This is mostly bullshit. Crime rates in California and SF are comparable to the rest of the country. However there seems to be a concerted effort to push back on any reductions in moronic "tough on crime" policies from the 80s and 90s. Thefts under $1k should be a misdemeanor. How the hell were they ever a felony? In Canada theft under $5k is punishable by a maximum of 2 years in jail (with most people getting a lot less) and retailers seem to be doing ok.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/14/bogus-bac...

Edit: The media seems to be in a real crime frenzy right now. Exhibit A is this bullshit graph that swaps the x axis to make it look like crime is rising: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/06/24/cnn-chart-crime

If people have learnt not to report crimes (because it makes no difference), the police have learnt to not arrest people for non-violent crimes (because the DA won't prosecute), do you think that might affect the crime rates? If so, in which direction?

> If people have learnt not to report crimes (because it makes no difference)

I call bullshit on people saying there's widespread crime not being reported. If your car window got smashed if you are either:

- A Lyft or Uber driver

- Your car was a rental

- You have a lease on your car

- Have "premium" or expensive home or car insurance

you get actual money from filing a police report from your insurance provider.

If your gadgets get stolen in the street a lot of credit cards or stuff like Apple care, and also some home insurance, will cover part of getting a replacement. But you also have to file a police report.

I really doubt most people are "learning to not report crime" when they literally can get payed for it.

When I was in SF I went through 3 windows a year and knew several folks in the same boat. Never reported one or heard of someone reporting one.

Most rationales were people don't have insurance coverage damage or don't have proof of property loss (receipts, ect).

Would not be surprised if actual numbers were 10-50x the reported

Insurance won't always ask you for a police report. They're not going to chase someone down for a $150 window. If you break your own window on accident, I don't think they care much about the difference.

Target has started closing their San Francisco stores at 6pm as a response to the increase in theft. Do you really think that this wasn't a data-driven decision, and that Target as a whole just got swept up in some kind of racist moral panic?

IMO it doesn't matter if your theft is a felony or misdemeanor, police should still patrol and try to pursue it. Cops, however, claim they are overworked and understaffed to do this.

This is the "broken windows" theory- if you let minor crimes like shoplifting go unpunished in a city, more people will do it.

Target has been reducing hours of employees throughout the country.

This may be true, but that is distinct from closing before dark (which I haven't seen in any other place.)

A relatively-new (built in the last two years) Taco Bell near me has a sign up saying that they are only open 4PM-10PM, drive-thru only. Something weird is going on with employment. It's as if some of these big firms will suffer some huge penalty the moment their average wages go over a certain threshold.

The drive-thru only restriction is almost certainly because of COVID.

... But the hours restriction is interesting. I've noticed weird hours at the Taco Bell near my place, and this is probably purely anecdotal, but it does make me sort of wonder if there's something unique to Taco Bell making it hard for them to flesh out their hours.

If the Canadian maximum is 2years, then that i would be a felony by US standards.

Canadian law also has subtle differences such as hybrid offenses whereby prosecutors can decide whether to charge as a felony or misdemeanor, for exactly the same crime/facts. Such a concept would be entirely unconstitutional under US law. So direct comparisons between the countries re possible punishments are complicated.

I dunno... the people at our SF office talk about car break-ins happening roughly yearly and when I visit SF I see signs disclaiming responsibility for theft everywhere.

I have no problem with any theft being a felony.

You're stealing something.

What makes "stealing less than $1k" more acceptable?

Why not just make everything a felony then?

The purpose of grading is to provide an appropriate punishment. I'm my state, the grading for retail theft starts low, but depends on the value of the item. After a few times it becomes a felony for anything, such as a man who was in the news as getting a felony for stealing a candy bar. If it's always going to be a felony with potential prison time, then people might think "why not steal that riding lawn mower if the punishment is the same as a candy bar". Same risk, might as well increase the reward.

Theft seems pretty clear. Either you pay for something, or you don't. If you don't, you know you didn't.

I don't see how "light theft" is something we should tolerate.

If we want to talk about humane solutions, carve out an exception for food theft. But nobody is stealing a $500 drill because they're starving for power tools.

(And, this isn't just me expressing personal moral preferences. Theft is a tax on everyone who does pay for goods, via price increases)

"Either you pay for something, or you don't. If you don't, you know you didn't."

That's not exactly true. There can be items that are confusing, such as whether or not a bin or bucket comes with a lid. With the advent of self checkouts, it's also possible that someone rings up an item incorrectly just by accident, especially with non bar codes items. People could be prosecuted for this depending on the state's requirements. The burden of proof can be quiet low.

