[post_break]

The walmart in kemah had the police called 364 days out of the year last year. Sometimes twice a day. They are costing the PD a fortune for it. They even had a bomb threat made there.

edit my comment was poorly worded. The seabrook PD is constantly at this walmart instead of doing other things and the revenue isn't offset to hire more officers.

[nawtacawp]

Wouldn't they be the victim when placing these calls to the PD? Sounds more like it is the people committing the crimes who are costing the PD money.

[sschueller]

Doesn't Walmart pay local taxes to support the PD?

[mason240]

Are you suggesting we start charging people for police protection?

[maxerickson]

There's a Walmart in the article that was declared a public nuisance and charged $2500 for each police call.

[JetSpiegel]

Corporations are people, my friend.

[mason240]

Corporations are taxpayers, my friend.

[zeveb]

> They are costing the PD a fortune for it.

Seems to me that the criminals who commit crimes at Walmart are costing the PD a fortune. Although — surely it's easier for the police to patrol the Walmart and catch criminals there than troll through the entire city hoping to catch them?

[ones_and_zeros]

Is your argument that Walmart causes crime?

[post_break]

I worded my comment poorly. The seabrook PD is tiny and basically all the calls to walmart were causing other places to be policed less. The revenue brought in from the walmart isn't enough to offset the cost of hiring more officers.

[criddell]

What's a reasonable solution? If there's more crime than the Seabrook PD can handle, then hard decisions have to be made. It seems they either need to increase taxes to hire more police or start deciding what laws won't be enforced when police are not available.

[saint_fiasco]

But all the thieves are also concentrated in Walmart, leaving less theft to go around in the rest of the neighborhood. Shouldn't it balance out?

[ones_and_zeros]

There have been several reports from the justice department indicating that over policing and a judicial system that penalizes being poor are widespread and ultimately exacerbate the problem.

If you have any say when your community does have revenue, it might be worthwhile to support solutions that don't amount to more police making more criminals.

[greedo]

"police making more criminals"

That in a nutshell is one of the real problems with crime in the US. It's unpopular to expect people to behave in a civil manner. Instead we tolerate their uncivil behavior by blaming schools, parents, churches, and now police for making them criminals. Forget personal responsibility, that's for suckers.

[fixermark]

Did the crime rate go up in other places as a result of police resources being re-routed?

Did the crime rate in the town overall go up?

[colechristensen]

This is the argument the article is making too.

WalMart markets itself to a demographic most likely to commit crime and doesn't adequately set up it's own security to prevent crime in and around it's stores.

That is, instead of spending money on internal security resources it offloads it's security problems on the local police. Crime is being punished instead of prevented.

It should be put into law that businesses with lax security share a greater portion of the public cost of the crime which results as well as punitive measures for the irresponsible situation they created.

[marknutter]

> It should be put into law that businesses with lax security share a greater portion of the public cost of the crime which results as well as punitive measures for the irresponsible situation they created.

That sounds like a fantastic way to disincentivize any company from providing goods and services to the poor.

[colechristensen]

WalMart is #1 in revenue and #15 in market cap, I don't think there are any problems with incentives there.

Giving the population most vulnerable to falling into crime an easy opportunity to steal is bad for the poor.

Providing goods and services to the poor but not ensuring a crime-free environment is bad for the poor.

If not enforced, companies that _do_ take the responsibility for crime prevention will be at a competitive disadvantage.

You're not helping the poor by allowing slums and shitholes to exist on the false premise that the small apparent savings to them is worth the degraded conditions. You're just allowing profiteering from the poor because poor customers are much less able to demand better conditions.

[marknutter]

No, they will simply stop serving low-income areas if it becomes unprofitable for them to do so. What then? Pass laws to force Walmart to sell to the poor? They're a company, their singular goal is profit (as it should be). They pay their taxes and follow all the regulations set out by the government and in return they expect that the government will protect them from criminals.

> WalMart is #1 in revenue and #15 in market cap, I don't think there are any problems with incentives there.

This is because we haven't passed ridiculous laws like the one you are proposing.

[colechristensen]

There's a huge demand for low-income retail.

WalMart can't effectively compete in the middle-income market. It has image problems, it would have to do a huge overhaul, the space is already filled with many others. If it leaves the low-income space it will leave a huge opportunity for others to enter.

Nothing can legislate away the low-income market and as long as it exists there will be companies who want to enter it. Laws can shape what that market looks like and what environment is for the people in it.

[bbradley406]

The issue is private security can be a large liability, since they do not have the same legal protection as police. At the wages Wal-Mart pays, you would have poor training, and all the police academy dropouts who still want to have some authority. Should they offer better wages? Probably, but it won't happen.

It seems like paying off-duty cops would be the best solution. Lots of businesses with security gates already do this.

[hga]

Should they offer better wages?

Errr, they did, back in January, at some majors costs in hours people are allowed to work, their bottom line, but not their absolute stock price (weasel words because I didn't check to see how they're doing compared to the general market).

We can be sure this also came at a cost in their anti-shrinkage and general anti-crime efforts.

[ryandrake]

A police officer in a small town once told me, "90% of my calls either start or end at Walmart". The places are lightning rods for crime. To the point where "distance from Walmart" correlates with home values. Maybe local police departments should locate their headquarters nearby Walmarts so they can at least use our tax dollars more efficiently.