Ivey Marie Weiss, 49, of Ocala, was arrested yesterday and charged with shoplifting and engaging in a scheme to defraud after allegedly stealing over $160 in items from the Target store in Gainesville.
The prevalence of kleptomania in the U.S. general population is unknown but has been estimated at 6 per 1000 people, which translates into about 1.2 million of the 200 million American adults.
Kleptomania is thought to account for 5% of shoplifting. Based on total shoplifting costs of $10 billion in 2002, this 5% translates into a $500 million annual loss to the economy attributable to kleptomania.
This loss does not include the costs associated with stealing from friends and acquaintances or costs incurred by the legal system. Besides its grave toll on individuals and families, kleptomanic behavior carries serious legal consequences: approximately 2 million Americans are charged with shoplifting annually. If kleptomania accounts for 5% of these, this translates into 100,000 arrests.
For a moment I thought it was this one: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/moms-for-liberty-arrest-shoplifting-target-b2477747.html because both did it at Target and exactly in the same way and continued after being caught several times.
But kleptomania is more common than I thought:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535651/