Downtown Minneapolis Retail News

[Mdcastle]

I'm certainly not against the idea of throwing every last criminal in jail where they belong. And my experience with Minneapolis police even before the George Floyd fallout was they didn't want to do their jobs- in particular more than one person told me the Minneapolis police implied to them that auto burglaries were some sort a parking fee for parking in city rather than a crime to investigate and prosecute the scumbag criminals that did it to the fullest extent of the law.

But even assuming all of the Minneapolis police "did their jobs" to our satisfaction, do you think maybe we'd need more of them to make a meaningful dent in crime? To the point that stores can leave their stuff unlocked without fears of becoming repeated crime victims?

[Silophant]

Maybe. But it seems more cost-effective to have the cops we have do their jobs first, and then hire more if necessary. We've already proven pretty comprehensively that having 800 that don't bother doing their jobs doesn't work, I don't know that we need to run that experiment again.

[mister.shoes]

Orrrr…we could treat the disease and build a society where people can afford to buy effing toothpaste. People don’t steal because it’s fun and there’s nothing they’d rather do. They steal because they have no money and no hope for a better future.

But creating a more equitable world is really hard and might require fewer yachts and jets and rockets for billionaires. Or, heaven forbid, fewer billionaires. Alas. MOAR COPPERS PLZ!

[thespeedmccool]

People don’t steal because it’s fun and there’s nothing they’d rather do.

I think there really are people who do that, but I agree the solution can't be more do-nothing cops. Minneapolis' budget is 1/3 cops, and that's before the crazy lawsuits MPD gets into.

The solution to stopping these "just for fun" crimes (as well as gang activity, IMO) is to keep kids in school and set them on the right track early in life. That means funding schools, boosting social welfare, supporting abortion rights, getting police embedded in the community, and locking up criminal ringleaders.

We have to get out of this mindset of "crime, therefore cops." It's a failed, reductive, and oversimplified non-solution to a complex equity problem.

[Mdcastle]

Or if you can't afford to buy effing toothpaste, you can make the choice to go get a job so you can afford to buy toothpaste, instead of making the choice to become a criminal and steal the toothpaste. Right now we don't have enough police and our criminal justice system isn't harsh enough that stealing the toothpaste is a bad option, so the only alternative is for Walgreens and Target to lock it up

[Beachclub]

I'm certainly not against the idea of throwing every last criminal in jail where they belong.

Right now we don't have enough police and our criminal justice system isn't harsh enough that stealing the toothpaste is a bad option, so the only alternative is for Walgreens and Target to lock it up

I know this thread is way off topic already, but claiming that "our criminal justice system isn't harsh enough" is completely divorced from reality. The United States has more people in jail than any other country in the world. Doesn't matter if you're talking absolute numbers, rates, whatever... we lock up more of our people than anywhere else. More than China, more than Iran, more than Russia. More than ANYONE. (Check the data if you don't believe me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ation_rate) If the highest incarceration rate in the world isn't enough to keep people from stealing toothpaste, why do you think locking up even more people will make a difference?

The argument for more incarceration as a solution to shoplifting ignores the fact that the largest mass incarceration program in the world hasn't worked so far and it requires a baseless faith that with just a few more cops, just a few more people in jail, it will magically somehow work this time. It is a lazy argument that un-serious people use because they don't want to do the difficult work of finding real solutions to the problems that drive crime or because they simply can't think creatively enough to imagine what these solutions might look like. And on top of all that it ignores the harm done by mass incarceration, the harm done to communities with incarcerated members, the harm done to people trying to get back on their feet while having to navigate a legal system designed to benefit the well-off, the harm done by a police force that shoots dead more than a thousand people a year and kills hundreds more by other means, the harm done by a jail system that kills thousands of people in their custody every year (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politi ... -rcna47954).

Mdcastle, our current justice system is expensive, ineffective, and harmful. To argue for more of the same is foolish and cruel.

[Tyler]

...our criminal justice system isn't harsh enough...

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

[Tyler]

Longer sentences for toothpaste crimes!
Longer sentences for toothpaste crimes!
Longer sentences for toothpaste crimes!!!

You are literally a disgusting human being. Full stop.

[Tcmetro]

I would imagine the problem is organized retail theft and reselling as opposed to a homeless guy wanting to brush his teeth. When millions of dollars of theft are occuring nationally, it's not surprising that corporations start locking things down.

[hoffm83n]

yall are arguing like there's not tons of overlapping analysis and solutions between your perspectives. maybe stealing should have guaranteed consequences that don't involve overly harsh prison time, address theft rings and get help for the people who are stealing out of need. That can be independent of the analysis our current legal system that locks people up for the wrong stuff, while people get away some serious stuff at times. acting like every single policy is an all or nothing proposal is asinine.

[tedlanda2571]

yall are arguing like there's not tons of overlapping analysis and solutions between your perspectives. maybe stealing should have guaranteed consequences that don't involve overly harsh prison time, address theft rings and get help for the people who are stealing out of need. That can be independent of the analysis our current legal system that locks people up for the wrong stuff, while people get away some serious stuff at times. acting like every single policy is an all or nothing proposal is asinine.

You mean there's nuance and context? C'mon man, it's the internet in 2022! Why waste time with all that when you can score all your prog cred points at once simply by characterizing someone as 'literally a disgusting human being' over a couple comments they made on a public forum?

[Beachclub]

That can be independent of the analysis our current legal system that locks people up for the wrong stuff...

I don't think it can be. Situations like this are about how our current legal system operates in practice. Any solution we propose absolutely MUST be dependent on our analysis that our current legal system locks up way too many people and often for the wrong stuff.

You mean there's nuance and context?

