The true cost of falling prices - Walmart's crime problem

 
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angrypuppy
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 4:47 am    Post subject: The true cost of falling prices - Walmart's crime problem

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Darrell Ross—Officer Walmart to his colleagues in the Tulsa Police Department—operates for up to 10 hours a day out of the security office of a Walmart Supercenter in the city’s northeast corner. It’s a small, windowless space with six flatscreen monitors mounted on a pale blue cinder-block wall, and on this hot summer day, the room is packed. Four Walmart employees watch the monitors, which toggle among the dozens of cameras covering the store and parking lot, while doing paperwork and snacking on Cheez Whiz and Club Crackers. In a corner of the room, an off-duty sheriff’s officer, hired by Walmart, makes small talk with the employees.

As soon as Ross walks in the door, around 2 p.m., he’s presented with an 18-year-old who tried to leave the store with a microwave oven. Ross focuses his gaze and talks in a low voice to the young man, who just graduated from high school and plans to go into the military. He also attempts to calm the boy’s mother, who rushed to the store and is worried that her son won’t be able to enlist if he gets a criminal record. “You need to start taking responsibility for your actions,” Ross tells the teenager. “You’re a man now.” He tells the mother that because it was the boy’s first offense, he won’t be arrested—but if he messes up twice more, he’ll be charged with a felony. Ross slips a pair of reading glasses out of his bulletproof vest and writes the young man a summons to appear in court.

Before he can finish the paperwork, Walmart security employees catch another shoplifter. They bring in a middle-aged woman with big sunken eyes and pale cheeks, her hair tied in a messy bun. Employees caught her using phony gift cards. She rattles off excuses: The cards were given to her by a friend, she’s just gotten out of the hospital, she’s dehydrated. At one point she pretends to vomit into a trash can. Picking up the odor of pot, Ross takes a look in her handbag and finds marijuana roaches, along with a small scale and a pill bottle full of baggies. A computer check reveals five outstanding warrants for her arrest.

It’s not unusual for the department to send a van to transport all the criminals Ross arrests at this Walmart. The call log on the store stretches 126 pages, documenting more than 5,000 trips over the past five years. Last year police were called to the store and three other Tulsa Walmarts just under 2,000 times. By comparison, they were called to the city’s single Target store 44 times. Most of the calls to the northeast Supercenter were for shoplifting, but there’s no shortage of more serious crimes, including five armed robberies so far this year, a murder suspect who killed himself with a gunshot to the head in the parking lot last year, and, in 2014, a group of men who got into a parking lot shootout that killed one and seriously injured two others.

Police reports from dozens of stores suggest the number of petty crimes committed on Walmart properties nationwide this year will be in the hundreds of thousands. But people dashing out the door with merchandise is the least troubling part of Walmart’s crime problem. More than 200 violent crimes, including attempted kidnappings and multiple stabbings, shootings, and murders, have occurred at the nation’s 4,500 Walmarts this year, or about one a day, according to an analysis of media reports. Sometimes they’re spectacular enough to get national attention. In June, a SWAT team killed a hostage taker at a Walmart in Amarillo, Texas. In July, three Walmart employees in Florida were charged with manslaughter after a shoplifter they chased and pinned down died of asphyxia. Other crimes are just bizarre. On Aug. 8, police discovered a meth lab inside a 6-foot-high drainage pipe under a Walmart parking lot in Amherst, N.Y.




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...Ross likes to joke that the concentration of crime at Walmart makes his job easier. “I’ve got all my bad guys in one place,” he says, flashing a bright smile. His squad’s sergeant, Robert Rohloff, a 34-year police veteran who has to worry about staffing, budgets, and patrolling the busiest commercial district in Tulsa, says there’s nothing funny about Walmart’s impact on public safety. He can’t believe, he says, that a multibillion-dollar corporation isn’t doing more to stop crime. Instead, he says, it offloads the job to the police at taxpayers’ expense. “It’s ridiculous—we are talking about the biggest retailer in the world,” says Rohloff. “I may have half my squad there for hours.”



https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-walmart-crime/
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DuncanIdaho
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 7:48 am    Post subject:

Walmart pays like crap and offloads that problem to the taxpayer in the form of food stamps and other subsidies. Why wouldn't they take that same route here?

