Photo: Canva
September 14, 2023
Atlanta-Based Walmart To Reopen With a Police Substation
A Walmart on Atlanta’s Martin Luther King Jr. Drive will reopen next May with a police department substation in the latest measure to address a shoplifting epidemic across retail.
The big-box grocer and pharmacy in Vine City, a low-income neighborhood on Atlanta’s west side, will feature a workplace where police officers will be able to fill out paperwork and hold meetings in addition to charging their phones and body cameras. Their presence is expected to discourage shoplifting.
“You’re thinking about going into this Walmart to do some shoplifting or a robbery or whatever — you see the APD logo and you say, ‘Ah, not today,’” said Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.
He added, “After talking with the Merchants Association on MLK and Clark University and other people in the neighborhood, folks were saying they want to see more police presence.”
The location closed in December after shoplifters set fires in the store allegedly to distract from their thieving.
The closing sparked concerns that the nation’s largest retailer would permanently close the location and turn the area into a “food desert,” where local residents have few or limited options to purchase nutritious and affordable foods like vegetables and fruits.
A similar arson incident at a nearby Walmart forced that location to close permanently due to fire and water damage. In January, Mayor Dickens announced that following discussions with Walmart, the store on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive would reopen to ensure local residents have “fresh, affordable food within a half mile of their homes.”
Walmart will tap city funds from a recently approved $1.5 million initiative to expand fresh grocery access in low-income communities.
Walmart in a statement to Fortune said this isn’t the first time the retailer has set up a law enforcement facility within a store, although it didn’t provide details.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon in a CNBC interview last December said that some locations could be forced to close and prices would rise as a result of the uptick in shoplifting across retail. He said, “We’ve got safety measures, security measures that we’ve put in place by store location. I think local law enforcement being staffed and being a good partner is part of that equation, and that’s normally how we approach it.”
Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Nordstrom, Dollar Tree, and Home Depot are among many retailers calling out margin pressure and safety risks from theft on recent earnings calls.
Last week, Nike announced it was permanently closing a location in Northeast Portland due to high theft. Nike had offered to cover the cost of police protection, but the city reportedly couldn’t spare any officers.
Discussion Questions
What do you think of the merits of Walmart’s move to open a law enforcement facility within a store? What role will law enforcement likely have to play in helping reduce shoplifting incidents, particularly in high-shrink neighborhoods?
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A police presence at Walmart should help to deter the criminal element. It may also make shoppers feel safer. And all in all, it’s a good thing to try as the alternative of the store closing permanently would turn the area into a food desert. Of course, having a police presence is only half the battle; and this cannot be a solution for every store and retailer. So, the other part to get right is ensuring that those who are guilty of shoplifting are properly punished so that it acts a deterrent to others.
Collaborating with law enforcement in high risk neighborhoods is sensible and having a police presence in some stores may help reduce theft in these particular stores, but all this will do is cause thieves to target different stores. It’s tantamount to putting your fingers in a dike. And while police are needed to enforce laws, their resources are spread so thin, how could this ever be done at a scale that would make a meaningful difference beyond the stores that have an enforcement facility within the store? Opening a law enforcement facility in one Walmart store in Atlanta will help bring even more attention to the problem that is plaguing the retail industry, and while I applaud Walmart and the city of Atlanta on this initiative, it’s far from a meaningful, scalable solution.
Does anyone remember the first time they saw a security guard in a store and were surprised that it was necessary? We have come a long way since that first experience. Now, a police station in a store. There is something deeply wrong in our society.
I have repeated the story several times. In China, shoppers stop shoplifters and call the police. I beleive that in the U.S. shoplifting is seen by society as a victimless crime. Why should we worry about it? Walmart is a huge company, and they won’t even know the difference.
We don’t seem to care much on the prosecution front either. Only about a third of those caught are prosecuted. Only about 5–10% of shoplifters are caught. Of those who are caught, even fewer receive sentences.
Until shoplifting is seen as a real crime, every store will need a police station.
I always thought we need a big PSA campaign around shoplifting to change the public perception about it.
It is not a ‘victimless’ crime for sure!
This is among the boldest moves yet to deter criminals after brash acts of theft and arson. A conspicuous partnership with the police proves Walmart is serious about enforcement. Shoplifters will face consequences.
Law enforcement will continue to collaborate with industry task forces, governments and communities to support investigations.
