> And your favorite shoplifting fact is down-right offensive. If you were more balanced in your counterargument you'd also ask the reader: What is the cost to the public for added security, staff, deterrence tech, and lost merch? And lost sense of safety and security? Those are priceless in the eyes of most reasonable people.
Sure, and the counterpoint is how much does it cost to provide those services publicly? The cost of catching, prosecuting and jailing the person is almost certainly more than the cost of the goods.
E.g. you chased off someone that stole $750 worth of goods. The average cost to incarcerate someone for a year is $31k. They will have cost the public more than $750 if they spend just 10 days in jail (which they definitely will if they don't post bail). If they spend 30 days in jail, which they could easily do just waiting for trial, it will have cost taxpayers ~$2,550 just to jail them. Add on the costs of hiring prosecutors, judges, public defenders, and more cops to do all the work here, and the public will have spent something like an order of magnitude more than the actual theft.
Theft is wrong, the thieves should be punished, but I don't know that the public spending huge sums to prevent low levels of theft is even worthwhile. The court system is about the most expensive deterrent I can think of.
If I were asked to vote on it, I'm sure not going to opt to spend an order of magnitude more trying to punish thieves. It sucks, but it would cost me less to just pay whatever markup the stores have to charge to cover the loss.
>The average cost to incarcerate someone for a year is $31k.
In the Baltimore-Washington stretch of Maryland, it's hard to find a retail store with an ATM in the front, because it's common for thieves to crash a vehicle through the glass into the ATM, load it into their vehicle, and drive away. I've talked with a couple store owners where it has happened, and apparently, nobody was ever caught in their cases.
Baltimore has some parts where you can't even enter stores. Instead, you have to wait in enclosed bulletproof glass areas while the clerks gather items for you.
The restaurant where I work at on the weekends once got a GrubHub driver open carrying with a bulletproof vest. One of our regular GrubHub drivers got carjacked by a man who shot a police officer right out front of the restaurant.
Everyone I've mentioned so far is black, in case it matters.
If we do not swallow the costs of jailing lawbreakers, then the rest of America will be like this.
>I'm sure not going to opt to spend an order of magnitude more trying to punish thieves.
Judges typically balance 3 primary factors in sentencing criminals:
- Punishment of the criminal.
- Protecting the community from the criminal.
- Provide justice and closure to victims of the criminal.
Punishing the thief is just one aspect of this. It's an important one, because it serves as a deterrent for future would-be thieves. Crime is going unpunished in Baltimore. As a result, the community is not protected and victims have no justice. People have been leaving for years now.
Sure, and the counterpoint is how much does it cost to provide those services publicly? The cost of catching, prosecuting and jailing the person is almost certainly more than the cost of the goods.
E.g. you chased off someone that stole $750 worth of goods. The average cost to incarcerate someone for a year is $31k. They will have cost the public more than $750 if they spend just 10 days in jail (which they definitely will if they don't post bail). If they spend 30 days in jail, which they could easily do just waiting for trial, it will have cost taxpayers ~$2,550 just to jail them. Add on the costs of hiring prosecutors, judges, public defenders, and more cops to do all the work here, and the public will have spent something like an order of magnitude more than the actual theft.
Theft is wrong, the thieves should be punished, but I don't know that the public spending huge sums to prevent low levels of theft is even worthwhile. The court system is about the most expensive deterrent I can think of.
If I were asked to vote on it, I'm sure not going to opt to spend an order of magnitude more trying to punish thieves. It sucks, but it would cost me less to just pay whatever markup the stores have to charge to cover the loss.