AIBU to ask if shoplifting has effectively been decriminalised?

That's not a new phenomenon at all. (Though I think posting about it on Facebook is a bit mad.) But shoplifting can be addictive because it gives a thrill of doing something illicit (especially if one normally lives a staid boring life) and doesn't always have immediate consequences. There's a phenomenon around how we think about risk which is that if the bad thing doesn't happen the first time (getting caught) you degrade the risk in your head the next time and the next time even more etc. (This also relates to parents travelling without putting their kid in a car seat BTW. If someone does it once they are way more likely to fall into a pattern that only ends when something bad does happen). Of course, the problem is they will keep doing it until caught and, particularly if they do live a normal upstanding life, they can then fuck things up for themselves. Moreso than a junky fucks his/her life up through shoplifting.

Winona Ryder for example shoplifted for the thrill not the money. And that was years ago.

I read quite an eye-opening thread about shoplifting on Facebook the other day.
People, just ordinary seeming parents, were saying that they feel they are getting addicted to shop lifting because it's so incredibly easy. They know it's wrong, and they often can afford to just buy it, but it's just so easy to walk out with it, no consequences, no queuing, and you have a free item. They can't stop themselves.
I wouldn't do it myself but I could see where they were coming from. It must indeed be very addictive if it's that easy.

My friend worked in HMV and it was an ongoing issue. The police were more interested in pursuing ASBOS and having them banned from town, which just moves the issue elsewhere

Are you able to bar them from entering the shop in future - can the security guard stop them then, even by standing in the way of the door? I know they're not allowed to stop them leaving WITH their stolen items, but are they allowed the other way round?

It must be so frustrating for you!

That might work for a large supermarket, but small independent shops also have problems with shoplifting.
The sort of measures you describe would be too costly for them, and very inconvenient for customers and put them off.

Well there seem to be no consequences any more. School violence - can't exclude them. Rapists - don't jail them. Teenagers committing any kind of crime - they're just young and don't understand right from wrong, let them off. Shoplifters - just let them (unless they look harmless like me, I'm sure I'd be stopped on the way out).

We're storing up a whole load of trouble.

A couple of years ago I saw a man being stopped by security for having stolen dozens of expensive smoked salmon packs in his bag.

The security guard dealt with him assertively and took it all back.

What amazed me was the anger from the thief. Instead of being embarrassed at being caught (and the inevitable people staring), he was so angry at the security guard for having dared to stop him, and racially abused the Asian security guard.

Its's hard for the stores. Part of the way our society works is we give up the right to take actions like laying our hands on people, and turn it over to the police.

There are a lot of good things about that system.

If clerks or even security take physical action or confront people, the store is liable for any harm that comes to the employee, or even to the shoplifter.

It's just not worth it and the insurance companies probably tell them they aren't allowed.

What really needs to happen is that people like this need to be publicly identified, and have all their government benefits removed.

Yes, it's the same where I am in Canada.

People just walk out with stuff.

People break into your car or house, no response.

People take down their pants on a busy corner and inject drgs into their leg - police can do nothing.

Regular person walks down the street with an open can of beer, he will be arrested.

And people see this and the behaviour gets worse and worse. And there are still these people who say - oh these people are vulnerable, you can't arrest them.

Yes, we all get that some are vulnerable, addicts, whatever. That doesn't mean anyone should put up with living in a place like that. And shops will in the end take action and won't be there or will restrict who can enter. In my town there are many locking their doors in the day, you have to ring a bell. It's hurting business though and more and more are closing.

Certain stores have a threshold of amount stolen too. So they won't bother ringing the police if the items stolen are under £250. Security in my DH company have a zero hands on policy. It is mind boggling.

There is no ban on adults hitting people smaller than themselves children in England and NI, but it is banned in Wales and Scotland.
If you're thinking of schools, corporal punishment in state schools was banned in the UK by 1987, earlier in inner London, so we're looking at close to forty years of very complicated data.

Here's a summary of a longitudinal study that is about teens and some crimes. Even the researchers said the variables were so complex that simple analysis was very difficult.

https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Shoplifting-and-neighbourhood-crime-at-age-17-CLS-Policy-Briefing.pdf

Would be interesting to see if there is a link between under-age shop-lifting and things like: smacking ban, single parenting, parents working/not working, truancy rates at the local school, local school teacher turnover rates, an interesting one would be the # of non parental older figures active in the childrens lives etc I suspect most issues are related to the general community rather than anything else.