It’s incredibly sad, maddening and frustrating that this move is necessary. But it is indeed necessary. It’s a great idea on the deterrence end of the problem. Now let’s get better solutions at the consequences level…which will further magnify deterrence.
Absolutely agree with you about the consequences part, Jeff. This is a problem of two halves!
Supply and demand. If there wasn’t an extensive market/easy access market place for stolen goods, the supply would shrink. Yes, deterring theft is important but people don’t steal products that can’t be converted to cash. Laws need to address both – thieves and consumers of stolen goods.
There was a story on the local news interviewing a convicted serial shoplifter. He said he had no problems reselling the merchandise. He’d take his stolen coach handbags and sell them to soccer moms while they were watching their kids play. If people stop buying stolen goods, shoplifting would no longer be the epidemic it is today.
Customers should applaud this move, because they know they’re the ones paying higher prices because of crime. They are also frustrated and angered that a product as simple as shampoo needs to be locked up. We need a national conversation on this problem, and soon.
Retail theft is out of control on a global basis and there are many tactics being considered and implemented to thwart this. Here’s an example of a creative collaboration in the UK: https://fortune.com/2023/09/12/britain-retailers-police-shoplifting-crime-john-lewis-tesco-sainsburys-co-op/
Will Walmart’s cooperation with the local police in Atlanta help? Yes. But, unfortunately, not all retailers can afford to do this nor will police need a substation in every Walmart location.
Back when we had local (suburban) weekly newspapers, the crime blotter was always what the neighbors would talk about. In our Twin Cities suburb, the Walmart regularly received as many if not more police calls than Target and Rosedale Center combined, despite not being on transit or within reasonable walking distance of housing complexes. Putting cops where everyday crime is statistically going to happen makes sense, as long as the follow-up work happens.
Having a police presence in a Walmart is an unfortunate sign of the times. With the rising rates of shoplifting and retail criminal acts, we have seen retailers abandon key markets such as San Francisco and others as their store associates and customers are no longer safe. As retailers abandon smaller cities and towns, they are quickly underserved, and customers will have little to no option but to travel 50-plus miles for quality food, clothes, and other essentials.
Considering the size and scale of major retail operators such as Target, Walmart, Kroger, etc., establishing a police substation at thousands of store locations is not feasible or scalable to a rampant problem. The perception of retail theft has to change, and the consequences must also evolve. Until retail theft is treated as a criminal act with clear consequences, this police substation presence is essentially a bandaid on a much larger wound.
You captured the gist of the challenge very well, Brandon:
Until retail theft is treated as a criminal act with clear consequences, this police substation presence is essentially a bandaid on a much larger wound.
There is a broader societal issue at play here that is sad and completely disheartening to see across our beautiful country. Accountability for actions and the consequences that stem from those actions are certainly on the decline. For these and other factors, I applaud Walmart for working with local law enforcement to re-open this store, but this model can’t scale for Walmart or other retailers. Until we see local, state and federal law/judicial systems get more serious about bringing perpetrators to justice, this issue will continue to plague retailers.
If Walmart has set up law enforcement facilities in its stores before then it must be effective. Clearly, something must be done to better protect shoppers, store employees, and the product.
Putting a police substation in the store should help. Then again, criminals these days don’t seem to care about consequences so it will be interesting to see how this plays out. I hope it works; all people need places to shop that are safe and convenient.
Criminals don’t care about the consequences because few experience any consequences.
I applaud this move by Walmart. But, as others have said here, this isn’t really a scaleable solution and may, in fact, push the bad guys to other retailers. Still, it’s a first step. To really solve the retail crime issue requires a more holistic approach that targets the platforms where these people are fencing their goods (Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist) and that addresses the issues that make shoplifting worth the risk for the people committing the crimes, lack of enforcement, prosecution.
While having police on premise will certainly help, it’s not a scalable solution. You can’t put a police station in every retail location. Ultimately, a combination of technology to increase the chance of catching criminals and a process for enforcing meaningful punishments will be needed across all locations.
This is a very troubling trend.
Waitrose in the UK is giving Police free coffee. Now Walmart is putting a “Police substation” in a high crime store. And on and on it goes, with larger retailers “competing” for police presence and attention, laying out different perks. On the positive side, this will make an impact at this Walmart. On the negative side, this incentivizes potential perps to stay away from Walmart and shoplift somewhere else.
Further, it is a small step forward in privatizing everyday law enforcement activities. Tax dollars fund police departments to protect communities, not “special” stores in high crime neighborhoods with free coffee, donuts and wifi.
