LogFAQs > #961026242

Bugmeat posted...

Here in California if the value is less than $950 it's a misdemeanor. Law enforcement isn't going to put much effort into a misdemenor. If law enforcement doesn't put in the effort there isn't going to be anyone to prosecute. Even if they did, it's just a misdemenor and not much would happen to the thief anyway. Store employees just about everywhere are told not to try and stop them. Many places even threaten to fire enployees if they get involved. The product is insured and someone getting hurt could be very expensive.

So yeah, don't use a weapon, don't hurt anyone and you can shoplift from the same store over and over and over without any real consequences, in most cases. I would see the same people coming in to steal shit on a regular basis when I was doing security at Home Depot.

That seems to be the case here as well, and it looks like most other states. Kinda a middle finger to those people making min wage or close to it and just barely getting by, since people not working at all can basically just steal whatever they want and live much better. I think the system is broken honestly.

adjl posted...

Generally speaking, major corporations won't bother dealing with a relatively small amount of shoplifting because doing so would cost more than they're losing. Repeat offenders may be banned from the store, but preventing it from happening entails having dedicated security staff that are allowed to accost shoplifters, and that's pretty expensive (mostly for the insurance involved) and usually won't actually save the company that much.

I think I have seen stores with security guards so at least in those cases they probably CAN stop the shoplifters and hold them for the police. Banning from stores could work maybe, especially if it was all stores in the area (otherwise there are just so many of them), even so, there are a ton of different types of grocery stores etc in most areas and if someone is homeless nothing keeps them from must wandering down the road to the next area every day or so, unless ALL safeways for instance had pictures up of all shoplifters ever (and somehow could recognize them with like an advanced computer program and cameras lol) it wouldn't really matter. Even in my area you could literally rotate from safeway to safeway and only hit the same one every week or two.