As stated, there is so much tech that could be used to stop shop lifting.

Door entry with access meter card
Exit only allowed with scanned receipt or having to go through security
Deposit to enter shop paid
Higher price items behind a literal paywall - like a vending machine
Argos type of shopping where you scan what you want, pay before accessing goods that are robotically delivered to you.
Recognition of items in basket that tots up value as you shop

Payment areas to go from fresh produce to tinned to frozen you have to pay for what you have for each section

I was sitting in a rest area in our local shopping centre. A woman nearby was showing her mates the meat she had just bought from a shoplifter. Several nice pieces of steak. I thought you are worse than the shoplifter. They took a risk, and you have benefited from it. The receivers of stolen property are as bad, if not worse, than those doing the stealing.

My sister worked in retail for years. She said the authorities weren’t interested unless the goods stolen totalled more than £100.

I haven’t seen it but all these posts sound terrible.

I saw this happen once in Tesco's.
The guy strolled right past the Security guard with 3 bottles of Spirits and some other booze.
I shouted to the SG "That Guy just walked past you without paying, stop him".
He did not, and when I asked why, he replied, "What can you do he's known for it."
Flabbergasted, I said, "Right, I can fill my trolley, and walk out without paying , and you are not going to stop me.
He said of course not, that man is known for it, you are not.
Believe me the conversation went on for a long time, but the upshot was that a thief can get away with it, an honest person cannot. And "Yes", I did report it to management, but was more or less given the same answer as the SG gave me.
Apparently if you are a seasoned shoplifter you're not worth the hassle it would entail.
Makes you proud to be British doesn't it?

There is no room in prisons, and people are walking the street having committed worse because there is nowhere to put them.

We never chopped hands off in this country. We hanged people. A lot.

We also put people in stocks in the town square so everyone could see them, and throw rubbish at them, if they were so minded.

I don't think we should bring back hanging.

Sentences need to be much longer for shoplifters. Repeat offenders should get a minimum of one year, with no early release for "good behaviour". And that should be in a real prison, without the free playstations and range of free food.

I work in loss prevention in retail.
Shoplifting has been a 'priority' for some local police forces & to be fair if the person is identified & the whole offence is covered by CCTV or witnessed then they do act - arrest that person, charge & court. Where I work there is about 60% of shoplifting offences result in prosecution.

They run stills from our CCTV through facial recognition tech which should pick up anyone who has come to police attention before. It tends to be the local small scale shoplifters who are caught whereas the large ORC 'gangs' evade prosecution as the cases are more complex & sophisticated. The major retailers collaborate to share info on ORC (organized retail crime) to identify those that pose the biggest threat to businesses.

There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes to tackle ORC & persistent offenders. It might not look obvious when you see someone run out with some booze but there is a lot of work being done.

Sentencing can be frustrating -we had a prolific shoplifter who received a 6 month prison sentence. She was released after 10 days!!

It certainly seems that way.

I can sit in my local Greggs for 40 minutes, and see at least 2 instances of shoplifting in that time. Often the same faces, and then chancers who see them do it and think why not (one time it was 2 young teens who tried, but I pretended to film with them my phone and they gave up).
They are so brazen, and don't care. I feel like a mug for paying 20p extra to sit in and watch them get freebies all the time.

A friend is manager of a big tesco, and they are not allowed to approach shoplifters. The security guard is there for show only.
Apparently this rule was brought in because previously a guard did tackle a shoplifter, had his arm broken in the process, and promptly sued tesco for far more than their shoplifting losses.

to be fair,thats what dp said
i only waited as i didnt want someone chasing me out and making a fuss in the car park
i had the receipt in my purse (it scanned a full £1.05! the ticket price was over a tenner)
not one person came near me but it wasnt for the lack of trying to alert someone

a friend of mine has a son who worked at budgins and he was forever catching shoplifters
the police asked (told) him to stop as he was making their figures look bad!
it shut down 6 months after he left

shoplifting is now lawless it seems