Post #132425
2026-01-13 21:05 UTC
Replies (8)
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@MurrayL@lemmy.world 2026-01-13 21:17
Confirmation bias. You simply don’t notice the criminals who don’t look or act the way you’re expecting.
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@FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 2026-01-14 00:46
Has it occurred to you that if you saw a criminal that didn't fit the stereotype, you might not know it?
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@Mothra@mander.xyz 2026-01-14 00:20
Hello. I've worked in a few retail stores. Never a supermarket cashier though. I can't say I would lump all criminals as looking the same. I can certainly describe a couple stereotypes, but many fly under the radar.
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@wakko@lemmy.world 2026-01-13 22:29
Ask yourself who perpetrates crimes. Do they have a job? A steady income? Stability in their life? Confidence about their future? Did they go to college or even complete high school? Or, are they broke, desperate, possibly with chemically altered cognition, and very likely to have a limited education/understanding about the world? The fact is - when you don't know much, you look at the world through a very limited perspective. This restricts a person's thinking into a narrow set of tracks that are all the most obvious paths to the goal of quick cash (often, to buy drugs to stave off the DTs for a few more hours). The stereotypical behaviors are the only things that are seemingly possible with a limited education and a chemical addiction. The reason stereotypes exist is because most humans aren't that creative. Most people, most of the time, will do the same basic things everyone else does in the same basic ways everyone else does it. The main difference here is that a crook rationalizes their actions and does not properly consider key facts, like the general success rate of robberies. Most of the time, desperation plays a strong enough role as a motivator that you can see these folks telling themselves how they "have to" do this. They'll psyche themselves up in the moments before they decide to act because they need to convince themselves that what they're doing "has to be done" even when they know their odds of success are abysmal. Small-time crooks are cliche because the underlying reasons behind what made them crooks is always the same three or four things - poor, uneducated, desperate, and (often) addicted to something. The educated crooks are smart enough to get laws passed to make their crimes legal.
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@FoolsQuartz@lemmynsfw.com 2026-01-13 23:33
because, unironically, they get kicked out of criminal club for not dressing the same way. Have you ever seen those cop shows where someone has to go undercover in a drug trade or something and they get accused of being a cop instantly? It's like that. The cops, having not spent a while acclimatising to criminal culture, are caught unaware by the rules at play. So, ironically, even the people who like to believe they're rebelling against society, are very adherent to strict societal rules like dress code.
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@Janx@piefed.social 2026-01-14 12:34
Low-hanging fruit. You're noticing the dumbest, easiest-to-recognize scammers and thieves acting how you're anticipating they will...
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@slazer2au@lemmy.world 2026-01-13 22:47
That's one way to describe a store manager....
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@lemmylump@lemmy.world 2026-01-14 01:39
Cause they're ice agents