Comment by hollerith
2 days ago
>Even so called security guards want no part of trash bag man because there is a high chance of violence and most humans do not want to engage with that.
There are plenty of reliable young men who enjoy engaging in violence and will take low-paid jobs in store security. (There are many more who don't actively enjoy it, but don't mind engaging in it and consider being competent at violence an important part of being a man.)
The pharmacy gives its security guards instruction not to use violence because they don't want to get sued when a guard seriously injures a thief: it is impossible at the scale of a chain of stores to subdue and detain thieves without some risk of killing some thief or seriously injuring him.
Or maybe they just don’t want any violence in their stores at all? I will avoid shopping somewhere that has regular ass whoopings way more than I would avoid shopping somewhere with regular shoplifting.
What are they supposed to do, just let people steal with impunity until they decide the costs are too high, and they have to close the store entirely?
I’d rather shop at a store that actually prevents theft, deterring future thieves from stealing. It will be a safer place to shop with lower prices.
Are you saying you would continue shopping in a store where you regularly saw violence against people who might be thieves, on the assumption you’d never be mistaken for one?
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> just let people steal with impunity until they decide the costs are too high, and they have to close the store entirely
Has this actually happened? Or are the chain pharmacies using “shrinkage” as a scapegoat for other deficiencies? I find it incredibly hard to believe that retail theft puts an appreciable dent in profits.
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So I guess you've never frequented Waffle House ;-)
You will also go to jail. It’s not self-defense:
https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-walgreens-manager-co...
That's gonna depend where the jury is coming from. SF, yes. "Try that in a small town" hicks probably not.
you can use a reasonable amount of force to prevent people from taking property (or if you're acting as an agent thereof) in Texas. But still you can always be taken to civil court and be at the mercy of whatever judge. I imagine in San Francisco you will almost certainly lose to the criminal who was stealing something if you use any amount of force other than to defend yourself unless you're a cop
more like "try that in a small town" police will see what happened, "atta boy" and get on with other things. never even reaches the courts.
Why don't people from SF also get a pejorative?
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> There are plenty of reliable young men who enjoy engaging in violence and will take low-paid jobs in store security.
Bit of an assumption there.
There is no easy answer for this breakdown. The cat is out of the bag and these losers aren't going to stop unless they are stopped and face real consequences. Though as you said, the stores do not want the liability of guards taking action so they are left with locking everything behind glass and deploying privacy invading surveillance. Of course that doesn't stop anything and quality of life goes down.
> Though as you said, the stores do not want the liability of guards taking action so they are left with locking everything behind glass and deploying privacy invading surveillance.
Stores have plenty of incentives to engage in privacy invading surveillance even ignoring shoplifting as a factor. If a store saw zero shoplifting they'd still deploy privacy invading surveillance because it's profitable for them to do it right now and it will only be increasingly profitable for them to do it in the near future.