Submission Statement: Inside a Florida lab few have ever seen, a team of researchers is engaging in secretive work on behalf of some of the country’s biggest retailers: “loss prevention,” or trying to stave off a purported epidemic of theft. With results both highly visible to consumers—like the locks on drugstore shelves—and more subtle, the lab has been at the center of corporate panic about shoplifting and lax enforcement. But who is this really for, and does it even work? In a sharp, wide-ranging, and at times hilarious report, Slate’s Alexander Sammon goes inside the lab and learns more than he bargained for about the war on “shrink” and what’s really happening inside America’s stores.
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https://slate.com/life/2026/07/shoplifting-walmart-target-amazon-retail-florida.html?tpcc=reddit-social--shoplifting
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So the problem is affordability and paying people so little that they can't survive. Plus job loss and homelessness.
So let's fix the problem by making stores into a prison and the shopping experience horrible. Basically assume that all shoppers are potentially shoplifters!
No kidding. If I wasn't set on picking my own produce I'd probably never set foot in brick-and-mortar these days. The "locked case" approach apparently discourages 25% of shoppers . With stores trying to get rid of baskets, and these new cart containment systems, I try to limit myself to what I can hold if I have to go in.
I'm among the 25%. It's infuriating - Only once ever will I wait like a rat sitting in front of the treat dispenser after pressing the red button, for minutes, for someone to grab me a pack of razorblades, only to realize no one is coming and there's an employee three aisles over shelving things. Oh, that I should be so thankful for bringing me this product that I should pay with my money and my time. The only self-respecting way to use the locked cabinets is to ignore the button and like a human being simply walk to the nearest employee and ask them to come with you to unlock the cabinet. It's radically faster and it's human interaction, you speaking directly to a person and judging if you should interrupt what they are doing, rather than a dehumanizing wait while you press the placebo button and wait for drone 1 to finish sweeping sector 3 before he's assigned to customer 1472.
I hate when the items in the locked case aren't even so pricy, trendy, or easy to steal. And there are pricier, trendier, easier-to-steal items out in the open.
This is based entirely on my personal experience, but I've noticed them disappear as an option from a few places I shop or shopped at around the time the cart containment started showing up. I assumed it was related to loss prevention efforts.
This is all part of the cost of sliding into a "1st world 3rd world country" territory. In lawless countries, nobody is putting millions of dollars of inventory on shelves because people will back a truck through the front door and empty the store. So retailers get defensive, use locked cases, put up steel bars, etc. And everything looks and feels more lawless and becomes more lawless and dangerous.
The thing is, no one wants this outcome, certainly not the people doing these robberies. They are acting rationally in a society that has removed all humanity from available options. I've been to South Africa and I see where this leads. Armed guards outside of private businesses and homes. There are very few steps from "gated communities with a private security car driving around" to a dude standing in front of your house with an assault rifle since you will be 100% robbed if he is not there.
It's basically a way for them to excuse letting their stores become rundown hell holes in a stagnating economy. "Why does this place look like shit? Is it because you fired 90% of your staff to cut corners? No, it must be shop lifting". "Why are you closing down this store? Is it because you raised prices beyond what the community can afford? No, it's because of shoplifting". "Why did you stop selling a lot of the lower margin goods that people want and need? Is it because you prefer the higher margin stuff? No, it's because of shoplifting". "Why are you throwing bleach into the food that just passed expiration and locking the dumpster? Is it to make sure desperate people don't dumpster dive and are forced to pay full price? No, it's because of shoplifting."
Show the same video on fox news of organized crime hitting a place on a news broadcast in DC and you can get federal law makers to pass the "We cut the hands off of shoplifters" act or the "Shoplifters will be turned into retail slave laborers" act.
Have you not been in a store where people just walk in, grab shit, and walk out with nothing but resignation from the employees saying there's nothing they can do about it? What, you just don't believe the tsunami of videos showing criminal gangs, flash mobs and aggressive shoplifters are real?