Walmart should just hire Wagner Mercenaries and put two or three of them in their stores. That would solve the Walmart problem while not detracting from the overall problem. Yes, that was a tongue-in-cheek comment, however I trust it highlights the core issue here when businesses start to compete for attention like this, they are making a calculation that for a small outlay (coffee/charging stations/donuts/wifi, etc.) they can free ride on the total costs involved with funding police departments.
Shame on the Mayor of Atlanta for embracing this announcement, and shame on Walmart for this initiative.
Mark, I agree with you in every way.
Shoplifting is one of the “leaking around the edges” crimes which should give us pause and lead us to wonder what simmering dissatisfactions are driving the issue. While the debate is not for this website, somehow we must , as a society, engage with how it is that society is fractured in this way.
And, until the, retailers need to do what they can to protect their stores and their employees.
I love this idea. A major retailer with a huge store could benefit by partnering with law enforcement at this level. However, how many “substations” are needed in an area? By the way, malls can take advantage of this idea as well.
There was a police substation at a Walmart in St. Paul, MN to deter crime. It continued to have crime issues and ended up closing. So based on that experiment, I’m not so sure this will work.
Since the majority of amateur shoplifters, i.e., non-organized criminals, aren’t in fact caught a police presence may have only a limited impact on reducing shrink. But, if having a policing resource onsite allows Walmart to keep a store open and serving a badly under-served segment of the shopping population than I think it is a great community building effort. Sure, the city is picking up part of the tab but my bet is community members will thank Walmart for not abandoning them or their neighborhood. I’m less bullish about the effectiveness of the program, again with the exception of metering professional shoplifting rings. Look, we are talking about cases where an individual or individuals committed arson in order to shoplift. Do we really think these kind of folks are going to be deterred by a police presence, especially when they realize that worst case they are facing some very limited jail time? If we do, we obviously don’t understand the streets very well.
When I moved to Texas 50 years ago, there was a chain of convenience stores called Stop and Go, with over 200 stores in the Houston market. They faced a theft problem and took a straightforward step to solve the problem. They let it be known with a sign on the front door that anyone attempting to steal from stores would be dealt with because managers had a loaded shotgun behind the counter. Surprisingly, theft was no longer a problem. As someone mentioned earlier, without consequences, the Are you feeling or are you busy problem will only worsen. Stop and Go found a solution that worked.
50 years ago we did not have more guns than people. Even in Texas. Pretty good chance the punk then wasn’t carrying. Today, “stand your ground” laws or not, do you really want to find out? How many staff are you willing to get killed? How many customers are you willing to get caught in cross-fire? What does your insurance company think about that?
Oh wow. From the Houston Chronicle: “In the 1990s, the company took out secret life insurance policies on employees. Upon discovering them, the families of employees killed on the job sued to get the money back. In 2002, National Convenience and Lloyd’s of London settled with three families, paying them a total of $1,140,000 (equivalent to $1,854,793.71 in 2022).”
Stop and Go went bankrupt in the early 1990s and what was left got cycled into Circle K. Wow, that strategy really worked out!
“Every complex problem has a simple solution…that’s wrong”
I am mostly in favor of this step by Walmart to enable police presence in or adjacent to certain stores.
In addition to protecting the interests of the retailer by deterring organized shoplifting, this could be interpreted as a “community policing” activity that puts officers near the law-abiding public they are sworn to protect.
This is not the answer for every retail store – as others observe here it is far from “scalable.” But it makes sense to have police visibility in certain locations where lots of people congregate. This can create numerous benign micro-interactions with the public that build good will.
Who wouldn’t like this?? Well, how about a competitor that claims, quite rightly IMHO, that WalMart is getting a taxpayer-funded special assist.
Superficially attractive, I don’t think this is ultimately a solution – if “solution” is even the right word – to theft issues. It’s always been true, and probably always will be true, that some neighborhoods will be borderline retail “deserts” for one or more reasons (crime, low-income, low population, etc). The concern should be that they don’t become an ever-growing share of the total.
This is another way for retailers, malls, urban areas, and downtowns to become community centers. Safety measures and presence should be a mandatory partner in mixed use development and revitalization initiatives.
Kuddos to Mayor Dickens for trying something new, sending a message to would be thieves, and coordinated theft. Maybe city officials from around the country will see this, feel more empowered to partner with retail, and enable the police force to improve this issue. It may not be a long-term solution with so many retail businesses who want help, but it can prove to voters and the community something can be done.