Yes, they may legally detain you under shopkeepers privilege. And use some force. They may also perform a citizen’s arrest, especially if you are being a clear and present danger to the public safety- in which case they may even shoot you.
So, you are wrong, Security guards can, in some cases, touch you or forcibly detain you- even kill you. But not simply to ask you to leave, for example.
You bring up some very good points about problems with the justice system, but the answer is reform, not legalizing petty theft. Let’s take this $750 threshold, but if your threshold would be lower, then substitute your number.
Are you saying that I can rob the entire world blind so long as I do it $749 at a time? Because it seems as if that is what this DA is saying. Sure, he said “necessities” so I can’t be stealing electronics and such (depending on his definition, as we have government cell phones now) but I could definitely cover all my basic living expenses on the backs of whatever store I want to. Is that remotely fair?
Yes, remember him – Trayvon Martin died. And the the jury acquitted the neighborhood watch officer who shot him.
When I worked in a retail store (decades ago), we were told that we could restrain a thief, and prevent them from leaving until the cops got there, but we should use the minimum amount of force needed to restrain them. But we could certainly lay hands on someone, and even tie them up if need be. At least once, I locked the front door of the store until others could restrain a thief, even though that locked other customers inside the store.
In my experience, the people doing this are not stealing food or ‘necessities’, but higher priced items, usually ones that can be easily re-sold. And the people doing this, based on how fast they can run away or how strongly they can resist arrest, are not disabled, but quite able-bodied. People who should be able to do a good days work.
Personally, I think we need less jail and more chain gangs out fixing potholes and other strenuous community service. And we should have programs like FDR’s WPA & CCC again. We have lots of crumbling infrastructure in our country that needs fixing, and lots of unemployed people who could do that, fed & housed while doing it, and sometimes even learning a useful trade.
Do you really want your potholes fixed and your infrastructure repaired by a group of people who really don’t want to be doing the job, really don’t care if the job gets done in a workmanlike manner, and are very likely to be mentally ill or on drugs (or both)?
The WPA and the CCC succeeded precisely because a lot of people were looking for work. Today, a distressingly high percentage of the people in jail (not all of them, certainly, but a big chunk) are there precisely because they DON’T want to work and/or they have no ability to work. The largest providers of psychiatric services in the United States today are the nation’s prisons and jails; those same institutions are awash in illegal drugs. Does this sound like the workforce you want to entrust with any job that is important to you?
(Even in the days of yore, the chain gangs didn’t do much work efficiently and cost-effectively. Chain gangs served as punishment and they kept prisoners busy, but by the heyday of the chain gangs in the first half of the 20th century, machinery could break big rocks into little rocks quicker and cheaper than a chain gang could. )
No. Here’s what will happen. What happens every day all over America. Store security will detain you. They will take the item away. The police will come, handcuff you take you to jail and book you. In the morning they will likely cite you and release you without bond. You will owe a fine. The DA will not prosecute unless you are part of a shoplifting gang.
if you dont pay the fine they will issues a bench warrant and you will be guilty. If you do pay the fine, you will be guilty. If you show up in court to fight the citation, the DA wont show up to contest, however in Dallas, that’s the difference. But the cop and shopkeeper might, as in Traffic court. IANAL, YMMV.
Even if they dont, you have been detained, the goods taken away, arrested , handcuffed, taken to jail, booked and released.
What do you think they do for a low end non-gang shoplifter in another state, maybe the shoplifter steals the ubiquitous loaf of bread? Do you think the DA prosecutes and spends 1000’s of $ on that penny ante case? Nope.
I was kind of curious how it was going to work, but this clears it up nicely. Thanks!
I don’t think that’s the goal.
I think the goal is to allocate limited resources. There was a recent story here (Seattle) about theft for necessities ($70ish) and the costs to the system (several thousand for jail and prosecutorial resources - not to mention the opportunity costs from spending time on this rather than more serious crimes). My guess is that this DA is saying he’d rather spend the people’s money and time elsewhere than on people who are stealing smallish amounts of food & clothing. There are strong arguments against that idea. But it does make a certain amount of sense.