And hey, I totally get the appeal of taking the middle ground of nuance and complexity, it is usually the right path, and in this case I agree that it probably IS the right path re: Target locking up merchandise (for example: what is Target's responsibility to the community vs their loss prevention desires?, should people boycott?, do people avoid hostile places subconsciously?, how does Target balance creating hostility vs balancing their bottom line? etc...).

But when the argument is "we should raise the consequences for Toothpaste-Theft level crimes in what is already the world's largest prison state" vs. "we need solutions that deal with what drives people to steal basic hygiene products" this middle ground stuff is just nonsense. Like, the anti-carceral position IS the nuanced and complex position. You've got one side asking for "more cops! more jail time! more prisoners!" as a solution for everything from homelessness to traffic violations to even stealing fucking toothpaste while the other side IS looking at the complexity and nuance of what drives crime and what deters crime and how much are we spending for cops and prisons and what are we getting for that money and how we could spend that money more wisely.

I would imagine the problem is organized retail theft and reselling as opposed to a homeless guy wanting to brush his teeth.

Please help me out with the toothpaste theft crime ring stuff. How does that game work? Does organized crime steal hygiene products and sell them to small retailers? I've definitely seen stuff marked for national chains on the shelves at corner stores, but I have a hard time thinking that the source of this stuff is organized crime taking it off of Target's shelves one piece at a time vs. stealing boxes or even pallets of the stuff at other points on the supply chain. But isn't the simplest answer that it is probably the 40 million people living in poverty in the US taking hygiene products they can't afford instead of some elaborate organized crime conspiracy?

[Tcmetro]

Most people in poverty, like everyone else, pay for what they need. Reactions like locked goods and employment of entire loss prevention teams is a clear indicator that the issue is larger than a few tubes of toothpaste going missing every day.

[Beachclub]

Most people in poverty, like everyone else, pay for what they need

You're absolutely right. I certainly don't want to contribute to the idea that poor people are criminals, there is enough of that already.

I guess what I find frustrating is that I see plenty news outlets write about "theft-rings" selling consumables online, but I don't have a clear idea of how big the problem is, how big it is compared to other types of shoplifting, how the practice has changed over time (I mean, loss prevention teams and locked goods are centuries old practices) or anything like that. This isn't to say that such information doesn't exist, just that it isn't in the news the same way shoplifting is. Then people who have been fed this narrative of Crime! Fear! and Lawlessness! jump on forums like this and argue to raise police budgets and elect "tough on crime" politicians who continue to expand the world's largest police and prison system with detrimental effects on huge swaths of the US population while leaving the underlying problems unsolved.

[Didier]

Imprisoning every Colgate thief might not be the answer, but there’s something going on right now that’s eroded parts of our society, especially in big cities.

Certain Democrats are so eager to point out statistics that crime rates really aren’t that different, but all the homeless encampments, reports of aggressive cell phone theft rings and locked up toothpaste at Target tell a much more compelling story.

It’s pretty apparent that Republicans have no real solutions to any of these problems. Unfortunately it’s becoming increasingly evident that Democrats don’t really have solutions either.

[Beachclub]

Certain Democrats are so eager to point out statistics that crime rates really aren’t that different, but all the homeless encampments, reports of aggressive cell phone theft rings and locked up toothpaste at Target tell a much more compelling story.

I think this is it exactly! The numbers show that crime rates aren't soaring, but people consistently believe it is. Why? Don't you think it has to do with the people who have a vested interest in keeping people afraid of crimes? Police unions want people afraid of crimes so their budget goes up. Newspapers and TV news want to sell you sensationalized stories. Reactionary politicians want you to be afraid of crime so they can either accuse their opponents of being soft or show off how they've raised police budgets to fix the problem (And it's not just Republicans, **cough** Jacob Frey **cough**.)

And we as the general public are really susceptible to this fear mongering. A pollster (I think Gallup?) asks Americans every year if crime has gone up or down over the last 12 months and since 1990 more people have said it has gone down only once. The reality is that crime went down in like 23 of those 30 years. It turns out that Americans are terrible at estimating changes in the crime rate.

And that's the problem with relying on compelling anecdotes (like seeing homeless encampments, seeing TV reports of theft-rings, and seeing locked up toothpaste) instead of relying on facts. We are being sold fear and being sold cops and being sold jails as a solution to that fear and we keep falling for it and the result is the world's largest prison population and a general population constantly terrified of a rising crime narrative that is largely manufactured and is never resolved.

It’s pretty apparent that Republicans have no real solutions to any of these problems. Unfortunately it’s becoming increasingly evident that Democrats don’t really have solutions either.

I agree with this completely! Democrats give lip service to non-carceral solutions to crime, but as soon as someone accuses them of not supporting the police or being soft on crime they bend over backwards to hire more cops, raise police budgets, and throw more folks in jail. Notable exceptions to Democrats being worthless are, I think, Keith Ellison (who seems to understand that public safety is about more than crime and violence) and Mary Moriarty (who has definitely been willing to challenge the way things are done in our criminal justice system and isn't afraid to look for new, more effective solutions)

[alexschief]

Homelessness is a separate issue from crime and it's extremely counter-productive to lump them together as a single item.

[Beachclub]

Homelessness is a separate issue from crime and it's extremely counter-productive to lump them together as a single item.

You are 100% right. I shouldn't have repeated that. It is harmful and I should know better. Thank you for pointing it out.

[amiller92]

Certain Democrats are so eager to point out statistics that crime rates really aren’t that different, but all the homeless encampments, reports of aggressive cell phone theft rings and locked up toothpaste at Target tell a much more compelling story.

Propaganda works, man.

[Bakken2016]

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... polis.html

Well this is a big loss for Downtown Minneapolis, definitely had the brands I liked for good prices!