The Washington Post: The zombie CVS, a late-capitalism horror story

The Post story focused on the closure of a CVS store in Washington, DC, and whether the closure was due to rampant crime or simply part of the chain store’s business strategy.

Regardless, images on the store prior to closure — with most everything locked behind plexiglass — had become a symbol of lawlessness taken up in today’s political climate.

“You can make it a left-wing, right-wing argument all day long. But at the end of the day, it’s a community issue,” Langhorst says in the article.

Several factors, he says, impact retail crime: In many cases, law enforcement doesn’t respond because they don’t have the resources and some jurisdictions don’t make it easy for retailers to file reports.

The article also addresses a pervasive “insurance will cover it” attitude.

“When you’re stealing from that store, you are in fact stealing from those employees, in a sense, because it does impact their livelihood,” Langhorst says.

Read the article.  

Feature photo at top of shoplifting: iStock/AndrayPopov