Shoplifting appeals to entitled losers
By Emma Camp of The WSJ. Excerpts:
"According to one 2025 survey, the likelihood that someone would purposefully take an item at self-checkout without scanning actually increased with income.
"A report from the Council on Criminal Justice released earlier this year found that while reported shoplifting decreased during the pandemic, rates have returned to roughly prepandemic levels."
"several shoplifters who were caught stealing from Whole Foods. None were acting out of necessity, and most stole what can accurately be described as luxury goods—$30 eye cream, strip steak, fancy organic chocolate. None expressed guilt"
"one explicitly justified her actions as being . . . “a kind of artist’s subsidy.”"
"That they can’t indulge in such luxuries [like French cheese] feels to them like a moral outrage, one that can be rectified, in some small way, by taking what’s owed to them."
"When shoplifters justify their actions online, they make themselves out to be Robin Hoods. They claim it’s good to steal from large, and therefore evil, corporations."
Also see U.K. Priest Says Sometimes It's OK To Shoplift from NPR in 2009. Excerpts:
"Rev. Tim Jones created an international uproar on Sunday when he told his congregation that it is sometimes justifiable for desperately needy people to steal from stores."
"Last Sunday, Father Tim Jones spoke from his pulpit at St. Lawrence and St. Hilda in York, England about the needs of the poor. He asked his flock to consider how difficult a life in poverty can be and - then how hard it could be to get help. There are waiting lists just to see a social worker. He said, it's a hard time for anyone to find a job. Loan sharks and begging come at too high a price. Local charities may be good only for some cereal and toast every morning.
What to do? Well, to quote the reverend, my advice in these circumstances, when people have been let down so very badly by the rest of society is that they should not hurt anybody and cope as best they can. The strong temptation is to burgle or rob people, family, friends, neighbors, strangers. Others are tempted toward prostitution, a nightmare world of degradation and abuse for all concern. Others are tempted towards suicide. Instead, I would rather that they shoplift. My advice as a Christian priest is to shoplift. No surprise these words quickly started a controversy. The Church of England on its Web site quickly rejected the call to shoplift."
There is a good discussion with law and philosophy professor Anita Allen.