"But nobody is stealing a $500 drill because they're starving for power tools."

Here you are using $500 as an example. Do you feel the same if someone takes an extra 10 cent washer?

"If we want to talk about humane solutions, carve out an exception for food theft."

I don't think food theft should be an exception - just the same as the current grading tier. There are many programs and food banks that people can use to get food.

What are your thoughts on other crimes with different gradings? Should assault always be a felony? Should speeding always be considered reckless endangerment?

Again, the grading is supposed to provide an appropriate punishment based on the severity of the crime.

If a store prosecutes their customers for stealing a $0.10 washer, they won't have customers for long.

My personal opinion is that the severity of consequence should be relative to the people the crime affects.

Theft (retail, insurance, etc) exists in this weird limbo where the primary victim (the business) isn't the customer. However, it's ultimately the customer who pays.

So light-touching theft prosecution is effectively not caring about taxing customers. Most of whom don't even know they're being taxed.

Yeah, most stores have limits and try to resolve any possible misunderstandings. Walmart prosecutes starting at $20.

Maybe your state is different, but I wouldn't call it light touching in my state. First offense, is a summary offense if the merchandise was under $150. That's a fine, restitution, and up to 90 days in jail. So possibly a light touch if there's no jail time, but generally going to jail means losing your job and such for lack of attendance. Higher amounts or subsequent offenses constitute misdemeanors (up to 3 years in prison), or felonies (up to 5 years in prison. Even without prison terms, people can lose their job, be denied jobs, lose their rights, etc from these higher level penalties. Which I think is fine when there's this step grading for value and repeat offenses (still some outliers like a man getting a felony for a candy bar, although it seemed like he probably had a mental issue that was causing these low dollar thefts, so probably needs to have some exception to get these people treatment). I believe this serves the purpose of preventing and rehabilitating low level offenders so that they don't become larger offenders in the future, and if they do then they get higher penalties.

So some old lady who doesn't scan a can of beans right at Walmart is a felon?

I don't think you've thought this one out.

Agreed. Also, why have different sentences, anyway? Either you get punish or you don't. Just have the death penalty for everything.

Then you'd have a lot less theft.

Edit: Not sure people recognized your sarcasm.

Definitely. And a lot fewer people.

> If we want to talk about humane solutions, carve out an exception for food theft.

I bet then somebody will invent a microchipped, DRMed food just for the sake of it.

Any theft? Should a kid stealing a pack of bubble gum be labeled a felon?

If we're talking about the USA, it depends on the color of the kid's skin. White juveniles are sent home with a stern verbal admonishment, black juveniles are sent to prison at the first opportunity.

If you're gonna race bait at least provide proof.

GP is not an example of "race baiting". You "conservatives" sure don't care to conserve the English language.

https://splinternews.com/if-youre-confused-about-what-race-b...

Evidence is widely available and not difficult to locate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_incarceration_in_the_Uni...

>In 1995, African American youths made up 12% of the population, but were arrested at rates double those for Caucasian youths. The trend towards adult adjudication has had implications for the racial make-up of the juvenile prison population as well. Minority youth tried in adult courts are much more likely to be sentenced to serve prison time than white youth offenders arrested for similar crimes.

https://thecrimereport.org/2021/06/17/racial-disparities-per...

>According to the Equal Justice Initiative, Black children are more than twice as likely as white kids to be arrested, even though they’re not committing more crimes, but because Black Kids are burdened by a “presumption of guilt and dangerousness,” which leads youth of color to have higher rates of stops, searches, violence, suspension, and disproportionate contact with the juvenile justice system.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/racial-dispar...

>As of 2013, black juveniles were more than four times as likely to be committed as white juveniles, Americans Indian juveniles were more than three times as likely, and Hispanic juveniles were 61 percent more likely.

http://jaapl.org/content/early/2019/02/13/JAAPL.003828-19

>However, research has documented the existence of racial disparity in the treatment of youth involved in the juvenile justice system for several decades. Studies from the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated that black juveniles were detained and confined at higher rates compared with white youth, and that black youth were more likely to be sent to correctional facilities compared with white youth, who were more likely to be sent to psychiatric hospitals. Additionally, recent studies have documented the continued trend of overrepresentation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system

Proof of higher incarceration is not proof of unequal application of law. Additionally, sentencing takes into account past actions of the individual.

