I’m a cashier, and it’s really strange just how easy it is to spot a criminal. It’s like they go out of their way to fit as many stereotypes as possible into their identity.
Someone tried to pay with fake bills earlier today at work, wearing a baseball cap, reflective glitter sunglasses, a leather jacket, and jeans, smelling of cigarettes talking in a heavy accent with a silent large guy following behind him, and pretending to not understand English even as he pulls fake bills out from a bulging pocket.
Like, wtf
Confirmation bias. You simply don’t notice the criminals who don’t look or act the way you’re expecting.
And survivorship bias.
Toupee fallacy to be more exact.
Exactamundo. OP expected this guy to be a criminal, and noticed when he did criminal things. How many people has OP assumed weren’t criminals based on the way they dressed who got away with whatever scam they were pulling?
I think that’s the key to getting to bigots.
Not:
They don’t give a shit about other people, but:
Gets their amygdala all riled up
Yeah, that happens a lot. The smart ones just take the product out of the packaging and leave it on the shelf somewhere. I find the things all the time, so I’m definately missing a lot. That’s not really what I’m talking about though.
I’m talking about the ones that security chases out of the store, or that try to scam us. They aren’t smart about it. Sure, there’s plenty of innocent looking scammers and really offputting normal customers, but they aren’t all that common from what I’ve found. I treat everyone the same regardless anyway just in case I’m wrong, but still.
I suppose what I’m finding aren’t criminals but rather attempted criminals. I’m guessing they just grew up watching tv and when they got drunk or high enough to think stealing was a good idea, they just copied the aesthetics. Doesn’t make having to deal with scammers that smell like they’ve never used a shower before and smoke a pack of cigaretts a day any better.
Wait, so they take packaging but not the item? Weird.
/s
Which makes your question “Why do a specific subset of criminal folk, that I’ve defined as looking and acting in a specific fashion, look and act in a similar fashion?”
lol fair