Walmart is a cancer on this country.
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vanexelent
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 7:59 am    Post subject:

There was a cop in Austin, TX a couple years ago that was shot and killed outside a Walmart, responding to a "guy who was drunk" inside the store. I think cops should just stop responding to calls. The public will learn to stay away from a violent place and the retailer will be forced to pay for more security.
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hoopschick29
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 8:04 am    Post subject:

Of course they off load the loss prevention on the taxpayer. Why wouldn't they? They're Walmart. These are the same people who tell their employees to sign up for state Medicaid. They tell their people to sign up for food stamps. They have food drives for their own employees so some of them can make a Thanksgiving dinner for their families. This, the most profitable corporation on the planet have employees so poor they still qualify for Medicaid and food stamps. Imagine having a job, and still being so poor that you actually qualify for that stuff?? That's Walmart (or as my brother and I have called it for years, The Evil Empire).
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 8:55 am    Post subject:

Wal-Mart is a recruitment center for jail.
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audioaxes
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 8:55 am    Post subject:

isnt walmart security not allowed to physically apprehend someone? if thats the case if you get caught couldnt you simply refuse to stick around and run away?
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 8:58 am    Post subject:

If someone is working full-time and still has to be on food stamps/welfare, then the real "parasite" is the employer...
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lakersken80
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 9:18 am    Post subject:

Walmart is the result of our failed trade policies that have wreaked havoc on the middle class. No way that company would be as successful if we had protected American jobs and stopped the slow leak of capital for nearly 40+ years.
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venturalakersfan
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 10:24 am    Post subject:

CandyCanes wrote:
If someone is working full-time and still has to be on food stamps/welfare, then the real "parasite" is the employer...


Who forces people to work at Walmart? Many are happy, they get minimum wage and free government benefits, why go to school and better themselves? The sales tax collected from Walmart more than pays for the police department. Communities with a Walmart collects 20% more in sales tax than those without, which during the same time period decreased 11%. Police departments nationwide have basically evolved into revenue collection departments, they should be happy with the fines they can collect.
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angrypuppy
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 11:24 am    Post subject:

1) Walmart doesn't create demand, they sell goods that would have been purchased elsewhere, hence sales tax gains in one locale are sales tax losses in other locales.

2) When applying economics to everyday situations, you realize that you have to internalize the externalities. An externality is the cost or benefit that affects a party who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit. In the case of Walmart, those low prices are subsidized by your tax dollars, as Walmart neither pays for health insurance, nor does it pay enough as their workers are forced to subsist on food stamps. In addition, they refuse to pay for sufficient crime deterrents for their stores, which means that (again) that an exorbitant amount of tax revenue is spent policing Walmart. Again, if Walmart was forced to pay for the police, the shoppers would pay a higher price, hence "the true cost of falling prices" is borne by the taxpayer.


To be fair, there are things we don't know. Are criminals simply aggregating, and that they'd commit crimes elsewhere? Would these workers be any better off at small businesses that were displaced by Walmart, as many small businesses are not forced to pay healthcare? I'd prefer to see a level playing field for everyone, and have the ability of the seller to dictate price based on superior merchandising or cost control.

What we do know is that those prices you pay at Walmart are in fact subsidized by taxpayers, and given the profitability of Walmart, it is unconscionable.
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OregonLakerGuy
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 3:10 pm    Post subject:

So we are suggesting that Walmart should be their own police force? That we should pay higher prices?
I don't quite understand the argument. It seems like a flypaper effect going on here. These petty criminals would be doing this at the mom and pop shops if Walmart wasn't there. Or is the argument that these people wouldn't commit the crime if Walmart wasn't so cheap?
Color me confused
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LakersRGolden
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 4:57 pm    Post subject:

OregonLakerGuy wrote:
So we are suggesting that Walmart should be their own police force? That we should pay higher prices?
I don't quite understand the argument. It seems like a flypaper effect going on here. These petty criminals would be doing this at the mom and pop shops if Walmart wasn't there. Or is the argument that these people wouldn't commit the crime if Walmart wasn't so cheap?
Color me confused


Criminals know there's a 0% chance Walmart employees are armed - unlike mom and pop stores. They also know they're more lenient on minors.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 7:20 pm    Post subject:

hoopschick29 wrote:
Of course they off load the loss prevention on the taxpayer. Why wouldn't they? They're Walmart. These are the same people who tell their employees to sign up for state Medicaid. They tell their people to sign up for food stamps. They have food drives for their own employees so some of them can make a Thanksgiving dinner for their families. This, the most profitable corporation on the planet have employees so poor they still qualify for Medicaid and food stamps. Imagine having a job, and still being so poor that you actually qualify for that stuff?? That's Walmart (or as my brother and I have called it for years, The Evil Empire).


