It turns out shoplifting isn’t spiraling out of control, but lawmakers are pushing for tougher penalties for low-level and nonviolent crimes anyway.
Over the last couple of years, it seemed that America was experiencing a shoplifting epidemic. Videos of people brazenly stealing merchandise from retailers often went viral; chains closed some of their stores and cited a rise in theft as the primary reason; and drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens started locking up more of their inventory, including everyday items like toothpaste, soaps, and snacks. Lawmakers from both major parties called for, and in some cases even implemented, more punitive law enforcement policies aimed at bucking the apparent trend.
But evidence of a spike in shoplifting, it turns out, was mostly anecdotal. In fact, there’s little data to suggest that there’s a nationwide problem in need of an immediate response from city councils or state legislatures. Instead, what America seems to be experiencing is less of a shoplifting wave and more of a moral panic.
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Now, those more forgiving criminal justice policies are at risk, in part because of a perceived trend that appears to have been overblown.
It’s tough to fault you for that. I’ve heard how so little that happens there gets reported, I’ve heard about COs group together to throw someone under the bus to hide their actions, or more often inaction. Part of the reason I get along with the CO I mentioned is because he tends to always find himself in some kind of weird opposition to those bad kinds of COs who try to make problems for him just for doing his job as it should be done, as in by the book. I genuinely don’t know where to start when it comes to some of the problems I hear about.
Honestly, by the book is still some awful shit. And yeah, cops will absolutely abuse the genetic fallacy.