Either you're a gullible shut-in, or y'all are faking this ignorance of the massive underreporting of shoplifting.
It's not possible to under-report shoplifting. It's right there on the balance sheet. You buy 10k widgets and you sell 9.5k widgets, then 500 were lost to shrinkage.
Good lord, the irony of taking shit you see on social media as evidence, completely ignoring crime stats, and calling other people gullible.
The rate of theft was constant over the past 6 years. In 2010, it was 35% higher than it is now. It's gone down steadily since the 90s. You're living in a fantasy.
Bullshit. This is a way for retailers to pour money back into their company and claim a loss while saying they can’t lower prices or pay employees more.
[OP] Slate | 17 hours ago
Submission Statement: Inside a Florida lab few have ever seen, a team of researchers is engaging in secretive work on behalf of some of the country’s biggest retailers: “loss prevention,” or trying to stave off a purported epidemic of theft. With results both highly visible to consumers—like the locks on drugstore shelves—and more subtle, the lab has been at the center of corporate panic about shoplifting and lax enforcement. But who is this really for, and does it even work? In a sharp, wide-ranging, and at times hilarious report, Slate’s Alexander Sammon goes inside the lab and learns more than he bargained for about the war on “shrink” and what’s really happening inside America’s stores.
Read the full story here (no paywall!):
https://slate.com/life/2026/07/shoplifting-walmart-target-amazon-retail-florida.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=shoplifting&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--shoplifting
clean-links | 17 hours ago
Cleaned link from "https://slate.com/life/2026/07/shoplifting-walmart-target-amazon-retail-florida.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=shoplifting&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--shoplifting": https://slate.com/life/2026/07/shoplifting-walmart-target-amazon-retail-florida.html?tpcc=reddit-social--shoplifting
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krebstar4ever | 10 hours ago
https://slate.com/life/2026/07/shoplifting-walmart-target-amazon-retail-florida.html
Epledryyk | 16 hours ago
>"All this not a moment too soon, because America, as we all know, is in the midst of a shoplifting crisis."
did... did we know that?
TrulyToasty | 11 hours ago
More like a corporate mass surveillance crisis
kermityfrog | 16 hours ago
So the problem is affordability and paying people so little that they can't survive. Plus job loss and homelessness.
So let's fix the problem by making stores into a prison and the shopping experience horrible. Basically assume that all shoppers are potentially shoplifters!
Sir_Trout | 15 hours ago
No kidding. If I wasn't set on picking my own produce I'd probably never set foot in brick-and-mortar these days. The "locked case" approach apparently discourages 25% of shoppers . With stores trying to get rid of baskets, and these new cart containment systems, I try to limit myself to what I can hold if I have to go in.
Meyermagic | 13 hours ago
I'm among the 25%. It's infuriating - Only once ever will I wait like a rat sitting in front of the treat dispenser after pressing the red button, for minutes, for someone to grab me a pack of razorblades, only to realize no one is coming and there's an employee three aisles over shelving things. Oh, that I should be so thankful for bringing me this product that I should pay with my money and my time. The only self-respecting way to use the locked cabinets is to ignore the button and like a human being simply walk to the nearest employee and ask them to come with you to unlock the cabinet. It's radically faster and it's human interaction, you speaking directly to a person and judging if you should interrupt what they are doing, rather than a dehumanizing wait while you press the placebo button and wait for drone 1 to finish sweeping sector 3 before he's assigned to customer 1472.
krebstar4ever | 10 hours ago
I hate when the items in the locked case aren't even so pricy, trendy, or easy to steal. And there are pricier, trendier, easier-to-steal items out in the open.
Own-Gas8691 | an hour ago
yesterday i had to buzz a walmart employee to open a locked case so i could purchase a flashlight that cost a whole $1.47.
Sir_Trout | 12 hours ago
There's a button?
