Donna Lennon
Glenn FleishmanRetail theft went down and the national retailers federation had to admit 5% not 50% of theft was from criminal gangs. This whole panic was concocted to close underperforming and unionized stores and the media bought it. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/organized-shoplifting-retail-crime-theft-retraction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ek0.cMux.iabRLNkE-vqu&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
I’ve been pointing out for years that the actual stats from the police even haven’t matched the panic in the media. In America (and much of the world), we’re at a near all-time low for violent crime and most other crime, so any tiny increase looks huge, as it did during the pandemic. We’re now reverting to the (new) norm.
Geoff Duncan@glennf
Do you have any sense of how reliable the "actual stats from the police" are? The phrase makes me wonder about a who-watches-the-watchers situation.
Do you have any sense of how reliable the "actual stats from the police" are? The phrase makes me wonder about a who-watches-the-watchers situation.
@geoffduncan There is research into how accurate they are (but this varies by city) and about underreporting of crime. The thing is, though, that they are typically the stats used by those *claiming* a crime wave. So when the actual #s don't match the claims that's key by itself—during the high pitch of the panic, we were still at historical lows using the same numbers. The panic was often “murders are up 50%”—from an all-time low, and they increased in nearly every city and town for no reason.
@glennf
Gotcha—thanks for the context.
My experience is (obviously) hyper-local and anecdotal to a few business owners I've spoken with. One comment that stuck with me was along the lines of "We no longer report anything unless insurance requires a police report," but that business is in a fairly chancy location: I wouldn't generalize from any of it.
@geoffduncan …and if you live in some places, it can seem like the idea there isn’t some kind of crime wave or huge increase in crime is ridiculous. They are obviously hotspots. Stats only capture some of the data and only averages, unless you drill down to specific precincts or even neighborhoods. The Trader Joe’s in the university district had to hire security after a guy got into their drop ceiling! That was after people just walking in and taking liquor off the shelves day in and day out
@glennf
Agreed. Examples like these don't seem hard to find, but translating from them to broader trends is a difficult job, and by their nature those even the most rigorously analyzed trends won't precisely reflect on-the-ground reality at a location, well, anywhere. Such are stats.
Agreed. Examples like these don't seem hard to find, but translating from them to broader trends is a difficult job, and by their nature those even the most rigorously analyzed trends won't precisely reflect on-the-ground reality at a location, well, anywhere. Such are stats.
@geoffduncan I think what's useful is when you see the Federation of Retail Stores or whatever it’s called publicly admit that their analysis of their latest stats, which in the past have been seen as extremely reliable, were wrong—they exhibited rigor in admitting this and a lot of academics were happy to see that. (It was more about categorization of loss than an error in stats.) Those numbers from stores help to balance the police reporting, b/c stores provide more data to the federation.
@glennf
Yeah: the usual result of errors like that is quiet "never mention it again" or, worse, doubling-down on why they're not errors at all. I guess they value their long-term credibility over short-term reputational damage.
Yeah: the usual result of errors like that is quiet "never mention it again" or, worse, doubling-down on why they're not errors at all. I guess they value their long-term credibility over short-term reputational damage.
Kerry Allen@glennf The Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner from ‘99 opened my eyes to this media phenomenon. I’ve viewed crime reports differently ever since. Few people realize that violent crime was worse during the good old days. It’s been on a downward trend for decades.
famousringo@glennf I feel like there are a lot of changes from the past few years that people are just assuming are long-term trends, rather than a spike from a once-in-a-century crisis.
@famousringo Some people haven't gotten over the trauma of the 1980s/1990s, to be fair, when crime was at an all-time modern high (probably in the century). Police and politicians still use the rhetoric. Some cities haven't fully recovered—shockingly, these are cities in which people of color, primarily Black, were restricted in housing, investments weren't made in school, and Black men were heavily overpoliced and thrown in prison (often for charges white men weren't). Systemic!
Dyami@glennf truth
John Gordon@glennf I think they only retracted the organized bit, not the losses.
Steve S@glennf
It was always transparently obvious that closing retailers for "crime" was an excuse for union busting.
When you have a crime problem, you put bars on the windows -- or more realistically, audit the store for internal theft. You don't just close.
The Evil Microwizard@glennf Those bastards. BASTARDS. 😩😡🤬
@glennf Wouldn’t want news of executive incompetence to depress stocks, increase borrowing fees.
JA Westenberg@glennf every journalist who published their breathless nonsense should post a retraction. Every. Single. One.
TC Won't Give In To Lies@glennf
Had journalists actually fact checked these industry claims, none of this disinfo on "shoplifting gangs" would be out there.
Unfortunately, Trump has shown everyone that most media will print any lie that you're willing to say.
