This smacks of victim-blaming.
Would anyone suggest the company were at fault if we were not discussing Walmart?
Still, you're right to bring up the idea that I simply dislike Walmart and so would take whichever position is against them. I don't think that's what I'm doing, but it's an easy mental trap to fall into.
Agree. I should've put scare quotes around "victim blaming."
Not all of this is theft either. Walmart puts their customers in danger by inadequately patrolling their stores.
There is a a difference between at fault and being stupid.
No one deserves to be mugged, but one does not walk through a slum, drunk, while waving a wallet around.
As for WalMart, it can do many things. Identifying known shoplifters and escorting them out. Following shoplifters back to their car and identifying license plates and then reporting THAT to the police (which often has the advantage of catching a lot of shoplifted merchandise). Designing customer flows so that people don't feel they can shoplift easily. Note that a lot of this falls into PREVENTION rather than APPREHENSION.
Walmart has lots of options, but no incentive to use them as long as they can pass the cost onto the police.
That seems to be a key difference.
Well, its key in that people never have tort liability to themselves, so it would never come up otherwise. But, nevertheless, it illustrates that the idea that a property/business owner making conscious decisions that predictably attract crime to their premises bears some responsibility for the resulting harms is not at all foreign to our society.