In his Slate article “Let’s Make a Deal,” Leon Neyfakh introduces readers to Corrective Education Company, a start up (created by Harvard grads, obviously) that gives shoplifters at participating stores the chance to pay $320 and attend a class in exchange for not being reported to the police. The company doesn’t charge retailers (including H&M and Whole Foods) for its services, meaning that it is “‘completely offender funded.’”
Wait a second. What if the accused is actually innocent? Wouldn’t that person pay the $320 rather than risk an undeserved stain on their record? Apparently more than 90% of the people offered the Corrective Education Company Deal have decided to take it. And couldn’t this create an incentive for security guards to stop people who “look” like shoplifters, regardless of hard evidence? Isn’t it illegal to pressure someone “‘to engage in conduct which the latter has a legal right to abstain from engaging in…by means of instilling in him or her a fear that, if the demand is not complied with, he or she will be accused of a crime or face criminal charges”? That is, in fact, New York State’s definition of the crime of coercion.
Despite the controversy, disrupting due process seems to be a growing trend among start ups these days. At the first annual “Gold Bars Not Prison Bars” Conference in February, a number of Corrective Education Company’s newest competitors presented their business models to potential investors. I had the opportunity of attending the conference (yeah, I got connections) and will now present a few of the pitches for your reading pleasure:
CashDash
CashDash is an innovative solution to the plague of petty criminals wreaking havoc on large corporations. Using a three-pronged approach of entertainment, public humiliation, and competition, CashDash pits suspected shoplifters against one another through a ten-mile obstacle course, which we find is a more hands-on approach than your typical classroom setting. The course, televised on ESPN, includes symbolic elements reminding the criminals of their wayward actions. For example, the pit of green pythons represents the vices associated with greed and lust for money. The winner goes free, the loser goes to jail, and anyone in the middle has the choice between paying a $100 fee and going to jail. Stephanie Simkoch, general manager at chain grocery store Cheap ’n Easy, says that “ever since we started selling spectator tickets to the CashDash Freedom Course, Cheap ’n Easy has tripled its profits!”
Let’s Go Serfing
After learning about medieval feudalism in his ninth grade history class, fifteen-year-old Michael Silmich thought of a way to apply the same brutal logic to the shoplifting crisis. Two years later, Let’s Go Serfing was born, giving suspected shoplifters the choice between a police report and three years of indentured servitude. It’s a win-win: retailers get free labor, and offenders get a character-building experience with no trace on their permanent records. Karen M., a Let’s Go Serfing alumnus, gives the following review of the company: “After the first week of hard labor, I didn’t really see the point. But towards the end of the three years, I realized what had been staring me in the face all along: Prison would be worse.”
Dollar Jury Enterprises
Unlike other due process start-ups, Dollar Jury Enterprises prides itself in cultivating a one-on-one mentoring relationship with mall security guards. Participating malls hold a series of “Liftbuster” workshops to train their guards how to recognize, apprehend, and intimidate shoplifters. As a result of this individualized approach, each guard has his or her own style of vigilantly justice. Carl Marlend, one of Dollar Jury’s most successful disciples, says his rate of catching shoplifters miraculously quadrupled after his Liftbuster training. “Dollar Jury is great,” said Carl, “Once I learned that anyone with a backpack or large coat is fair game, I started nabbing people left and right.” Karen Taylorus, one of Carl’s colleagues, mentioned that she likes to apprehend people with particularly expensive-looking outfits. “That way,” she says, “I don’t feel so bad when I ask for a couple hundred bucks.”
HU$H Holdings Inc.
HU$H Holdings Inc. believes in market based incentives as an efficient way to reduce crime. Offenders are let out the back door of participating stores, where they will make deals with their peers (and a moderator) in a small, windowless room. One out of every five shoplifters has to go to jail, and it’s up to them to decide who will be turned in. Their only tools are playing cards, poker chips, a magic 8 ball, and whatever money they happen to have on them. “I’m a single dad with two kids at home,” said Josh Donnand, “So when I was caught shoplifting, I knew I had to do anything to avoid going to jail. I didn’t have much cash on me, but what’s great about HU$H is their flexibility. I ended up donating my kidney to some other guy, and he went to jail in exchange!”
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