Sure, stealing is wrong. But there’s a limit, if you’re operating a store as poorly as Dollar General, stealing from stores that actively take advantage of both the community and the staff is moral. They were receiving so much stuff that the cashier/cleaner/stocker-in-one can’t get them out of the boxes in time for the next shipment, should just be giving those boxes away.

“a moral panic”… generating this is standard operating procedure for the people in charge.

if you want to bring the hammer down, develop ‘a moral panic’ and get those susceptible constituents to go along with it.

hate brown people? pretend there is an immigration problem. scared of homosexuals? dont ya know, theyre comin to convert your kids.

“a moral panic” is the rod conservatives use to beat their voters into submission with.

“For social order we need tighter reigns! Incarceration hasn’t worked as a deterrent, I say we expand execution to include lesser crimes!” - Chief Judge Griffin, Judge Dredd (1995)

“Over the last couple of years, it seemed that America was experiencing a shoplifting epidemic.”

You are, it seems to be obvious to everyone except some of you in your own country.

Quite literally less crime is occurring every year. Got to keep those private prisons filled.

I think this article is alright but doesn’t quite address an important issue: for the cities that are encountering increased shoplifting, do we have an idea why? As the article states, most cities saw a decrease in shoplifting when compared to their lowest numbers before things got weird (usually around 2019, before the pandemic). Some important exception were Los Angeles and New York which have seen increased shoplifting numbers. So the idea that shoplifting has increased is technically true in at least those 2 cities. The council on Criminal Justice report, linked in the vox article, provides some of the following information on what may be the why:

It is possible that the growth in incidents in the three cities with the largest increases could be related to shoplifting “specialists,” such as those highlighted by New York City Mayor Eric Adams earlier this year.10 A small group of individuals committing a large share of offenses is a common finding in criminological research11 However, it is unclear why a group of specialists would drive such a large increase during this period compared to the pre-pandemic period. Bail reform is one possible explanation, yet the timing of the reform (at least in New York) does not align with the shoplifting increase, and research suggests that bail reform likely has no association with increased larceny.12 Another possibility is a change in the rate at which stores report shoplifting to police. This analysis is based solely on reported shoplifting incidents; the underreporting of shoplifting has yet to be systematically analyzed. However, data from the Anaheim (California) Police Department indicate that a major retailer reported 8% of shoplifting incidents in 2022 and 20% in 2023.13 According to one report, a spike in San Francisco shoplifting may have resulted from increased reporting.14 If retailers in some cities increased reporting, then that would increase the count of shoplifting offenses even if there was no actual increase. Researchers can use the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to gauge if reporting levels have changed for crimes that involve people or their possessions.15 But businesses are not included in the NCVS sample. In addition, the National Retail Security Survey does not provide data on the share of incidents reported to police.16

Sadly, it seems that we don’t have a concrete reason for the increased shoplifting in select cities.

Citations Needed had an episode about this. Extraordinary bullshit media narrative around shoplifting

And barely a peep about corporate price gouging, wage slavery, etc etc