How much of society’s security from rights violations, and justice for those who are caught, do we owe to the government’s police and courts? The usual answer is: most or all of it. Andrea Elliot in the New York Times, however, documents the workings of a completely private system we all take for granted: the routine policing of department stores done by the stores themselves (”In Stores, Private Handcuffs for Stick Fingers“). Amazing information from the story: most stores have small cells where they detain people who are observed stealing; when shoplifters are caught, they pay a fine and thereby avoid entanglements with the police; stores are remarkably thorough in their documentation of wrongdoing; when security guards wrongly detain a person, they risk their jobs; most shoplifters ‘fess up right away. The story shows these stores know they cannot trust the police and so have taken up the job of protecting their own property, and even dispensing justice--in a way that seems both fair and humane. Of course, there are critics of the system....
