I was thinking about this the other day when buying groceries at the self-checkout line.
The gal at the end of the six scanners cannot watch everyone that carefully. If you tried to go through with a shopping cart of food without paying for its contents, it would be obvious. If you put a couple high value items in your cart and just put them in your bag without scanning them, she would not likely notice.
This is a high-trust society where the essential honesty of most people means you mostly have security tags on clothes for teenagers and others who still lack a fully formed ethical system. (Let's not discuss my shoplifting of candy from Patton's Pharmacy at Lincoln and Montana Blvd. in Santa Monica in 4th grade during the mad rush after school got out.)
Low-Trust societies cannot operate like civilized societies. Over time, businesses either need to go to a "hand over the money and I will hand you the merchandise" model or go out of business. When they do, the resulting food and retail desert will be the fault of "systemic racism."
Most black people are not criminals, but Democrats are in charge of a city, it is usually a black majority or close.
It is not middle class people making these places into hellholes. It is privileged white people who do not understand that low-trust societies require police and serious punishment for theft to keep retail operating and safe streets. Once this collapse reaches a certain point, even middle-class people will start carrying guns without licenses and vigilantes will start dealing with shoplifters, vehicle burglars, carjackers, and porch pirates (or at least those accused of such). That will be ugly.
I was having trouble with an item scanning at one of the self-serve checkouts at the "Big W". Called for assistance and the attendant arrived, swiped her card, and bingo, there on screen was an instant replay from an overhead camera, showing my attempt to scan. It seems, that there is video, probably, of every scan and transaction at these checkouts.
ReplyDelete7-Eleven stores have cameras that look down on the cashier from that side of the counter. They may get pictures of someone robbing the cashier, but they're mostly watching the cashier.
DeleteThis was the case 44 years ago when the entire teller line and I were robbed by a robber who got inside the teller gate. The best photo of him was a 3/4 shot as he turned from one teller to another.