Did they commit more crimes?

Additionally if the whole racial bias theory is true (i don't agree that it is) then why should be incarcerating blacks less? I think the appropriate response would be to incarcerate white people more often.

>Did they commit more crimes?

As I quoted earlier:

>Black children are more than twice as likely as white kids to be arrested, even though they’re not committing more crimes

I'm not seeing the data, please link it. All I see are some quotes referring to a Mother Jones article and a lot of assumptions.

You need data showing white kids are stopped for crime and released to prove this, not just some random left leaning organizations that says it's true.

>What makes "stealing less than $1k" more acceptable?

The cost to the victim. Someone grabs a few unsecured tie downs off a truck at a truck stop that's a hundred bucks. Someone scraps some spools of copper stolen from a job site and it could be thousands.

I think having a step function where you define all theft below a dollar amount as one type and then above as a different type is just legacy code from back in the day when it wasn't reasonable for the legislature to just say "the fine will be X-times the replacement cost of the goods or an equivalent jail time as determined by table Y in appendix Z" and expect the courts to be able to enforce it in an efficient enough manner.

The fact that we we have basically two classes of crime that include both violent and nonviolent crime results in a lot of overlap where you can have some pretty bad misdemeanors and some pretty mild felonies all depending on legal technicalities.

Don't forget summary offenses. Some of them can carry jail time. In PA you can get 90 days in jail for having a dog get loose from your yard. Additionally, a second offense within one year becomes a misdemeanor.

Because it's worth less. I don't understand how it's okay for punishment to have degrees but crime is black and white?

>You're stealing something.

Should we lock up everyone who downloaded an MP3 from Napster or Kazaa?

Imho, fungible and zero-copy-cost goods is a much more nuanced topic.

This is NOT bullshit. Do you live in SF? I live right next to the CVS/Walgreens that are targeted in Soma and I can guarantee you you'll see someone robbing them blind if you stay in there for about 1 hour in there.

I go in there to buy something small once in a while and 1 out of 4 times I see some guy just grabbing and walking out while the security watches him steal right before their eyes.

> Crime rates in California and SF are comparable to the rest of the country.

I don't know who's in the wrong here, but if the comment you're replying to was correct and DA wouldn't persecute these cases, wouldn't it also mean that they wouldn't appear in statistics you're quoting as well?

> However there seems to be a concerted effort to push back on any reductions in moronic "tough on crime" policies from the 80s and 90s.

I'd say. We just elected one of the architects as president.

Simply incorrect. Many, many stores have closed or reduced hours in SF because of the rampant crime. No other city is doing that.

Theft under $5k in Canada is an indictable offense which is the same as a felony in Canada.

*if the value of what is stolen is not more than $5,000, is guilty

(i) of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years*

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-334.ht...

Theft shouldn't be tolerated from either side.

>repeated by people pushing particular agendas

The irony.... The agenda seems to be it's ok to steal, commit crime if you're a specific skin color.

You're right there is an agenda being pushed. I can't believe people can be so brainwashed that they'll defend crime. I guess you reap what you sow though, just don't push your moronic "acceptance" on the rest of the country. And please for the love of god stay where you are and don't infest other parts of the US with your ridiculousness.

If you want to live in a place that supports this by all means do it but don't make the rest of us do it.

> Theft shouldn't be tolerated from either side.

It shouldn't, nor should it lead to long custodial sentences.

> The agenda seems to be it's ok to steal, commit crime if you're a specific skin color.

Wow. Wasn't even going to go there, but if you are going to let your racist flag fly I guess we can just let you run with it. The rest of us will continue to explore radical ideas like attacking the causes of criminal behavior rather than just criminalizing poverty and when necessary treating offenders with rehabilitation rather than the sort of simple-minded retribution that you seem to favour.

Ok well since you're playing the race baiting game can I assume that you're fine with the criminal activity leading to small sentences on Jan 6th?

Why don't you tell us how allowing more criminal activity and giving people less harsh sentences is going to fix minority communities? Does it work along the same lines as throwing them free money?

>Wasn't even going to go there, but if you are going to let your racist

But you did and you did so because you have a lame rebuttal no good logical argument to defend your bs. When you label everyone who upsets you racist it starts to make the word meaningless so good job on that front. "Look another racist! See... no one cares"

That all sounds great, but you’d better be sure about the “causes of criminal behavior.” Not everyone agrees on that, and as such, you might be unpleasantly surprised at what ultimately gets “attacked.”

