No. of Recommendations: 3
Reporters looked at the crime data in New York City in a shopping plaza in the East Harlem area where Target is closing its store and found that the location has had fewer incidents of shoplifting reported this year than other Target locations in Upper Manhattan. The same is true in the areas where Target stores are closing in Seattle and San Francisco.Nobody reports shoplifting anymore.
Why would they? The police don't come and in San Francisco, stealing under $950...isn't shoplifting.
This from 2021. It's not gotten better since then:
wsj.com - San francisco shoplifters theft walgreens decriminalizedThe recent closings bring to 22 the number of stores that Walgreens has shut in the city since 2016. 'Theft in Walgreens' San Francisco stores is four times the average for stores elsewhere in the country, and the chain spends 35 times more on security guards in the city than elsewhere,' reported the San Francisco Chronicle....
Much of this lawlessness can be linked to Proposition 47, a California ballot initiative passed in 2014, under which theft of less than $950 in goods is treated as a nonviolent misdemeanor and rarely prosecuted. Out of concern for safety and potential lawsuits, stores tell employees and security guards not to intervene when they witness a crime. Most suspects, if they are pursued at all by police, are soon released. Californians effectively decriminalized shoplifting. Not surprisingly, they have more of it.Which is precisely why this kind of thing is happening exactly where it's happening.