Meyermagic | 12 hours ago
Target.
Epledryyk | 13 hours ago
why are they getting rid of baskets?
Sir_Trout | 13 hours ago
This is based entirely on my personal experience, but I've noticed them disappear as an option from a few places I shop or shopped at around the time the cart containment started showing up. I assumed it was related to loss prevention efforts.
lubujackson | 14 hours ago
This is all part of the cost of sliding into a "1st world 3rd world country" territory. In lawless countries, nobody is putting millions of dollars of inventory on shelves because people will back a truck through the front door and empty the store. So retailers get defensive, use locked cases, put up steel bars, etc. And everything looks and feels more lawless and becomes more lawless and dangerous.
The thing is, no one wants this outcome, certainly not the people doing these robberies. They are acting rationally in a society that has removed all humanity from available options. I've been to South Africa and I see where this leads. Armed guards outside of private businesses and homes. There are very few steps from "gated communities with a private security car driving around" to a dude standing in front of your house with an assault rifle since you will be 100% robbed if he is not there.
jedify | 11 hours ago
The link under the section about "woke" prosecutors cites $719,548 in loss per billion in sales. Or 0.07%
No... we don't. 🙄
cogman10 | 10 hours ago
It's basically a way for them to excuse letting their stores become rundown hell holes in a stagnating economy. "Why does this place look like shit? Is it because you fired 90% of your staff to cut corners? No, it must be shop lifting". "Why are you closing down this store? Is it because you raised prices beyond what the community can afford? No, it's because of shoplifting". "Why did you stop selling a lot of the lower margin goods that people want and need? Is it because you prefer the higher margin stuff? No, it's because of shoplifting". "Why are you throwing bleach into the food that just passed expiration and locking the dumpster? Is it to make sure desperate people don't dumpster dive and are forced to pay full price? No, it's because of shoplifting."
Show the same video on fox news of organized crime hitting a place on a news broadcast in DC and you can get federal law makers to pass the "We cut the hands off of shoplifters" act or the "Shoplifters will be turned into retail slave laborers" act.
jmur3040 | 12 hours ago
The ruling class is entering the "find out stage" of underpaying workers for decades. Turnabout is fair play at this point.
reapersaurus | 9 hours ago
Have you put your head in the sand for 6 years?!
Have you not been in a store where people just walk in, grab shit, and walk out with nothing but resignation from the employees saying there's nothing they can do about it? What, you just don't believe the tsunami of videos showing criminal gangs, flash mobs and aggressive shoplifters are real?
Either you're a gullible shut-in, or y'all are faking this ignorance of the massive underreporting of shoplifting.
PersistentBadger | 8 hours ago
It's not possible to under-report shoplifting. It's right there on the balance sheet. You buy 10k widgets and you sell 9.5k widgets, then 500 were lost to shrinkage.
red_message | 8 hours ago
Good lord, the irony of taking shit you see on social media as evidence, completely ignoring crime stats, and calling other people gullible.
The rate of theft was constant over the past 6 years. In 2010, it was 35% higher than it is now. It's gone down steadily since the 90s. You're living in a fantasy.
reapersaurus | 7 hours ago
Good lord, you ACTUALLY believe the shoplifting crime stats of the past 6 years?!
Wow.... that's incredibly naive and uniformed of you, and provably wrong.
MillionDollarSticky | 5 hours ago
I see an awful lot more shoplifting than I used to. People fill up cards and duffle bags and run out where I live.
lilbluehair | 4 hours ago
And they did 20 years ago too
lilbluehair | 4 hours ago
Did you read the article? That kind of thing has always been happening, you're just seeing it now. It's not that more people are doing it
milagr05o5 | 16 hours ago
This was a very interesting read, thanks for posting.
cmndrnewt | 8 hours ago
Bullshit. This is a way for retailers to pour money back into their company and claim a loss while saying they can’t lower prices or pay employees more.
clean-links | 17 hours ago
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