Tractor Supply has guards.

[entropy]

.....yes, and sadly we all know that it is going to get worse.

If you want to know how it goes, read "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon. Those who survived and thrived got out of the cities, set up walled villas with armed guards, (or patrolled them themselves) and became as self-sufficient as possible.

 

[Kendahl]

How do you shoplift furniture?

Nebraska Furniture Mart also sells appliances and electronics. Computers and accessories, tablets, phones, cameras, audio systems and components, toasters, coffee makers, microwave ovens, etc. I expect that's what gets stolen. Basically anything small enough to fit inside a bag.

 

[shoobe01]

NFM is a pretty generalized home stuff store. Electronics, housewares like small and large appliances, etc. Plenty to steal.

Liability is the issue. Transition time was around when I started working retail, mid-80s. Before that, employees would skulk around the suspicious, chase shoplifters, call the cops (who would come) and store security were serious,

Then, lawsuits. The worst were employees who were On The Job and got hurt from... anything. It didn't have to be the BG shooting or stabbing or even just fistfighting. We had specific stories of our store getting a change in policy from someone saying they twisted their knee during a pursuit. So, now no one gets to do that.

The nth-order effect is that shoplifting is not effectively a crime anymore. Stores see the loss rates, know that most loss (like 80%) is internal so they are dicks to employees, decided they can live with the loss of the public tweaker, and it's much less money than the lawsuits.

After that we get into social policy stuff that's more arguable, not solid history. I am personally hard into the side that:

1. These BS lawsuit fears are making **** worse. No one shovels sidewalks. Because the city doesn't make you anymore, and much of this is liability: a shoveled sidewalk is implied-safe, but if you go over an un-shoveled sidewalk and fall, not the fault of the landowner. Really, that's how ****ty liability is now.
2. Small bad things make little bad things worse. I dare you to get pulled over for not signaling a turn, or blowing a stopsign. The only traffic laws are speeding now. I cannot believe shoplifting isn't a gateway to more organized theft, and it isn't used to fuel other criminal behavior (sell the stuff for booze, drugs).

So, extend that to shoplifting. You got a product worth cash money for free. You can do it over and over. With no punishment. If caught, sometimes people get warnings. Many who do get caught get minimal punishment as we've degraded it to not much of a crime.

Need tort reform. Need to make everyone act like we're in a civil society,

I wish. Never happen.

 

[labnoti]

In my little rural county, it seems like more arrests are made at the Walmart store than all other places combined, with perhaps the exception of DUI arrests on the roads. The store's employees never interdict suspects personally, but the Sheriff gets them. It's a veritable dragnet. If the newspaper reports an arrest, 9 times out 10 it was at the Walmart (they don't report every DUI). The people who keep shoplifting there obviously don't read the newspaper. I would certainly not say that shoplifting is not a crime anymore. In fact, around here it may very be the #2 cause for felony arrests behind traffic stops. Just as with traffic-law violators, shoplifters have a high probability of being found with outstanding warrants, drugs, or other felonies.

There is another aspect of low clearance rates on property crimes like shoplifting or larceny, besides those things perhaps not being considered crimes anymore. Cities like Los Angeles report a clearance rate somewhere around 10% for larceny. This is very low compared to national averages, but even those aren't more than about 1 in 4 crimes and that may only be due to bad reporting practices.

The question is: should law enforcement agencies focus on catching criminals or on preventing crime?

The prevailing answer to that question appears to have shifted over the last generation. Previously, the police were primarily held responsible for catching criminals. In more recent times, our society has increasingly held police responsible for crime rates and pressured them to focus on reducing crime rather than catching criminals. People have been paying attention to high rates of incarceration and overcrowded prisons. Decriminalizing certain offenses has certainly become one of their solutions, but I haven't heard about decriminalizing larceny yet. Still, law enforcement agencies have limited resources and they have to balance those resources between crime rates and clearance rates.

We can see that violent crime rates have declined very substantially since 1990, but clearance rates for violent crimes and property crimes have remained stagnant or even declined over the same period despite very significant advances in everything from forensic sciences to the ubiquity of surveillance video.

Can we attribute reduced violent crime rates to the efforts of law enforcement agencies or are there other more significant factors?

And what about armed guards at retailers? Is the right purpose of armed guards to enforce laws against larceny by busting more shoplifters? Or is it to reduce crimes of violence against people by serving as a deterrent to armed robbery? Or do they actually increase the probability of a shooting during a robbery?

 

[acdodd]

I worked in a hospital that had contracted security. No guns just radios and cell phones. One day a couple of gang bangers had a shooting close by and they brought their dead and wounded compadres to ER in their cars.
So there were gang members with firearms, no real security, and no idea who else was on their way to settle the score. A 911 call brought every cop in the area fast.
The town water company used a truck to block the hospital entrance.
A couple of days later they hired sworn police officers at the hospital 24/7. Then a few years later the state said it was illegal to have officers on duty only at the hospital and they had to pay the city for coverage at a very high cost.
So they hired an outside company again, then the head honcho said that cost too much so they now have the hospital maintenance guys carry radios and call it security.
All of this is in a farming town of less than 12,000.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

No security at the local TSC in my relatively small county.

There are generally some armed patrons though.

 

[Robert]

None of this is on topic. We are a firearms forum. All posts must be strictly firearms or second amendment related.