B***h, new laws!' California shoplifting suspect surprised stealing is now a felony

[u/devicto89]

https://www.fox13news.com/news/new-laws-california-shoplifting-suspects-surprised-stealing-felony

[u/otirk]

There's really subs for that? The mods are probably all cops

Edit: ok, was banned

[u/Jazzy_Josh → u/otirk]

Bruh, you know /r/shoplifting was a sub yes?

Disappointing that it is gone because your can't read stories of idiots getting caught and wondering what to do now that they've crossed into felony territory.

[u/CharacterHomework975 → u/Jazzy_Josh]

Yeah I remember the scenes when people realized stores were saving footage across multiple visits and waiting until people hit the felony threshold to stop them.

Shocked pikachu faces all around since they thought they’d just been getting away with it.

[u/August_T_Marble → u/CharacterHomework975]

Years ago, I worked ORC at a national retailer's loss prevention department. My favorite case involved a local shoplifting ring. The same woman came in on the same day of the week, at the same time, wearing the same clothes, with the same large purse. She made building that case so easy.

[u/whyyy66 → u/August_T_Marble]

Were more thieves junkies, or serious organized groups?

[u/August_T_Marble → u/whyyy66]

It depends on the area. At the height of my time in the job, I coordinated collection, watch and analysis of evidence in stores across Southern California. Stores in the most affluent neighborhoods had different indicators than the average store. These were stores that tended to favor shopping experience over security and had high-dollar items in stock that most other stores didn't. Those features tended to attract mostly organized retail crime. One particular group went on a spree targeting the lack of security at the fragrance counters of such stores in a very quick dash-and-grabs. They came in emptyhanded, picked up a laundry hamper in the home department, walked to the fragrance counter, quickly loaded up every fragrance they can reach, and ran out. By the time we got the first report, they had already hit the second store. It was enough to identify their heading, and I was able to identify the next store on their list. Loss prevention at the third store was able to prevent theft there, and got us a useable plate number. Like many of the ORC rings in Southern California at the time, they were selling the stolen goods at swap meets and craigslist. It appeared to me that the shoplifters were the most expendable members of the ring. If a shoplifter in an organized retail crime ring was caught, they'd be replaced by another procurer in the ring within a week.

Below that very top rung, the type of shoplifting was more varied. The biggest losses (not counting operational shrink, which was the category of shrink with the highest losses and the one the company was most reluctant to acknowledge or address) were still often to organized retail crime because the average shoplifter was stealing fewer, less high dollar items and were much less prepared and experienced but the gap was much closer. Casual shoplifters also got caught more often that organized retail criminals and didn't return.

Behavioral analysis plays a big part in identification and prevention of casual shopflifting. More than even racial profiling, which is unfortunately prevalent. If it is the middle of summer and a person walks in with a large puffy jacket, they are attracting immediate attention from loss prevention. A grown person wearing a large backpack is going to attract attention, too. Even things like moving too quickly, too cautiously, or just coming in regularly will eventually get noticed. Unhoused and drug addicted individuals attracted a lot of attention and were more likely to be followed. Even other customers made them too nervous to steal sometimes because society is suspicious and watchful of them in general. Not that they didn't try, but was mostly "regular" people, though. Some of the most frequent examples of casual shoplifting were, in my experience:

• Kids. E.g. stealing a lifestyle item, toy, or a small electronic device.
• Desperate parents. E.g. stealing a pair of children's shoes during back-to-school.
• Crimes of opportunity where maybe the person didn't come in with the intent to steal but saw a weakness in security and exploited it. E.g. When dressing room attendants were away from their post, more of this happened.

A lot of times, store level LP associates wrote a single sentence in a report at the end of their shift about such incidents but gave a pass to shoplifting arising from some of these motives because many of them are empathetic. Nobody likes the people who take the job too seriously; not the customers, not their peers, not management, not corporate. Nobody.

Many people have read articles about organized retail crime and have come to the conclusion that the phenomenon is overblown but it happens at both large and small scales. Because of the name, people only tend to think of the large scale, but it all adds up. There are several venues that house black markets for stolen goods in broad daylight. Why do people use Facebook Marketplace? The need is there because the cost of living is high and pay is low. It's the same reason a mother might steal a baby outfit by stuffing it under their child in a stroller. Back when I was getting those metrics, the number one shoplifted item nationwide was Tide laundry detergent. It was never the hottest new thing. It was laundry detergent. And that was followed closely by baby formula. Those products are now microprinted to be traced back in ORC cases. It is that prevalent. It is profitable because people need those items. A few of those people, if desperare enough, will steal, but many more will just buy them (often diluted) substantially cheaper from a seller in an ORC ring.

Many people have made fun of the lax laws on shoplifting. In my opinion, that's a bad take. If the megacorporations want to blame someone, let it be the organized retail criminals operating at the largest scale which make pure profit on thousands of dollars of goods a week and spare the guy shoving a cold package of bacon down the front of his pants to have something to eat. Because here is the thing, just by paying someone minimum wage to run a highlighter over a receipt at the door qualifies that corporation for millions of dollars of shrink insurance. Did the store do enough to keep shrink below x% where x varies by the geographical risk index and comes in below the insurance margin so they can still turn a profit without raising prices for other customers? That's all they care about. It's a balancing act in which, for the most part, everyone can be happy if none of the parties individually get too greedy.

[u/whyyy66 → u/August_T_Marble]

Wow, thanks for the detailed rundown I definitely wasn’t expecting it. Good stuff

[u/adjason → u/August_T_Marble]

work uniform

[u/sscorpiovenom → u/Jazzy_Josh]

I think it’s something like nopslifting now

[u/Consistent_Ad_4828 → u/otirk]

You’ll also get a permanent ban if you say that the legaladvice subreddit is run by cops. Reddit is full of honeypots.

[u/Popo5525 → u/Consistent_Ad_4828]

It doesn't even have to be operated by cops - anyone can waltz in there and monitor the posts/comments, mod or not. You can bet every three-letter agency has a sort of watchdog in place on this site. Wouldn't surprise me one bit to find out some law enforcement departments have them set up as well.

We need new PSAs reminding people not to share anything online that they wouldn't want shown to family/cops/work/etc. Despite the advancements in IT protocols and related technologies, I'd argue information on the internet is at best no more secure than it was upon DARPANET's inception.

[u/squeakymoth → u/otirk]

Just found out I'm banned since I'm a verified cop in other subs. Neat.

[u/otirk → u/squeakymoth]

And luckily for the criminals there you can't just make a second account

[u/squeakymoth → u/otirk]

Luckily for them, I don't honestly care enough, and the odds that any of them are in my jurisdiction is infinitesimal. So I'll just keep looking at weird shit with my free time.