Economically, the Dakotas are booming, along with a number of other states that have developed the natural gas and oil fields that are contributing to American energy independence. Salaries are quite lavish, and good help is hard to find. It is no small feat getting people to relocate to the colder climes, even with the attractive pay scale. And with the handsome salaries there is a increased cost of living. Simple apartments that once went for five hundred can now go for a couple thousand dollars.
Then there is the crime. Like all boom towns, money draws the beggars, tramps, and thieves. It draws the hookers and the drug dealers, the gamblers and the con artists. There is energy aplenty and with it there are scams galore. Rings of retail store thieves have been hitting the shops with fake credit cards. Shoplifting is nuts, and most certainly in desperation to staff a business employers are overlooking some of the criminal records found in background checks, or reducing employment screening to a cursory glance.
According to an article on Keloland Televsion retail theft cost the state of South Dakota some $95 Million, last year. Even when you are making money 95 mil is a lot of money to lose.
The article further reported…” Groups of people hitting stores with fake credit card numbers or going in to steal large quantities of merchandise: organized retail crime is a growing problem in South Dakota. But the state has tough new laws against it and that should help save you money.
When you hit the aisles of Lewis Drug, you can expect that someone is always watching. Security cameras are a big part of catching retail crime.”
“Something we’re seeing with the organized end of it is a team coming in and shoplifting together, where before it might just be one individual. Now it’s two or three or more people involved with it,” Director of Safety and Loss Prevention for Lewis Drug Herb Rosin said.
That’s the kind of thing new laws in South Dakota aim to crack down on.
“This isn’t shoplifting. Shoplifting is a whole different subject, a misdemeanor type crime. This is organized–the conspiracy concept. There it’s a very organized and thought through process,” Attorney General Marty Jackley said.”
