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[deleted] wrote
veuzi wrote (edited )
In-store LP, who watches the cameras and compiles the data, are paid by the retailers. Cops aren't of course, but would a suburban precinct want to bother with stationing a plainclothes officer by the entrance of every local Walmart at all times? That's what I'm wondering. Between the retailers and the police department, the cost will pile up over time. And if they don't catch enough shoplifters to justify the continued expense, then it doesn't make much sense to keep spending time and money on it, at that capacity.
We can speculate all we want, I guess. My only advice here is if you notice more security than usual at a given location then maybe just avoid that location for a couple of months and see if it changes after that.
ActuallyOpposesFascists wrote
Some places do that. Others do the opposite.
WalMart already wants to be assholes to shoplifters. Many places, police literally directly and antagnostically hate WalMart, "because they are constantly calling us, usually for something that they should have handled themselves". And also because they are just assholes to customers in general - literally calling police several times every day not just for something "that they should have handled themselves" , but also OFTEN about things that don't need to be "handled" at all, because there literally was not even any actual "problem", or incident, or there was one - that employees of WalMart solely caused.
WalMart is commonly a huge asshole to customers both in corporate and very commonly via employees including up to mid-level management. But in regards to being an asshole to shoplifters, corporate definitely wants them to do so but the reason why they are not usually the biggest assholes there is is because of individual employees. I always receieve the most extreme level of literally-not-even-pretending that they "tried to do it differently" or anything. But in regards to shoplifting in a non-ghetto location, they arent like literally berating you and always arresting every single individual at every single location every single time they are susopicious, a lot of WalMart individual employees do not want to do that, regardless of how horrendous many of them are to customers in every other way.
veuzi wrote
The balance between profits lost to shrinkage and money spent on LP is a delicate one. Sting ops are expensive to set up, especially if it involves gathering evidence on one individual shoplifter over a long time (multiply that to 20, 50 shoplifters getting set up for a sting). Walmart and the likes would need to be seriously worried about losses in order to justify such an expense. Likewise, an undercover cop would need to justify their time and presence to their precinct who might want them investigating more serious cases.
I honestly don't think Walmart and the cops are all that worried about ordinary shoplifters. But they are probably worried about recent occurences of flash-mob style looting, which can inflict severe losses in a matter of seconds. So that's where I would guess especially high-end retailers are putting their money towards protecting themselves from, and city cops are putting their efforts into investigating.