I’m not following much of this. If the DA does not prosecute, then why does the shoplifter owe a fine? If the DA is not prosecuting, why is there a court date for the DA to fail to show up at? And if the DA is not prosecuting, the cop or the shopkeeper can show up as much as they want, but it will not do any good if there is no case being prosecuted.
As far as the low-end out of state shoplifter, in my state he would post a small bond and get a court date. If he fails to show, a warrant for his arrest will be put in the system, very likely with a “do not extradite” tag on it. If he ever comes back to my state, he will be picked up, but if not, he won’t. There will not be an FBI manhunt begun.
Yes, it is probably unlikely that anyone will see justice out of that incident, but that doesn’t mean we roll out the red carpet for them either.
Why do you owe a fine for a traffic ticket even if the DA doesnt file charges? They turn it into a minor crime that is fixed by a citation, not a arraignment.
Have you ever been to traffic court? In most areas, no DA. The Judge is the DA, etc. The cop is the witness. It’s like that. YMMV. Of course then it is usually listed as a Infraction, not a Misdemeanor.
IANL, and the system differs more than fifty ways (in some states, each county has a different system). I am not sure how they will handle it in Dallas. Ask them!
And so- warrants? For low end misdemeanors? When the police have a large pile of felony warrants unserved?
How much does it cost to arrest, book, keep in jail one nite, arraign, release on bail, issue warrant, have a trial, etc? Tens of thousands.
Here in New York City, the City government has decided that subway (or bus) fare evasion will no longer be prosecuted.
The upshot of this is that one can watch, at pretty much any subway stop in the city, a steady parade of people going over, under and around the turnstiles without paying any fare. Sometimes in full view of police officers. The subway stop nearest my home in Brooklyn has two police officers stationed at the main entrance at all times. It is not physically possible that they do not see that a significant percentage of people are not paying the fare (in my estimation, depending on the time of day, anywhere from 20%, at a minimum, to close to half, at certain times of day, like when schools let out). And my observation, around the city, is that my station is pretty typical. So I infer that the NYPD has been directed not to make arrests or issue summonses for fare evasion.
Now, it may be that someone (perhaps the five county DAs) decided that fare evasion arrests/summonses unfairly burdened members of minority groups, and so should not be prosecuted.
However, the upshot is that those who pay the fare, all the time, feel like they’re making a charitable contribution, and begin to get disgruntled. I mean, why should I pay the fare?
This is not a good policy in the long run. It will inevitably lead to unrest and a backlash.
It is true that each state has its own procedure, but I didn’t see anything in the article where petty theft would now be a civil infraction like a traffic ticket is in many (most?) jurisdictions. The D.A. wouldn’t have that power anyways. He has stated that he will not prosecute people who steal “necessities” less than $750, so if the police arrest a person who fits that bill, the person will see the charges dismissed. It is a misdemeanor crime that is to be dealt with by the D.A. The shopkeeper or the police officer cannot show up and demand that the matter be prosecuted. That is in the “discretion” of the D.A.
The reason why you pay a traffic ticket without the filing of charges is because by paying you have agreed to plead guilty and to forego whatever due process the state has provided to hear your side of the dispute, whether that be a jury trial or a hearing in front of a hearing officer. It is a sufficiently harmless activity that society larger feels that it can be dealt with without a full custodial arrest. And, possibly because of that, you see wide open violations of that law every day. However, if you decide simply to ignore the ticket, things will eventually turn into a custodial arrest if you keep ignoring it.
And this whole idea that we should figure out the cost of prosecution versus the economic harm for the crime and not have the conduct illegal if cost exceed individual act is not the correct one. Just like the subway fare evasion in the post above mine, the problem is that once you decide not to prosecute, then instances of that thing that society has deemed to be harmful begins to increase.
