[crooked-v]

> The state is totally unable to stop shoplifters

National larceny rates in at least the US (but I'm fairly sure most Western countries) have consistently gone down for decades. There's significantly less shoplifting now on average than there was in the '80s or '90s.

[mhuffman]

>There's significantly less shoplifting now on average than there was in the '80s or '90s.

possibly, but are you seriously comparing now to the height of the crack epidemic in the US?

[p_j_w]

The rates in 2023 were 66% of what they were in 2010. That decline has not been driven by reduction in crack usage.

[mothballed]

Wasn't 2010 the year when you had to have something like a PhD and 20 references to get a job flipping burgers at McDonalds? That's the worst economic year I can recall in my life, or maybe it was 2009.

[p_j_w]

That's irrelevant or we'd see a blip upward around that time. Instead, the trend has been clear and almost entirely monotonic.

https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/191247/reported-larceny-t...

[mothballed]

Thanks, pretty shocking. Really puts a hole in the theory that people stealing out of 'necessity' is a dominating factor.

[buckle8017]

How could you possibly know that.

Retailers have no reason to report crime they do not expect to be investigated or prosecuted.

Don't say insurance because nobody is reporting shoplifting to their insurance.

[ruszki]

The falling shrinkage is a good indicator, although it’s imperfect for obvious reasons. Of course, there are anomalies like COVID, but otherwise the trend is clear. Also when some entity like supermarket chains or their advocacy groups tried to split up shrinkage by its causes in the past decades, even the shoplifting part fell. So there is no better statistics, and that tells that shoplifting is probably falling.

Of course, you cannot know, but statistics is quite clear that shoplifting decrease is way more probable than increase, and you need some other reasons to advocate for increasing shoplifting. So when somebody does that, it’s highly probable that not because shoplifting is actually increasing.

[jonbiggums22]

Wouldn't insurance rates go up if they reported all of the shoplifting? I suspect most large company's do some sort of self insurance setup though.

[buckle8017]

There's really no insurance for retail shoplifting.

Big retailers just bake crime into the cost of goods sold.

[bachmeier]

Okay, then how could anyone possibly know theft is going up?

[philjohn]

As part of lobbying for changes to laws, or for more police funding - stores accurately track "shrinkage", why are you so certain it's not being reported?