To wonder why shoplifters are so thick and selfish?

[girlfriend44]

Pharmacies have today revealed they are suffering from increased shoplifting too.
Where us this all going to end

If people keep stealing there won't be any ships left will there?
Have they ever tried running a business?
What would they do if people kept stealing?
How low as well stealing from an independent pharmacy. It's hard enough for them as it is.

They are there for people in the community as well to help them?
Makes no sense.
People are thick and selfish.
Are they trying to ose everyone down?

🙄😪

Sure, I get that supermarkets don't sell (or have available to shoplift) heroin, and I'm certain that drug dealers wouldn't leave themselves open to 'customers' simply stealing it from them and running off.

But loads of alcohol in supermarkets doesn't have any security tags on it or anything to prevent you from sticking it in your bag and running. The main security is around age, and they don't ask you for ID unless and until you actually attempt to pay for it!

Or are they all only going for the really expensive wines with security tags on them? Even that only draws attention to you, but doesn't actually physically prevent you from leaving the store with it and bashing any protective collar off later.

If a baby is screaming in pain and you need Calpol but can't afford it what then? I'm sure some people would have no choice.

Most parents of young babies will have Calpol/own-brand equivalent in stock at home - assuming they could afford it, of course.

Wouldn't it be easier to knock on the door of a neighbour to ask if they could give/lend you some? I can't imagine most parents of babies would turn away a baby who is screaming in pain.

You'd still have to take your baby with you if you went to try to nick some from Tesco.

Great! I'll be over shortly to help myself to the contents of your shed or garden!

Unless people see the issues they cause, they don’t get it.

They want to be all inclusive, and welcoming and think that everyone has good intentions and most importantly, go out of their way not to sound racist. That’s great until they are using the local park toilet, which is what happens here.

I don’t think the people who are keen to pull you apart have actual experience of living around them.

As I said previously I had to steal food in my late teens. I had absolutely no idea what a food bank even was and it just would not have occurred to me that anyone might help me. Having the confidence to ask and the expectation that people are on your side is a privilege people don't even understand they are raised with.**

So much this. This is the product of Britain’s class system, and also the denial that it exists. It used to make me laugh when I saw sad pictures of middle class older people abroad saying that the state not helping them in whatever issue they’d made for themselves made them feel unvalued and unwanted: anyone born poor without inheritance KNOWS they’re unwanted and the category is expanding.

Shoplifting is linked to poverty not only by the direct and obvious problems of stealing food, but by the existence of the black market where groups steal to sell on to people living in estates, living in poverty, knowing that they can expect no help.

If you don’t want the black market to exist then we need to find better economic solutions in a time when there are not and never have been enough jobs, wages pay nothing like the cost of living, and essential education or training costs money we do not have, other than denial that this is happening.

ps edited to add no idea what happened to my formatting there, was supposed to be the last sentence of the quote that was in bold!

Don't they realise they are on cctv?
We often have their pictures and footage on local facebook groups asking if anyone knows who they are?

The pics are clear 😱 how bloody embarrassing I would literally die of shame if my pic/video was spread round my local Facebook groups.

😚

It’s a way of making money.. steal it and sell it on. Our government has more or less scrapped the police force, and the justice system really doesn’t enforce law in case it upsets people. For those of who don’t steal, everything gets more and more expensive. In effect, criminality is being complicity condoned.

Absolutely right. It’s just awful but people who don’t have any experience of them just don’t understand and immediately pull the racism card

I work in a pharmacy in England and this isn’t true in the region I’m in. Whereabouts are you?

People.just need to.treat others as they would like to.be treated and we wouldn't have a problem?
Would they like it if the boot was on the other foot?

Selfish, yes but I don't know about thick. There are pretty much no consequences for shoplifting aside perhaps from getting banned from a store which they will pretty much ignore I imagine, given that trespass isn't even a crime.

Because drugs like heroin and crack are very expensive. Users can end up needing to "earn" hundreds of pounds a day to just feed a fairly average drug habit.

Dealers can charge whatever they like - they are able to bring drugs into the country relatively easily, cut and distribute on to the streets via vulnerable young people to desperate addicts who need to use in order to function.

If people had easy access to medically approved alternatives and proper long term therapy, they would not need to feed their habits through theft, burglary, prostitution etc

But drug users don't get this because it's a criminal justice "problem" and the nhs can't fund decent drug treatment.

I don't think we should turn a blind eye to crime but I do think that the resources to address the actual problems are misdirected.

Lots of drug addicts etc won’t engage with therapy. I know some who have been to rehab and therapy and are on methadone. Still prefer to take any drugs they can get.
I also know a couple of alcoholics who steal alcohol.
The few I know got in with a bad crowd at school and never left. And they are in their late forties!

I blame the people who buy the cheap meat and laundry pods.

Methadone is the cheapest sticking plaster for a lifetime of addiction. There are much better drug treatment programmes out there but the government won't properly fund it.

And we can blame addicts for picking up the drug in the first place and not having the strength of character to say no. But addiction is an illness and should be treated like any other illness. It's also an illness that has a huge cost for communities in the form of crime, anti-social behaviour and safeguarding.

@WaryCrow

If you don’t want the black market to exist then we need to find better economic solutions in a time when there are not and never have been enough jobs, wages pay nothing like the cost of living, and essential education or training costs money we do not have, other than denial that this is happening.

Lots of people "working" in the black economy etc are certainly not on the bones of their arses and many are relatively well off. Many "could" work proper jobs (or self employment) and pay the right taxes, abide by the laws, etc if they wanted to, but they want "something for nothing", so evade tax, defraud benefits, steal, sell stolen/duty free/counterfeit goods, etc.

There are no consequences for stealing.
Once upon a time, there was a punishment including prison time.
These days, no prison space for medium/low crime, especially not for stealing

I'm in London.
To be honest the scheme might not exist anymore. I'm not sure. My daughter is 17 now and I know it was around about a decade ago.
Edit :
Apparently it comes under the NHS Minor Ailments Scheme and you can still get it if the pharmacist thinks your child needs it.

Not necessarily.

Well, some people can only afford to buy meat and laundry stuff from Pete behind the Wetherspoons. That’s the truth of it.

Really? Steak and expensive laundry pods.
Because it’s the expensive stuff that gets stolen.
Maybe they need to buy cheaper laundry detergent and buy mince.

Surely in this situation if you couldn't afford Calpol you'd take them to the GP or walk-in centre and all them to provide some Calpol

NO it really isn't. Most people doing that are doing it because they can, not because they're financially desperate. Look at those illegally selling duty free cigarettes and booze - most of the people buying have jobs and could afford to buy it in the shops, they just don't want to and get a buzz from buying it on the cheap, in the same way people like to buy counterfeit/fake perfumes, DVDs etc from car boot sales. They're the same people getting a buzz from tax evasion and benefit fraud by "getting one over on the man" or other stupid concepts!

At 7pm? All you need is calpol to sort the fever

You could either spend hours in a&e for some calpol or solve the issue by taking some from tesco

I couldn't judge a woman for that

Someone ran into my local wetherspoons kitchen recently, grabbed a load of packaged steaks and ran out again.
A lot of shoplifters are addicts. They need money to feed it and it is the only way they can get it. Then you have those who steal to order and/or to sell. Id say a very small minority are the ones who are on the bones of their arse needing to feed a baby etc.