Are shoplifters pretty much allowed to do as they please now?

[Easipeelerie]

In the last year, I’ve come across shoplifters frequently. I’ve mainly seen them operating in clothes shops and supermarkets. I was in a big clothes shop the other day and it was quiet so some staff were just chatting. Meanwhile, I was watching a woman with a system where she had a plastic bag hanging on a hook nearby and a big shoulderbag. She was filling the plastic bag with belts, I presume so that if she was challenged, she could say it wasn’t her bag. She then decanted to her shoulder bag and sped off. I told security the next day as they weren’t there that day - a shop in a big shopping centre with multiple entrances and no security on any of them.

The issue seems to me that often security are just not there. If they’re on a break or off for the day, there’s no one to replace them. When I’ve told security and shop staff what I’ve seen, they tell me they’re not allowed to challenge them. It makes me anxious shopping as I’m aware of what the shoplifters are doing whilst no one else around seems to know or care.

Do shops nowadays just build loss from shoplifting into their business plans?

It’s very naive to think prices are rising because of shoplifters.

They are one of the reasons, just not the only one.

I do wonder what would happen to society if there was a zero tolerance to the crimes that get ignored today. Shoplifting, burglaries, flashers, assaults, drugs, antisocial behaviour. Obviously not the prison places for them all but perhaps electronic tagging and a strict curfew system.

Im not sure ignoring the crimes actually does the perpetrators much good. I think criminal behaviour becomes embedded because there is no “nipping it in the bud” before it gets out of hand.

Surely the absolute basics of running a business involve how much money you have to end up with after paying out for all of your costs and allowing for the profit you need/want to make it all worth your while (or just survive)?

A shop's primary (usually only) income stream comes from the money that customers pay them in return for their goods that they have had to pay to buy in (albeit at a lower price).

If you allow for covering all of your overheads such as wholesale costs, staffing, electricity, lighting, transport, property purchase/rent costs, desired profit and many others, to help you decide when setting your prices high enough to bring in the income that you require, why on earth would you just ignore the millions lost to theft?

I don't getthe worrying over this..if you really thought about all 'tye bad' happening whilst shopping you'd go insane.
Think about the exploitation that has allowed some of these products to be this price. Think about the impact on the environment of the massive amounts of waste. Think how many animals had to die needlessly to stock the freezers with meat.. half of which no one will even buy.
Shoplifters are right atthe back of my mind regarding harm in the shopping scenario.. and tbh I shut it all off.
I feel helpless about a lot of things in life. Getting aggro about what is mostly quite vulnerable people just trying to survive, is not high up on my list of things on which to expend my energy.

I completely agree.

I wonder how many people who go on to commit serious, devastating crimes originally began with the mindset that they could just ignore the law and do whatever they wanted - first with relatively low-level crimes and then maybe escalating as they realised there was nobody really interested in stopping them?

There was an item on the BBC news website yesterday about how Apple stores in Japan don't bother chaining up or securing their expensive display products - as they automatically do in most of the rest of the world - because there's such a prevailing social understanding there that, if an item doesn't belong to you and you haven't paid to buy it, why ever would you think of taking it?

My DS works for a large department store. A couple of weeks ago a retired policeman caught someone shoplifting approx £400 of clothes etc. The police/store weren’t going to arrest/prosecute as stuff return but then the police searched him and he was carrying a knife so was arrested for that🤷‍♀️

My DS says they are actively working behind the scenes to build cases against these individuals so if you see someone shoplifting report it and then they look at CCTV work out how much was taken and by whom (as it’s normally the same people) and when the amalgamated amounts are big enough they get them arrested (ie the police knock on their doors)

I incidentally caught someone in his store shoplifting a few weeks ago (it makes me so angry as all the staff work so hard and we all work so hard to earn the money to buy stuff) I mentioned it quietly to a member of staff so the shoplifter was unaware that they were being clocked. Well this member of staff (a lady of a certain age😉) went straight up to this person, yelled “no stop” whilst grabbing the persons arm, cue other staff and customers crowding this person resulting in this person being escorted off the premises, empty handed (and yes, they were known to the store as a previous offender). I was thanked for letting them know but I was surprised how many people were willing to help, maybe we are all just getting fed up of it.

The staff member I reported it too said she had suggested tasers to stop in a meeting😁 and that she shouldn’t really have stopped them as they are advised not too as you don’t know what they are carrying (as above) but she said it made her so angry!

Just been on National news a shop owner in Truro has made 50 citizens arrests - I bloody love living in Cornwall

The phrase "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." comes to mind with the current shop management/police attitude with shop lifting.

If noone stops them from shoplifting, then what else can they get away with unchallenged? Also why shouldn't everyone then just shoplift as it's not really seen as a crime?

Exactly. And if we don't protect public spaces how long before it extends to peoples properties? And should people stop caring then? Noone has a right to steal from anyone.