Elizabeth Sudduth@glennf I like how the NYT remains totally un-self-reflective throughout the entire article, never acknowledging that they themselves bought the lie hook, line, and sinker, and should have fact-checked it before repeating it. I'm sure they also aren't going back to the old articles to add a disclaimer.
Tim Holmes@hydropsyche @glennf The absolute worst part of this post is that it doesn’t really matter what the topic is, it’s true regardless.
J.H.Noyes@glennf Phony studies are often produced to manipulate policy. We see it all the time in medicine. We see it all the time in illegal drug research. We see it all the time in COVID research where dubious claims of the human ability to tolerate SARS-CoV-2 antigens has taken at least a billion life-years (and counting) from the American population. Why would the retail arena be any different?
They get their way. They get away with it. Even when caught, there is no penalty.
Oregon Wine Woman@glennf
Well, sunnovabeatch. Muther-truckers will do anything to make more profit.
Well, sunnovabeatch. Muther-truckers will do anything to make more profit.
@glennf Umm, sorry, but this was not a gift article. It kept asking me to "renew" for a $1/ week. 😆
@NorCalWineLady Strange! Maybe it exceeded some maximum reads for a gift?!
Bill Seitz
Captain of the SS El Faro@glennf funny how they buy it every year, almost like they want to buy it, but surely that can't be true because that would be corrupt
Tapas Easwar@glennf I spent just under a decade in retail for same company in 4 different malls, half as a manager. In that time, I only ever witnessed large-scale ($1k+) and organized (2+ people) theft exactly 4 times.
That said, at my last store, one couple was busted for running a black-market store from their basement with stolen goods from a few dozen different brands worth over $2 million ($35k from our store alone). And there was a jewelry store smash-n-grab down the hall during the holidays.
@glennf You don't ever hear how embedded racism is (and how that drives customers away), or how in every onboarding, managers are required to give a lengthy anti-union shpiel. Or how online is operated differently than physical (and boosted in-store for "CX"), or how physical is now the returns portal online. i.e. we could sell $10k/day but end up reporting only $2k sold because online returns didn't count as online returns, but instead physical returns.
Basically just Dunder-Mifflin Infinity.
pejacoby@tapas @glennf My wife had a (very frustrated post-Black-Friday) store manager lay into her a bit for returning online purchases to the brick-and-mortar and impacting her in-store numbers.
If the message had been delivered differently, it would have been enlightening -- had no idea 'corporate' treated the entities that way. In this case, it was unfortunately a big "FU not my problem” feeling.
@pejacoby @glennf I've been in that store manager's shoes, so I fully understand where she's coming from and how they might've been feeling. Unfortunately, corporate doesn't care how online sales/returns impact brick-and-mortar (let alone the staff's morale at said physical locations). It took me years to understand that it's not /my/ money, but once I did, working in that environment became WAY more pleasant because I was no longer invested in men in suits profiting from my labour.
Chancerubbage
Jon_Alper@glennf including the seemingly ever more credulous and inept NYT…SO depressing.
Paul Thurrott@glennf The organized retail theft thing has been debunked many times. The podcast "If Books Could Kill" did a great epiosde about this in the past few months.
Dan Gillmor@glennf Only the latest example of journalists letting themselves be conned. The craft has fundamental flaws, and one of them is repeating failures rather than learning from them.
Christoff Humphries@glennf @tinker makes sense and not surprised.
The non-rich defending the rich doesn't leave much room for self-interest, and folks have grown to be conditioned to orgs lying and then have a short-term memory about it all.
The ideas that companies can and do lie all the time is a foreign concept to many folks for some reason. Fiduciary responsibility trumps everything else, including ethics and integrity.
We're in a timeline where SciFi warnings are coming true right before us.
thomkennon@glennf yeah, comrades don't let comrades click on inks from the NYT
Jay McGavren@glennf "concocted to close underperforming and unionized stores" The NYTimes article doesn't seem to actually say this anywhere?
@jaymcgavren did I say I was quoting?
@glennf I'm just wondering where you formed the impression that this was done to close unionized stores.
@jaymcgavren Oh! Through years of watching companies try to crush unions, details that unions publish about negotiations and closure, and reporting from credible outlets. For instance, search on "Starbucks union store closures” and you will some great reporting over the last couple of years, including the recent news that the NLRB *agreed with the unions* some stores were closed not for safety: https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/feds-accuse-starbucks-breaking-law-by-closing-stores-discourage-union-organizing/F6YGCRVLGFHM5NTCT5PQFDAZHU/
Starbucks ordered to reverse closures after shutting down 23 stores for alleged union busting
Coffee giant Starbucks has been accused of illegally closing nearly two dozen stores nationwide -- eight in Western Washington -- to discourage union activities and has since been ordered to reverse the closures.
THIS ACCOUNT HAS MOVED@glennf liars gonna lie
Earthling@glennf The media parroted that line because it served their purpose. For the same reason the media will not get up in arms over wage theft.