Further, the economic harm argument is not how we decide the severity of crime. If I shoot at someone and miss, and the bullet lodges in the ground doing absolutely no economic damage, I know that you wouldn’t argue that I should go home.
Likewise, the reason we prosecute shoplifting, even for small dollar amounts, is not that a store will go bankrupt because I stole a candy bar, but because the action of stealing a candy bar, repeated hundreds or thousands of times will cause real societal harm, foster an attitude about shoplifting which is undesirable, and lead to vigilante justice when a shopkeeper knows that he has no remedy in court. That is one of the basic reasons for courts and law: so that people do not resort to violence in the streets to redress their harms.
Couldn’t we determine the deterrent effect of punishment by measuring it, and use that to decide how much to punish crimes?
Suppose someone steals $1000 worth of goods, and the cost to jail them for 3 months is $5000. But by jailing them, in equilibrium, 9 other thefts are prevented. This would mean that you’ve saved 10k in theft for a 5k cost. Clearly a good idea.
Using this math, obviously, a 2 year sentence doesn’t add up. It’s costing more than you are saving, even factoring in the deterrent effect. (you give 2 year sentences, each sentence costs you 20k to carry out, but you save 10k in theft again).
Well, longer sentences might have more of a deterrent effect, but I suspect it’s not at all linear. So a 2 year sentence might mean you deter 11 thefts instead of 10.
Just saying that the economic harm argument isn’t as bad as it sounds.
As for the bullet that didn’t hit someone but could have: well, if a person’s life is worth 10 million dollars, and there was a 1% chance of a random shot in an urban area killing someone, then you have a 100k budget to punish. Plus the deterrent effect. In that case, I guess a ~5 year sentence makes sense.
Different numbers will give you different outcomes, but what I am saying is that it’s not totally untenable to estimate the cost of a crime and compare it to the costs of punishment and work out some sort of reasonable cost-benefit policy.
This would be evidence based criminal justice. Seems like a rational thing to do to me.
[quote=“UltraVires, post:91, topic:832622”]
It is true that each state has its own procedure, but I didn’t see anything in the article where petty theft would now be a civil infraction like a traffic ticket is in many (most?) jurisdictions. The D.A. wouldn’t have that power anyways. He has stated that he will not prosecute people who steal “necessities” less than $750, so if the police arrest a person who fits that bill, the person will see the charges dismissed. It is a misdemeanor crime that is to be dealt with by the D.A. The shopkeeper or the police officer cannot show up and demand that the matter be prosecuted. That is in the “discretion” of the D.A…Likewise, the reason we prosecute shoplifting, even for small dollar amounts, is not that a store will go bankrupt because I stole a candy bar, but because the action of stealing a candy bar, repeated hundreds or thousands of times will cause real societal harm, foster an attitude about shoplifting which is undesirable, and lead to vigilante justice when a shopkeeper knows that he has no remedy in court. That is one of the basic reasons for courts and law: so that people do not resort to violence in the streets to redress their harms./QUOTE]
If you have studied the law carefully in that city and County and States, - Ok. You’re a lawyer then?
But in any case, the perp has had the goods taken, been handcuffed, taken to the station cited and released. What did they get away with? They didnt get the goods. They got detained, they got handcuffed, etc.
The storekeeper can detain the perp, the good can be confiscated, the police can come and handcuff and arrest… etc.
How many 5$ candy bar shoplifting cases do you think got prosecuted before this? Got any stats?
Possibly. But it definitely wouldn’t be universal. Let’s say a murder victim was objectively a drain on society. He has no family, is on public assistance costing society money (and so there is no argument about this aspect of it, let’s assume that we agree that it is not due to innocent circumstances–he is just a lazy, slothful guy) and he is just generally agreed by everyone to be a miserable shit of a guy and he will not be missed.
Do we not prosecute this murder because not only is it economical not to prosecute, but we really should reward the murderer in some way? I think you would agree not.
