The rise of middle-class shoplifting
When you read the bad news of the recession, it’s all extremes.
GM’s laid off another 20,000. Abortions are way up. Lehman Brothers, a financial staple for almost 160 years, has been forced to liquidate.
But, looking back, there may be a deeper depression in discussing some of the more subtle consequences of the downturn.
Indeed, the recession’s most understated outcome might’ve been the disruption of normalcy – a downgrade in the family car; a lighter church donation; an “I think we’re just going to lay low tonight” excuse to your friends headed to that expensive restaurant – we were forced to cope with.
Some were able to brush this off from the start. We don’t care what other people think. We’re just trying to get by.
And that is as noble as it gets. Commendable all the way through.
Yet not everyone could adapt quite as well, and some – at the behest of social pressures, image-consciousness or a desire to maintain a certain lifestyle – found themselves doing the unthinkable to stay on top of things.
At least, that appears to be the reasoning behind this latest story from the (U.K.) Times, which reports middle-class shoplifting has spiked since the recession arrived.
According to the paper, theft of mid-level items like fresh meat and expensive fish and cheeses has increased dramatically. Overall shoplifting boomed by nearly 20 per cent in Europe last year alone.
“We are not simply looking at your traditional shoplifters here … this is epitomised in the recent uprising of the middle-class shoplifter, someone who has turned to theft to sustain their standard of living,” one source tells the Times.
“I suppose people want to carry on with their lifestyle but cannot afford (the things) that they used to be able to afford and now they just take it.”
Pretty disheartening, no?
When all of this financial collapse nonsense is dead and gone, we’re going to reflect on the lasting images of the downturn.
And we’ll think of a picket line outside a closed auto plant, a bewildered stock broker with his head in his hands and – perhaps now – a 40-something housewife stuffing a wheel of Gouda into her blouse.
By Jason Buckland, MSN Money
Posted by: FJ Tarasoff | Nov 17, 2021 1:09:11 AM
This should come as no surpise, as all forms of retail loss tends to increase during difficult economic times and specifically shoplifing tends to skyrocket. Some steal to survive, others steal to resell and make a living, while others try to maintain their socio-economic status. It just appears that the public is more surprised that the middle class would stoop to that level of stealing.
But I think retailers that take even a small bit of preventative action can easily reduce all forms of shoplifting especially from the middle class. This category of shoplifters rarely take unnecessary chances and a little bit of deterent can go along way. The good news for retailers is that they do not always have to spend a great deal of money to get good results.
Posted by: drkstr47 | Nov 17, 2021 11:33:46 AM
a couple of fake cameras & a sign would deter most "amateur" shoplifters ....
Posted by: Don | Nov 17, 2021 3:53:13 PM
Hopefully, if they have childern, they left them at home..
Posted by: mike | Nov 18, 2021 8:44:33 AM
I have worked in loss prevention before and most of the people I caught stealing were middle class women.
Posted by: Croos While You Can | Nov 19, 2021 10:10:08 AM
If these low lifes are caught stealing Galen Westons food they should be publicly flogged them sent to the Bastile for 25 years.