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?

Well that is preferable to people doing drugs openly in the street with no containment. Appalling degradation inflicted on everyone.

First offence police caution

Second offence: community service

Third offence: custodial sentence

It'd reduce overnight massively

If you decriminalise shop lifting then is it a surprise so many people just walk out with loot? Especially when they know the security won't touch them

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin_Craze

As I said, ignorance is no barrier to strong opinions 🙄

No, have never seen anything like that.

Retail staff have a dangerous job. They risk being attacked daily.
The public is fed up with these thugs causing problems, it will get worse, many people have sadly died a hero trying to right the wrongs.

Have you seen peaky blinders? I mean I know it’s actually fiction. I do understand that but the way it is portrayed is people coped with coming back from the first world war was to take enormous quantities of cocaine and alcohol.
Apparently, things did calm down a little bit until the next war kicked off By which point we developed the Valium so they were all addicted to that instead, Not to mention the vast quantities of heroin imported from Vietnam during that war.

So no people did not cope with their trauma without drugs. Legal or otherwise

You are wasting your time. The worst thing you can be according to MN is fat

My thoughts exactly. I’m not risking getting punched in the face by a thief.

On Friday night, I saw a bloke in a fish and chip shop paying for something with a £5 note. When the person behind the till gave him his change, the bloke said he gave him a tenner. So he got his food, his fiver back and some loose change. No way was I getting involved!

A custodial sentence in this day and age ??when they’re releasing hardcore criminals early because no room in prisons and not enough prisons. I doubt a petty thief will get a custodial sentence. More like slap on the wrist and set free to steal again and again and again!

Our local co-op was robbed by a well known thief . Apparently staff and customers stood and watched but didn’t forget to put it on Facebook .

Very sensible.

Yes but still depressing

I'm not saying it's a good thing. Law enforcement should be left to the police. But I do foresee that if petty crime becomes so commonplace, and the police and government are not seen to be making any effort at all to stop it, that people may take it up themselves to be vigilante law keepers, for better or for worse.

It has happened in other ways. Remember the group "Letzgohunting", who posed as teenagers online, to try to entrap paedophiles, and the police had to ask them to stop doing this, because their "evidence" would not stand up in court, and may compromise other genuine police investigations? And don't get me started on those who took it upon themselves to be the lockdown police.

Look at historic decades. centuries millenia.

Laundanum, Opium, Morphine, Heroin, Cocaine, Absinthe, Valium, Ativan, Dexamphetamine, Gin, Whiskey, Marijuana, Beer, Mescal, Psylocibin, Betel Nut, Coca Leaves, Khat, Ephedra, Nepenthe.

People have always suffered trauma and have always sought ways to feel differently.

You’re coming across as quite naive.

It doesn’t work like that. You don’t put someone addicted to drugs in prison, make them go cold turkey and then when you release them, expect them to be magically fixed of all issues. The reason they want to do drugs (trauma) still exists. They could be off drugs for a long period of time in prison, get released and go back to a life of drugs and crime again. Prison doesn’t fix peoples addiction, rehab has a much better chance. You don’t help people with harsh punishment, you help them by supporting them.

You want to support drug addicts.

I think support should be directed towards the shops and staff experiencing violent theft and the surrounding neighbourhood.

Using trauma as an excuse to take drugs is pathetic and shows weakness.

Decent people who experience trauma have counselling and do not take hard drugs.

Are there many drug addicts in your neighbourhood?

They did decide for a while that they wouldn’t attend when called by a shop if the theft was under £200

Additionally, when released, they tend to go back to the community they were in before prison because it’s the only social contact they have. There they are back with friends all still using and encouraging them to do do again. They still have the same issues, do it’s hard to resist.

Okay I’m out. You can’t understand what I’m saying and I don’t think you ever will.

also saying pathetic and weakness means I don’t want to engage with you any more

Thats not a general rule. That may be one force, but it's not how most forces work.

in my force If a shoplifter is detained we attend regardless of the amount. If they're not detained then a report will still be taken some in person, some by phone but thats influenced by how busy we are not the amount

Please tell me how traumatised, addicted people access and pay for counselling. We know that mental health services are practically non-existent as are counselling services unless you can pay around £90 per hour.
I am, however, much more incensed by the drug barons and their henchmen, living in their huge houses and driving expensive cars around.
I despise people who use coffee shops and restaurants that are obvious fronts for money laundering ditto the car washes and shops, the nail bars, the clubs that are all part of the organised crime, drug dealing and money laundering and their corrupt lawyers and accountants. If the police would deal with those people that would be a big help.
Shop lifting is a scandal, but it is the tip of a massive iceberg that has been facilitated by police and governments for decades.

If it wasn't for all the addicts, the drug barons and their henchman wouldn't have their huge houses and fancy cars.

The person that I mentioned who came home from school and found his mother dead at the bottom of the stairs was from an extremely affluent family. There were three children. All in private education
All supported through their grief with the best counselling services and mental health support available that money could buy
And those two things are different because sometimes all the money in the world doesn’t help.

And yet there they are weakly addicted to drugs, Pathetic beings because they’ve never got over the death of their mum when they were at Primary School.

I would imagine 99% of addicts have not had the support they have.

Oh and @Pistachioitaliano They may well live in your neighbourhood, Houses near the parents property start at 750,000. We’ve looked.

Druggies exist in rich and poor neighbourhoods. Not just ruining their own lives but destroying their home neighbourhood and the safety of other residents.

How can anyone not feel empathy for a child discovering the body of a parent. Truly horrendous. Something that would require complex counselling to progress with life.

BUT drugs do not help in any way. In fact drugs just adds to their severe problems. So no, drug addicts deserve punishment - for their sakes and the rest of society.