As far as the chances of hitting an innocent bystander in an urban area, should attempted murder be punished less in a rural area? A medium sentence in the suburbs? The crime is not the danger the shot posed to bystanders, but my intent to commit murder.
Further, the punishment doled out should reflect legitimate penological goals. If I steal video games at Target and punch the loss prevention employee on the way out, then I think we agree that should be punished.
The time spent in incarceration, though, should not reflect the economics of the situation. Some people who have a long criminal history and who continue to do these things should be punished harshly. But we could imagine a young person who was suffering from depression who acted out of character and committed this crime. The economics are the same, but the penalty should be different.
And that leaves aside questions about crimes like rape. If the victim is very resilient and requires no or little counseling, then the rapist gets a lighter sentence than if the victim has many bills? Or do we average these things out so that every criminal is looking at the same sentence. Average them out nationally or state or county wide?
I guess my point is that the economic aspect of the crime is a novel theory and should not be claimed to be the one true way of criminal justice.
These are interesting objections. And I don’t necessarily have a direct answer for each case except to say that, in general, I feel that the best outcome is achieved by:
a. Measuring what really happens, with consistent and comprehensive data collection and analysis
b. Dispassionately decide on a policy what to do not by how individuals feel about a particular case, but on a systematic and predetermined set of optimizing criteria.
c. The policy deciding system should be flexible. Realistically you should be able to change sentences for people already in prison as new data comes in.
And a simple justification: you always have to choose. If you have finite money for criminal justice - or any effort - choosing to spend a lot of it on one case means less is spent elsewhere. It means for every criminal you excessively punish you’re forced to let someone else off the hook, or let some other crime happen.
I don’t think the present setup, where it’s governed heavily by emotion and arbitrary power granted to DAs serves the interest of justice.
Because you shouldn’t base your actions on the actions of others who are breaking the law?
[quote=“DrDeth, post:93, topic:832622”]
Dr Deth, here in Texas, you cannot detain someone you think is stealing an item. They haven’t stolen an item until they leave the premises, and you CANNOT detain them outside of the store. Lawfully or from a liability standpoint, it just isn’t done.
With this law on the books, expect to see more people breaking this law. The lawful store owners are now being told that they themselves must be police and jury, IF they want to see any sort of redress for theft.
Yes, you can, and in fact I quoted a TEXAS Supreme Ct decision on just that very thing.
Here is another cite about the same case:
*The “shopkeeper’s privilege” expressly grants an employee the authority of law to detain a customer to investigate the ownership of property in a reasonable manner and for a reasonable period of time if the employee has a reasonable belief that the customer has stolen or is attempting to steal store merchandise. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 124.001 …Resendez, 962 S.W.2d at 540; see also Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 124.001; Tex. Crim. Proc. Code Ann. art. 18.16 (granting to any person privilege to detain person suspected of theft and deliver them to peace officer). *
and again:
https://hammerle.com/blog/shoplifting-texas-laws/
*The prevalence of shoplifting led “the Shopkeeper’s Privilege”. Found in the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, it states simply “ a person who reasonably believes that another has stolen or is attempting to steal property is privileged to detain that person in a reasonable manner and for a reasonable time to investigate ownership of the property.”
It is this law that gives a store security guard the right to forcibly stop a customer and demand proof of purchase of a store item. If the customer is unwise enough to strike back, that gives rise to an assault charge. It is not a defense that the customer was not shoplifting in the first place.
So unless you are admitted to the bar in TX or similar legal expert, I think you are wrong.
I’m genuinely amazed that this obviously-wrong idea keeps resurfacing here.
Right. And it bears repeating that all that is required is reasonable suspicion that you shoplifted, not that you actually shoplifted.
Someone taking this mistaken advice is going to find themselves in legal trouble when detained by a loss prevention agent and they go off about how they do not have to submit to this detention and leave, shove, or throw a punch at the loss prevention officer.
Note also that this is different that receipt checking at the door. As the employee is stopping you without any reasonable suspicion that you shoplifted, you are free to ignore him or her and leave.