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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   24644 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023

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Surely you are not suggesting that it’s not possible to reason probabilistically about who is more or less likely to shoplift? I don’t think anyone believes that it is possible to definitively rule anybody out, but I would be shocked if it’s not possible to draw useful and reliable conclusions about whom to devote more resources to focusing on.

I think it's middle class or above teenage girls who are the most likely to shoplift. But if we assume that upper-SES teenage girls are only a small percentage of the US population, then screening for everyone is more prudent. Otherwise, you will miss a lot of potential shoplifters.

My guess is that demographic is over represented in frequency, but not dollar value. They tend to steal trifles for personal use, not to offload to a fence.

I’m not sure. As in the sense of using demographic data, it doesn’t appear so. That doesn’t mean you can’t build a psychological model, or notice dress or behavior that’s more common with shoplifters than the general public. I see a guy in a big bulky puffer jacket in June, I’d bet on him being a shoplifter.

  • As in the sense of using demographic data, it doesn’t appear so

Are you lying on purpose or are you actually this ignorant? The demographic data is quite clear. Blacks shoplift at drastically higher rates than whites or Asians.

As in the sense of using demographic data, it doesn’t appear so

Blacks are a lot more likely to shoplift and commit crimes in general.

I also assume that the viral photos you sometimes see of black hair products in anti-shopliftimg cases next to white hair products without any additional protections are done by retail chains based on their actual shrinkage data and not because they're racist.

I'm also curious if anyone has tried to collect data on which Walmarts have a checkout within the make-up section vs. those without and compare it to the demographics of the surrounding neighborhoods. My anecdotal experience is that checkouts within the make-up section are more common in more ghetto area Walmarts.

Alternatively, this may be more about who buys stolen goods than about who actually steals them, if shoplifters are fairly likely to be professional rather than stealing for personal use.

In the same way people rate disaster recovery based on whether the local waffle house is open or no, you could probably do similar based on how the local supermarket is structured.

I always do get a twisted sort of amusement seeing how the same store chain can have a radically different structure and layout based on the local socio-economics.

Everything except Aldi.

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