Mapping Crime Around Retail Crime Giant Walmart

Police agencies around the country are giving hefty fines to retail giant Walmart for excessive calls for service to the retail locations. Calls range for anything from, shoplifting, kidnappings, fights, meth labs, and of course Black Friday maddness.

There are over 4,000 Walmart stores in the US alone with thousands of visitors a day. Some Walmarts are even open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This presents a huge window of opportunity for crime to happen at a much higher rate than your local supermarket.

Add in the cost cutting efforts Walmart is known for in order to keep prices low and you have even more reasons crime is so easy at Walmart. Hiring less employees means sub par loss prevention efforts. And, employees with low wages may not feel like they get paid enough to put themselves in a position to stop a shoplifter.

The fines could cause Walmart to institute better LP efforts by hiring more employees, install better cameras and anti-theft devices on products. This would cause the cost of doing business to increase, causing Walmart to increase prices.

If the fines police agencies are issuing are something Walmart doesn’t want to pay Walmart could elect to stop calling the police, like in their proposed ‘Restorative Justice’ program. Instead of the police responding and issuing an arrest or citation, the offender is apprehended by Walmart and fined or required to take courses.

If Walmart does nothing criminals will continue to receive the message that they can continue the behavior spilling over into other jurisdictions or retail stores. However, this raises the question on whether Walmart is legally allowed to take matters into their own hands.

We decided to take a look at crime around Walmarts compared to a few Targets in Maryland. Check out the screenshots below. An interesting thing to note is there are about half as many crimes mapped at Targets compared to the Walmarts listed below. How much crime happens around your local Walmart? Check out SpotCrime to find out!

Walmart	Target
1238 Putty Hill Ave, Towson, MD 21286 Stores are located next to each other (Also view SpotSpec reports for Calvert Hall HS or Loch Raven Technical Academy)
3200 North Ridge Rd, Ellicott City, MD 21043	4390 Montgomery Rd, Ellicott City, MD 21043
3300 Crain Hwy, Bowie, MD 20716	4600 Mitchellville Rd Bowie, MD 20716
6721 Chesapeake Center Dr, Glen Burnie, MD 21060	7951 Nolpark Ct, Glen Burnie, MD 21061