! It's worth the few extra dollars to know you're getting the pure stuff. You have to be careful about what you buy off the street in gallon jugs. [1]
One time as I was leaving I asked the officer why Folgers crystals of all things were locked up. His reply was "[ethnic group] gangs steal essentials in bulk, and sell them to the homeless."
From that point forward it clicked in my head, retail theft is about liquidity not value.