>Thefts under $1k should be a misdemeanor.

Why? What does Canada have to do with the US?

>and retailers seem to be doing ok.

I'm sure they big box stores are just fine, they just pass the cost on to the consumer. It doesn't end so well for the small businesses.

I’ve spent a lot of time at Bay Area Home Depots, and I’ve only seen blatant theft once, and the security guards did attempt to intervene.

What is the support for your statement?

Also “the DA” is a ton of different people throughout the Bay Area, and the DA that everybody complains about has exactly 0 HDs in his jurisdiction.

285 murders in San Fran last year, a 35% increase. I didn't witness a single one, but I think they really did happen.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/A-violent-year-Bay...

London is about the same population as the Bay Area. They had 130 murders, which was about double the per-capita rate for the rest of the UK.

285 murders in the 15 biggest cities of the Bay Area.

It was a State level Proposition as far as I am aware, so it isn't merely the case of one problematic DA. I could be misunderstanding something though.

The state level proposition does not require DAs to ignore shoplifting. It just turns it (and a few other crimes) from felonies into misdemeanors when the amount involved does not exceed $950.

Misdemeanor shoplifting can still earn up to 180 days in county jail and a fine of up to $1000, but only if a DA prosecutes.

Statewide laws still rely on local law enforcement and prosecutors to be enforced.

I've heard of the Walgreens issues, the topic, and am not doubting you -- however, i'm curious what is stopping more widespread theft. Given the no-prosecution stance, I can even imagine theft-tourism where people come from other cities and states to steal. Recalling NYC in the 1980s, people would even reach arms through and under metal hoods to steal, I could only imagine what happens if it can be done w/o consequence.

What is preventing that? Is it human good nature or is there some understanding that blatant/planned cases will indeed be pursued?

Consider the possibility that the crime wave is not real but a narrative being spun up to try to get "tough on crime" laws back on the agenda. From: https://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/nation/no-san-franc...

> The San Francisco Police Department is actually seeing a dip in crime in 2021, part of a larger overall downward trend. Property crimes are down nearly 8 percent so far in 2021, and larceny theft — the category of crime that includes shoplifting — is down 14.4 percent.

Just because crime isn’t increasing doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. We have no benchmark to compare 2019, 2020 and 2021 against and it may be dipping but 2020 likely saw a spike in crime so going down from there isn’t saying much.

It literally isn't a problem then. Otherwise you're just trying to spin a narrative that doesn't line up with facts.

Again, something can be a problem without growing into a bigger problem.

First off, no one said crime is not a problem, they're saying it's not a new problem ramping up. So let's fix that bit of putting words in someone's mouth and see why doesn't the logic flow the other way?

Just because crime is increasing doesn’t mean it’s a new problem. We have no benchmark to compare 2019, 2020 and 2021 against and it may be dipping but 2020 likely saw a spike in crime so going down from there isn’t saying much.

Seems pretty reasonable right?

The backwards logic doesn’t work because my assumption is that all crime is a problem.

Aren't quants supposed to be good at reading?

> *no one said crime is not a problem*, they're saying it's not *a new problem ramping up*

There are charts over time available here

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/A-violent-year-Bay...

The entire point is 2020 was a known anomaly (because of the tiny globe changing pandemic)

Hence why their quote is about downward trends in 2021

> The San Francisco Police Department is actually seeing a dip in crime in 2021, part of a larger overall downward trend. Property crimes are down nearly 8 percent so far in 2021, and larceny theft — the category of crime that includes shoplifting — is down 14.4 percent.

It's too early to start screaming doom and gloom about crime taking over

Ah, I was just sharing the data but yeah -- we're trending towards returning to the hellscape that was 2016. We're all gonna die! (Despite the fact that, well, we all lived through 2016...)

I was the victim of a property crime in SF and I never reported it. Why would I? No follow up by police. Same with neighbors.

Your stats are reported crime. Not actual crime.

This is normal most places (in the US, at least) AFAIK. Cops don't really investigate property crime unless it's very serious (I know for a fact that several tens of thousands in stolen goods via a break-in spree at multiple businesses isn't enough for them to put forth any effort, in my very-much-not-SF city) or someone with connections was the victim. They're like "OK here's your report for insurance, bye. No, stop trying to show me a list of places the culprit and their car's plates were assuredly caught on camera, I don't give a shit. Bye." Anyone who's been through this once already only bothers to report anything if an insurance claim will be made, since they know the cops won't do anything even if there's a very high likelihood they could track down the culprit. Unless they catch them in the act, nothing's gonna happen.

