In Europe where food prices and energy costs are rocketing due to the war in Ukraine and rampant inflation, many families are faced with the dilemma of either paying for food or heating. You can’t steal heat but you can shoplift a heater. Or food and clothes. This has led to the Shifting Movement which exists anonymously on the dark web, where posters share tips on techniques and good locations to shoplifting. Flash mobs agree to meet and storm a shop, leaving security guards powerless to stop them by the sheer force of their numbers.
Shoplifting has been around for ages and retailers have been employing ever more sophisticated tactics to prevent or at the very least deter the bad people from stealing. Recently, the practice has taken on a moral dimension as an act of rebellion against a corporate world that does not care about the little people who are struggling to stay afloat in a sea of sharks.
Shoplifting is now considered as a larceny and is usually punishable by a fine or community service, though repeat offenders will get a prison sentence. In some Middle east countries, amputation of one or both arms is the punishment handed down. In 1699, the English Parliament passed The Shoplifting Act, part of the Bloody Code that punished petty crimes with death. People convicted of shoplifting items worth more than five shillings would be hanged in London’s Tyburn Tree (known as the “Tyburn jig”) with crowds of thousands watching, or would be transported to the North American colonies or to Botany Bay in Australia.
It estimated that 0.6% of all retail inventory is stolen, a figure that may increase as economic hardship increases. The global retail industry lost an estimated $34 billion in sales in 2020 to shoplifting, which is approximately 2 percent of total revenue. Shoplifting is the largest single reason for loss of merchandise.[34]
In the 1960s, shoplifting began to be reimagined again, not as a crime against society as a political act. In his 1970 book Do It: Scenarios of the Revolution, American activist Jerry Rubin wrote “All money represents theft. Don’t buy. Steal.” In The Anarchist Cookbook, published in 1971, American author William Powell gave advice how to shoplift. American activist Abbie Hoffman in Steal This Book argued that shoplifting is anti-corporate. Activist groups, such as some freegans, and the anarchist collective CrimethInc have defended shoplifting as a conscious act of corporate sabotage.
In most cases shoplifting is not a political statement. Often it is sheer desperation. Psychosocial motivations include peer pressure, the sheer thrill of it, impulse stealing when jacked on alcohol or other substances, or simply because of a compulsion. Shoplifting often occurs as a way of dealing with family or marital stress, achieving a small victory.
Shoplifting is a covert means of social interaction for those living in isolation. Add to the mix, past loss, a sense of being victimised, childhood trauma to the stew of psychological conditions of the shoplifter, larceny is in many people a form of psychosis.
It’s not just poor people who shoplift. Actors and intellectuals get in on the act.
French writer and political activist Jean Genet was arrested in Paris for shoplifting a dozen handkerchiefs from the department store Samaritaine in 1937. Genet was a hero for the French Existentialist philosophers.
Actress Hedy Lamarr was arrested for shoplifting in Los Angeles in 1966. The charges were eventually dropped. In 1991, she was arrested on the same charge in Florida, this time for $21.48 worth of laxatives and eye drops. She pleaded “no contest” to avoid a court appearance, and in return for a promise to refrain from breaking any laws for a year, the charges were once again dropped.
British radio and television personality Lady Isobel Barnett was found guilty of shoplifting in 1980. Such was her shame and ensuing depression that she committed suicide four days after her guilty verdict.
Actress Winona Ryder was arrested for shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue department store in Beverly Hills, California in 2001. Ryder was eventually convicted of misdemeanor theft and vandalism and became eligible for expungement of the conviction after finishing probation in 2005. Ryder convicted by a jury of felony larceny/vandalism and was sentenced in a nationally televised California Superior Court becoming a public spectacle, her psychological issues played out to a voyeuristic public.
Former Trump apologist and conspiracy theorist Rudy Giuliani’s daughter Caroline Giuliani was arrested for shoplifting five beauty items worth about $100 from a Sephora store in Manhattan in August 2010. She was later offered a free walk in return for a day of community service and six months without a further offense.
A report on the University of Queensland student maggazinr Semper Floreat set out the political moral justification grounds , defending shoplifting, making the case for a moral imperative and legitimate action for the working class to take in ongoing class war. Staying above the poverty line, for many, is a full-time job. After a lengthy list of shoplifting tips, the Semper Floreat said the group does not endorse or condone illegal activity, but recognises that breaking the law is sometimes a human right.
Two anonymous pensters. Robin Hood and Aladdin A, have self-published their guide How to Shoplift: A Philosophical Handbook. emphasising the robin hood theme of stealing from the rich (The Sheriff of Walmart?) to give to the poor. Over 170 pages they give expert shoplifting tips with advice on how to shoplift confidentially, exploit blind spots, how not to leave evidence, and how the potential shop larcenist can get away with it, a Shoplifting for Dummies. The book can be purchased on print on demand , presumably because the authors don’t want their book to be stolen in traditional books stores. Those thieves. And just in case the long arm of the law does unmask their identities and charge them with enjoying the benefits of crime, the authors add that the book does not suggest that the reader shoplift or break the law. While describing themselves a career shoplifters, they claim their literary endeavour is a fictional how-to book and should be used for educational, philosophical, and entertainment purposes only, as well as a great resource for people in many professions, such as retailers, store detectives, loss prevention specialists, law officers, anarchists, scientists, researchers, and philosophers who may greatly benefit from the book.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Shoplift-Philosophical-Robin-Hood/dp/1697664644
Another site pdfcoffee lists in seven chapters the essential techniques of a successful shop thief.
- Before You Start Shoplifting
- Risk Management
- Common Shoplifting and Return-Fraud Methods
- Loss Prevention
- Security Tags
- Shoplifting Tools
https://pdfcoffee.com/the-art-of-shoplifting-pdf-free.html
The problem that shoplifters face in defending their actions on the grounds of class war against corporate greed, is that the poorest neighbours are the most targeted, according to the Retail Association. Walgreens reported that it closed 10 stores in the San Francisco area between 2019 and 2020, primarily due to a surge in theft. The poorer the demographic. the higher the incidences.
Increasingly security guards are turning a blind eye to food theft. And increasingly the middle classes are slipping the extra item into their bags without scanning the correct quantity. The newly impoverished middle classes steal a better, healthier and organic type of food.
Store detectives, CCTV cameras, barcodes and asset protection devices monitor the modern shopper. It’s Tom and Jerry. Sleight of hand. Steal but don’t get caught. Poor people do it. Rich people do it. The democratisation of theft has arrived.
