Re:Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft...
by paulpauper on Friday September 03, 2021 @11:02AM
(#28405129)
The 70s 80s and early 90s was the golden age of crime. Short sentences, much more lenient recidivism laws, poor security, a culture that really didn't care that much, no digitsliazation and no tech to easy track stolen goods or id suspects, no smartphones . Multiple types of crimes thrived in that era: bank robbery, drug dealing/distribution, shoplifting, auto theft, and so on. It was pretty bad, even worse than now. The noticeable decline of crime since the 90s according to steven pinker seems to confirm this.
My mom worked at Macy's and reported endless problems with organized shoplifting in the 1980's and 1990's. One time a whole family came into the Men's clothing department after her shift, the dad kept the clerk distracted, the mom and the kids took a few racks of suits and loaded them into their car.
She said that the security guards were loathe to use force on anyone because Macy's could get sued; that didn't stop shoplifters from running over a security guard in the parking lot.
I worked at a supermarket where the security was entirely undercover (probably because they were more afraid of us stealing than the customers) and I knew nothing about the security until the day I saw a massively overweight woman tackle a man who was leaving the store.
I read this book
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Mafia-Ethnic-Succession-Organiz...
which describes similar organized theft organizations working in the 1970s, how the goods were fenced, etc.