Retail Shoplifting Debate

The cluster discusses the prevalence and impact of shoplifting on retail stores, debates over whether theft rates are rising based on data, store responses like locking items or closing locations, and criticisms of lenient prosecution policies.

📉 Falling 0.3x Politics & Society
3,547
Comments
19
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#23
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2008
3
2009
17
2010
12
2011
15
2012
43
2013
56
2014
39
2015
52
2016
144
2017
63
2018
143
2019
191
2020
222
2021
570
2022
536
2023
723
2024
386
2025
276
2026
56

Keywords

APM e.g DO OK retraction.html ID i.e marketplace.org data.html youtube.com theft store stealing stores gift crime police crimes retail wage

Sample Comments

satsuma Jun 22, 2022 View on HN

it's a sad state of affairs when the shoplifters make more than loss prevention.

toomuchtodo Dec 21, 2023 View on HN

Someone from the Marshall Project was on APM Marketplace recently expressing similar facts.https://www.marketplace.org/2023/09/11/is-retail-theft-reall...

IncRnd Jan 22, 2022 View on HN

Of course. It's similar to a store that wants to stop crimes of convenience or easy methods of theft, while knowing they can't stop all thieves.

proc0 Dec 20, 2021 View on HN

What is this article?! What's the point? It's seemingly arguing in favor of ignoring the crime by downplaying it. That's crazy, and also probably part of the problem.Article makes no mention of the policies that explicitly prevent authorities from apprehending shoplifters, from lowering requirements of arrest for less than ~$900 value, to defunding the police. There is no mention of any of this, yet it still tries to justify this by alluding to how little impact it causes on th

oicu812 Dec 4, 2023 View on HN

Because of shoplifting or just consumers don't want to risk street crime to shop there?

chaostheory Jan 8, 2026 View on HN

This is one of the side effects of the shoplifting trends in recent years.

mrguyorama Sep 29, 2022 View on HN

Stores DO lock stuff up. Nevermind that shoplifting is barely even a concern for most large stores, as they lose significantly more to other means of "shrink"

diymaker Mar 18, 2024 View on HN

The data does not back up this claim, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data...

jcelerier Jul 2, 2018 View on HN

plenty of people walk into stores and get robbed. sometimes it's just 1$, sometimes it's more, sometimes it's misleading advertising, but the physical world has exactly the same problems.

hackrnusr Dec 24, 2022 View on HN

https://www.wsj.com/articles/shoplifting-stores-problem-1167...