You don't have any insurance? I never directly bought any insurance but two of my credit cards and my life insurance policy from work cover some amount of money in some cases if I get stuff stolen. They just need a police report, and that's why a lot of property crime does get reported. Apple Care also has a theft and loss protection that needs a police report. If your car window gets smashed you can get money back from insurance, but they will ask for a police report...

This is why I always doubt people that claim that property crime isn't getting reported. Of course some of it will not get reported, but on the very very very unlikely event that you are a victim of property crime in SF if you like, have a credit card or Apple Care or car insurance, you probably can get free money by filing a police report.

Did that change recently? Prosecution tactics may have changed, to even get to the that point the police have to be willing to investigate.

I don't think I've ever seen a big city PD investigate "petty" property crime unless there was something unique about the case, like a gun being involved.

So the stats being compared to have the same limitation

Police wont investigate armed robbery with a firearm if there is no body. They may if you hand it to them on a platter (license plate number from getaway vehicle for example) or if there is a string of incidents in a very specific area and time of day. But string of incidents just results in maybe more cops around in that time and place and not a real investigation. And most people who do the armed robbery racket will tell victims to look down and keep their eyes down and respond not pleasantly if you do too much to try and identify them very well.

Police dont investigate property crimes unless its someone important enough or has sway gets involved or the media gets involved.

Murders they do investigate, because they have incentives to get a clearance rate down. This does mean they dont actually care if you committed the crime, just that it gets "cleared". God help you if you dont have a alibi and your husband/wife end up dead. Expect ALOT of police attention.

Rapes will get classified as he said / she said not rapes because that way their clearance/conviction rates stay good.

I also find it somewhat odd that people trust what police have to say about crime rates, where they have incentives to make themselves look good, but dont trust police about well anything else these days.

What makes you think they have incentive to make themselves look good?

The entire point of the thread is that they have incentive to fan the flames of fear to increase the budgeting.

After all, the police aren't nearly as exposed to the effects of angry constituents as elected politicians are.

So police love to pitch any sort of crime increase as a failing of budgeting or something

I used to work in law enforcement. Its a tails you lose, heads I win situation for the police.

Generally speaking police leadership likes to justify their jobs with "crime numbers are going down" its an easy "objective" way to show they are effective and its the primary metric they try to game. Then its ask for more budget because we can make numbers go even more down with more resources.

When crime numbers go up its "we need more resources!". Which is the traditional refrain of well every government agency that is not succeeding in their mission. And succeeding in their mission. Every agency is gonna ask for more money. Always and forever.

Line officers dont care as much about overall metrics but have different incentives put on them. Their immediate leadership want numbers to look good too.

No matter what way the number goes up or down there is a ready narrative that involves we need more budget. If number goes down, its my leadership caused this. If numbers go up then its external things fault.

Typically speaking police chiefs like numbers to go down because it reflects well on them. Detectives like persuing cases that result in convictions because it makes them look good and promotable. Zone leadership likes numbers to go down because it makes them look good and promotable. If you are the Captain of the highest crime rate precinct you are less likely to get promoted than the one with a better rate. This trickles all the way down.

> Generally speaking police leadership likes to justify their jobs with "crime numbers are going down"

If that's what happening, sure, they use that to support “we're doing good and therefore should be given more resources to do more good.”

If crime stats are flat or going down, they use that to argue “we are stretched to thin to effectively reduce crime, and therefore need more resources.”

The input is irrelevant, the output is constant.

The output to you the citizen is the same yes.

The internal process inside the engine cares though. Police Chief's certainly care about the crime rate going down because they answer to whoever put them in their position depending on the city and that person or group cares about the number going down.

The police captain cares because they want to be picked as the police chief one day and a "crime went down in my precinct" narrative helps that.

The Sheriff cares because in the US that is an elected position, and "crime rate keeps going up with this Sheriff" is easy ammo for them to lose their position in an election.

The police engine will produce the same output either way. (which is a great sign of necessary reform) But the people driving the engine would prefer it to be because of the rate going down that they ask for more money. And the people who put them in that position would prefer thats the reason they are asking for more money as well.

Interestingly enough public education works the same way. Schools failing? Not enough resources! School succeeding? We need more to do more or to keep the status quo of doing well! Pretty much every government body has this feedback mechanism. Every organization for that matters. No large scale org ever says "we have enough resources right now thanks".

