Ethan Corey

JusticeWithJean @trounstinej.bsky.social [ View ] Oct 04, 2023 at 12:19 UTC

How do I get a post to appear in a feed? Want those in the #journalism feed to see this but no clue how to get it there. I know #writing community MA considering SECOND LOOK which follows national trends, could have a significant impact on more than 1,800 people behind bars and their families.

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 15:49 UTC

This new dashboard from the Correctional Association of New York seems like a really great oversight tool! www.correctionalassociation.org/data

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 05:22 UTC

And a post-postscript: Spotify recently turned me on to Burning Flames, a positively joyful soca band from Antigua in the 1980s and '90s, and if you suffered through my thread (or shoplifting discourse in general), they should make a great palate cleanser: spotify.link/m6cszxNbsDb

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 05:19 UTC

As a postscript: It is 1am, and BlueSky doesn't make threading easy to do, so please forgive my typos and my meandering thoughts!

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 05:17 UTC

Ethnographic research suggests that "organized" shoplifting is largely driven by a) the cost of drugs and b) the ease of reselling the stolen goods. If the research is right, we should probably look at reducing the demand for drugs and/or making it harder to resell contraband toiletries on Amazon.

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 05:13 UTC

But the most frustrating part of the discourse is that few people are talking about plausible solutions. Further criminalization is harmful and mostly pointless -- surveys suggest about 10 percent of Americans shoplift with some regularity, and very few ever get caught.

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 05:07 UTC

When retailers like Target and Walgreens say they are closing stores due to crime, they are almost certainly exaggerating, but that doesn't mean retail theft isn't a problem. Stores wouldn't put shaving cream behind plexiglass if no one wanted to steal it.

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 05:03 UTC

Again, there is no good data here, but it is reasonable to speculate that toiletries in particular are being stolen at a higher rate than in the past. I go into the details on that here: theappeal.org/to-reduce-sh...

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 05:01 UTC

Even if we did have good data, overall numbers don't really tell us anything all that useful. Retailers sell a huge variety of products, from toothpaste (cheap & easily stolen) to TVs (expensive & harder to steal). What is being stolen is just as important as how much is being stolen.

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 04:57 UTC

Some of the existing data _does_ suggest a rather large increase in 2020, but other sources show retail theft to be mostly flat. You shouldn't rely on either set of numbers, or you'll end up looking like CNN.

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 04:50 UTC

First, and most importantly, there is no good data on the prevalence or financial impact of shoplifting. Retailers measure "shrink" (products that leave inventory without being sold), but there is no good way to tell how much shrink is due to shoplifting, employee theft, clerical errors, etc.

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social [ View ] Sep 28, 2023 at 04:46 UTC

I've seen enough annoying shoplifting discourse on here, so I want to highlight a few points that folks should be aware of when talking about the issue. A brief 🧵:

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