My dad is a retired UFCW rep. Evil Empire and Wallmart have been synonymous with each other since I could remember my first family dinner. Nobody in my family shops there. Of course that way of thinking is criticized by people who don't know or don't care.
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vanexelent
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 7:58 am    Post subject:

http://www.vice.com/read/the-florida-town-where-almost-half-of-all-crime-happens-in-walmart-416
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 12:46 am    Post subject:

CandyCanes wrote:
If someone is working full-time and still has to be on food stamps/welfare, then the real "parasite" is the employer...


If you work full-time and still have to be on food stamps/welfare, then perhaps instead of blaming the employer, you should try and get another job. It's a free country people.
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angrypuppy
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 7:32 am    Post subject:

som3on3_10 wrote:
CandyCanes wrote:
If someone is working full-time and still has to be on food stamps/welfare, then the real "parasite" is the employer...


If you work full-time and still have to be on food stamps/welfare, then perhaps instead of blaming the employer, you should try and get another job. It's a free country people.



You think they have better options? Seriously? They are the lumpenproletariat; those whose work options are minimal.

Walmart is the last resort of the lumpenproletariat, and you (assuming that you're a U.S. taxpayer) help Walmart keep low prices via your taxes. If you shop at Walmart, great, then you accrue benefits that perhaps meet or exceed your tax subsidy. If you don't shop at Walmart, then you're paying Walmart's shareholders with your tax dollars.
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LakersRGolden
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 7:51 pm    Post subject:

angrypuppy wrote:
som3on3_10 wrote:
CandyCanes wrote:
If someone is working full-time and still has to be on food stamps/welfare, then the real "parasite" is the employer...


If you work full-time and still have to be on food stamps/welfare, then perhaps instead of blaming the employer, you should try and get another job. It's a free country people.



You think they have better options? Seriously? They are the lumpenproletariat; those whose work options are minimal.

Walmart is the last resort of the lumpenproletariat, and you (assuming that you're a U.S. taxpayer) help Walmart keep low prices via your taxes. If you shop at Walmart, great, then you accrue benefits that perhaps meet or exceed your tax subsidy. If you don't shop at Walmart, then you're paying Walmart's shareholders with your tax dollars.


If there work options are that minimal, then they would be on county checks anyways. No net cost to tax payers.
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dont_be_a_wuss
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 8:19 pm    Post subject:

Walmart now pays most of their employees above minimum wage. If paying people above minimum wage is too little, then minimum wage needs to be raised. How much should they really be expected to pay this low skill workers?
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angrypuppy
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 9:25 pm    Post subject:

LakersRGolden wrote:
angrypuppy wrote:
som3on3_10 wrote:
CandyCanes wrote:
If someone is working full-time and still has to be on food stamps/welfare, then the real "parasite" is the employer...


If you work full-time and still have to be on food stamps/welfare, then perhaps instead of blaming the employer, you should try and get another job. It's a free country people.



You think they have better options? Seriously? They are the lumpenproletariat; those whose work options are minimal.

Walmart is the last resort of the lumpenproletariat, and you (assuming that you're a U.S. taxpayer) help Walmart keep low prices via your taxes. If you shop at Walmart, great, then you accrue benefits that perhaps meet or exceed your tax subsidy. If you don't shop at Walmart, then you're paying Walmart's shareholders with your tax dollars.


If there work options are that minimal, then they would be on county checks anyways. No net cost to tax payers.



Then you're not asking the right question before netting out societal cost. There are other retailers that employ this tier of the labor market, and they at least have a health insurance, if not somewhat better wages. There are also retailers who have been forced out of business by Walmart's parasitical HR policies. Given that what Walmart sells are necessities, there is indeed an increased burden on the taxpayer once other retailers have been driven out of business.

The only solution is to level the playing field, so that retailers pay a minimum wage that reduces the need for workers to resort to food stamps, and for society to offer a form of universal healthcare, reducing parasitical behavior from Walmart.
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