this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
662 points (99.3% liked)
Not The Onion
12358 readers
216 users here now
Welcome
We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!
The Rules
Posts must be:
- Links to news stories from...
- ...credible sources, with...
- ...their original headlines, that...
- ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”
Comments must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.
And that’s basically it!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Right. But if a business steals from you, that's a civil matter, and the cops don't get involved.
Not adding pickles to a sandwich when you asked for it isn't theft, it's an innocent mistake. You don't need to threaten someone with jailtime over it.
Let me give you a real-world example. This actually happened to me. I'm a temp working for a large corporation. The corp decides that they aren't satisfied with my work. I get a call from my temp agency saying "Your contract has been terminated."
Okay, this sucks, but it happens. However, I have a bunch of stuff (which I own) on my desk, and now I can't go back and get it because my keycard doesn't work anymore. When I show up and ask for my stuff, they tell me to email somebody, and that person doesn't reply. I even ask a friend who works there to go by my desk and set if he can get my stuff, and he says that my desk has been cleared off, and it's likely in the trash somewhere.
So, I go to the police. The police tell me that it's a civil matter, not a criminal one, and I'll have to take the corp to small claims court.
Now. If I had taken something from the corp home with me (i.e. stolen it), which would it be? A criminal matter or a civil matter? You'd better believe that would be a criminal matter and police would be involved.
It's pretty simple. You need intent to permanently deprive to be theft, and there's little chance they can nail down anybody with that intent in that case. They're not out to make you whole, they're out to arrest people. Even if they could make a criminal case, you'd have to go through the civil courts to get restitution. Since it's not a situation where they can realistically make an arrest, your only options are civil.