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.
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.
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.<p>Instead, Walmart is handing the problem over to the public authorities. This seems intuitively fair: why <i>shouldn't</i> a poor person accused of shoplifting have access to the same presumption of innocence and procedural safeguards as a rich person?<p>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).<p>The real problem is the amount of crime. Fix that, and none of this is a problem.
The fact that Walmart generates much more burden than similar competitors, but the same amount of tax revenue, is kind of alarming.<p>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.
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.<p>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).
Walmart purchases go to sales tax, Walmart no doubt pays property taxes, they generate a ton of income tax, and who knows what else.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>Dealing with people as mere statistics is dehumanizing. But corporations? Aren't corporations basically just a complex bundle of statistics to begin with?<p>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.<p>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).<p>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".<p>The taco stand down the street is clearly not responsible for local crime. It's a truck.<p>The Walmart super center is clearly responsible for local crime. It, in an of itself, <i>is</i> a locality.<p>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)
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.<p>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?
I would <i>love</i> a system where private businesses were responsible & empowered to enforce sovereignty over their own premises. Is that what they're advocating?<p>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.<p>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.
Most of the reason is liability transfer.<p>Walmart can be sued for detaining someone wrongfully. The police, not so much.<p>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.<p>The fact that the police actually <i>hang out</i> at the Walmart tells me that they really don't have something better they should be doing.
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).<p>Glad to see an article generating this level of discourse on HN. Good stuff, people.
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.
I'm really impressed that the police in Tampa show up for crimes of such small value.<p>The police in Oakland (where I live) explicitly refused to show up for child prostitution.