Shoplifting - have public scuffles with other customers become a thing??

[FurCoatNoKnickz]

Twice in the last week, I’ve witnessed members of the public stepping in to stop shoplifting, with pushes and scuffles breaking out. I had to call the police. It felt like shoppers are starting to get fed up, butt in, shout things, physically prevent people, push shoplifters and even scuffle.

Are other people noticing this elsewhere?

Not if they use violence to do so.

Personally, if they were parents or responsible for caring for older people, no. Money and cards can be replaced.

Surge in shoplifting in part is due to bad parenting and no discipline. We need consequences for those who commit crime and also punishment for bad parenting if the individual is under 18.

If they won’t get prosecuted (by crown prosecution service not police) then police have no reason to arrest them…

The police and courts are different entities. Also the police don’t make the law (again different entities)

Using violence to prevent a crime is OK IMO.

Shops will close and then people will moan there are no shops nearby but at some point Tesco or Morrison will decide it’s too expensive to trade and only ‘nice’ areas will have access to shops.

"Nice" areas are not immune. Probably about 8 years ago I was in a supermarket in the fairly "nice" town we live in. I noticed some customers behaving in a way I thought looked a bit dodgy. As I left the supermarket 2 of them left with armfuls of shopping and ran to a waiting car, they were pretty blatant about it. That was before self checkout but I imagine it's way worse now. The charity shops are regularly targeted and expensive/designer stuff is stolen.

DH was buying something in Tesco in central London recently, a couple came in, helped themselves to a couple of bottles of wine and left. The cashier said it happened frequently....so it happens everywhere

Lucky you don't make the rules then 🙄

I work in a supermarket where shoplifting is out of control. 90% of the shoplifters we have are well into adulthood and most of them are clearly addicted to something.
Not everything can be blamed on young people. Who, can I add and off topic, are - on the whole - the most polite, well mannered and patient out of all of the age groups I serve.

I work in a shop, and yes this has become a thing. Both staff and customers are fed up with the brazen shoplifting. Many of the shoplifters only speak broken English, and seem to think it’s ok/legal to come in and take stuff. Because their English is poor it’s hard to explain to them that it isn’t. The police said they won’t respond to shoplifting incidents unless the goods stolen are over a certain amount. But people think that means it’s now legal to take goods up to that amount.

Do we work in the same shop 🤣

Hear, hear. Most rudeness I witness in shops comes from older people (about my age).

I must walk about with my eyes closed, though, because I’ve only seen one incidence of shoplifting in my life, about 10 years ago at a large supermarket in Brighton.

I agree teenagers aren't the problem. Plus under 16s can't be let go a parent has to fetch them and if their not available the police are called and they take them home or to the station

At least 90% of shoplifting is either addicts or organised Eastern European gangs. It is not kids or people trying to feed family.

This is another thing - the idiotic left-wing view that shoplifters are heroes ‘fighting da system’. In reality many of them are vicious, arrogant and entitled. It isn’t the loving, hard-working single mum who is stealing. On the contrary, she’s probably stuck behind the till and being threatened and abused.

Eh? I’m not in the police and as far as I know a light doesn’tgo off saying police officers other half has reported a crime! how would they know, even when the police arrived at the house my husband didn’t mention he was in the police he never ever does.

Drug addiction is a massive problem and i think this needs major punishment. Rehab doesn't work as they see they can get away with it.
Why do people become addicts? No punishment/ no consequences/ poor parenting.

He didn’t provide his name?

True. The rudest people I have ever met have been wealthy old men. Time and again the rough looking guy with a shaved head and tattoos will have beautiful manners and speak to me like a gentleman. Whereas the man who looks like a gentleman has the manners of a pig.

Well said!

The old guy needs to learn manners (it is never too late). BUT is he the balaclava machete wielding person terrorising Costco staff and customers as he empties the shelves??

In the vast majority of cases, addicts become that way because of shit/dysfunctional or abusive parenting. Obviously some people do have the strength and intelligence to break the cycle, and others, who grew up in loving families, go off the rails. In general, though, people raised in chaos, with no moral compass and no love, end up in these awful cycles of addiction and crime. The only real solution is to discourage violent, abusive people from having children in the first place. But since that will never happen we just have to live with it. Nothing really works.

I set off the security alarm as I left Sainsbury’s recently because (unknown to me at the time) the shop worker hadn’t removed the security tag from a bottle of whisky I’d bought as the bottle was in a box and it hadn’t occurred to her or me that there was a tag there to remove. Anyway, I just carried on walking and nothing happened. No-one from the shop approached me to investigate this apparent theft. So if I had nicked the whisky, I would have got away with it.

The couple that I pointed out to the staff at our local co-op were a mother and daughter team stealing meat to sell on.

Absolutely this. Anyone who thinks being a drug addict is fun/ a life choice/ something to sneer at needs to read the book Chasing The Scream.

Drug addiction is simply a symptom/ the result of a larger issue (mental health issues usually from childhood abuse or neglect, or as a result of unfortunate life events eg death of a spouse/child, losing job, house, redundancy, divorce). The solution would be supporting society and a stable life to ensure people don’t turn to drugs to numb their pain

@MatildaMovesMountains - would you say violence is acceptable if it is to foil a terrorist, eg hitting someone hijacking a plane… or should the public never intervene?