Why would anyone report something if they know nothing will be done about it? Even when the DA prosecutes it's still unlikely reporting it will do much good.

My car has been broken into twice in the last few months in front of my house. The last thing I want to do is wait for an officer to come by 4 hours later to tell me there isn't anything he can do.

Because you'll need a police report to file an insurance claim.

I always wondered who paid for those low deductible plans.

Kind of hard not to see a dip after how summer of 2020 went. I'll wait to see whether the trend continues.

That's an artifact of people no longer reporting theft for inefficacy.

Why should one go through the trouble of filing police reports if they aren't/can't do anything about it?

Ironically this makes your dip in crime statistics as cooked up a narrative with rhetorical purposes as what you just suggested.

Always take data with a grain of salt, and avoid mixing up the map with the territory.

This is moving the goalposts vs. the GP. He claimed it was the DAs not prosecuting that was the problem. Now the police are in on it too and not even arresting suspects?

Incidentally, the Walgreens shoplifter was arrested and is facing 16 charges: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/22/us/shoplifting-san-francisco-...

It’s not a matter of being “in on it”, it’s just the reality of a) how policing works and b) California’s decriminalized crime laws.

Arresting a person takes an officer off the streets for several hours, which is a waste of scarce resources if the department knows for a fact that there will be no prosecution and the arrested person will be back on the street with no consequences.

Also, any theft under $950 is a mere misdemeanor - it’s a ticketable offense, with no arrest allowed.

Why would the police arrest a suspect if they already know the suspect won't be prosecuted That's what's really happening here.

I'm not in California, but over here, the cops call the DA first to see if they will accept charges before making an arrest. In which case, it would not make sense to say crime is going down based solely on arrest statistics. Arrests and crime are not the same thing. What these statistics could really be indicating, since arrests are down but crime is up, is that accountability for crime is down.

Police don't do anything about it in other states. It's not due to this law. Police steal more than the people they're supposed to catch.

When police serve a search warrant for career criminals (e.g. drug dealing, car theft, basically any criminal activity that you can make a decent regular income on) it's SOP to cross-reference serial numbers on expensive stuff that's lying around (power tools, electronics, etc) with the list of serial numbers in their DB of police reports so they can tack on a charge if they get a match. It is absolutely a liability to have a bunch of stolen stuff lying around.

didn't san francisco experience covid and lockdowns?

as a politician said recently: > we know we locked down not only the general population, but also criminals.

People don’t want to be caught on cellphone cameras stealing, because of shame.

> Security guards won't intervene

Weird. Makes me wonder why the guards exist.

Previous work experience (at a casino in USA). Security existed for customer service, general rule enforcement where it could be done verbally, and to observe and document activities to be used later - like in court or by police. Professional eye witness.

Of course there are times hands-on action was taken but the vast majority was no touch communication and de-escalation followed by a whole lot of documentation coordinated with video surveillance.

+1

If the military, with their training, has trouble calibrating force when interacting with civilians.

And if police, with their less but still substantial training, have trouble.

... Then we probably don't want security guards, with even less training, commonly using force.

That some of them are ex-military or ex-police is immaterial, because there sure as hell isn't time made in their schedule to keep up to date.

The lack of calibration is ultimately due to a lack of consequences. If security guards are bound by the law, in the way that police officers are currently not, then I'd rather have security guards using force than the police.

I think private security is mostly for deterrence / theatre.

There's definitely a large theater aspect but they also act as professional witnesses so to speak. They're trained to look for and record a suspect's characteristics that a lay person might not notice. A lay person might get you a description like "the big dude with long hair who got into a silver car" whereas a security guard will (should) get you a fairly precise height and weight as well as a plate number and the fact that the dude had a subtle tatoo on his wrist.

That's really reasonable. Thanks for the perspective!

In a world of small margins, it's just another small advantage that goes to Amazon.

That all assumes that UPS drivers are honest and that Amazon 'fulfillment' employees get their daily cavity search of course.

And that the delivery vans don't get raided while making deliveries.

This sounds more like a tough-on-crime type fever dream than a representative reality. How much does this actually happen? Is it more of a harm to society than the harsh sentences people were getting for minor thefts? Civilization is a compromise between conflicting interests.

Nieman Marcus and Home Depot are still making plenty of profit despite this law changing 7 years ago. Is putting someone in prison for 8 years and giving them a permanent black mark that prevents them from voting and harms employment prospects over $200 really worth improving Home Depot's bottom line? That's the real question here.