The Scourge of Shoplifting

“People need to eat!” the young black lady screamed into the camera. “People need to eat!” she hollered again, in case people a mile away didn’t hear her the first time.

OK, I get it, people need to eat. But why shout something so obvious at the top of your lungs? Simply because the young lady, who looked like a few missed meals would do her some good, was trying to justify looting the store behind her.

Once her bags were filled to the brim, she proceeded to bellow in an even louder voice, “Free iPhones! Free iPhones” as a band of hoodlums gathered up as many “free” smartphones as they could possibly carry.

If this were an isolated event, we might be apt to just blow it off as a societal aberration. Unfortunately, it is a daily occurrence in cities large and small across America. So much so that stores are being forced to lock up basic necessities behind glass to reduce theft.

“They’re stealing soap, little bars of soap,” President Trump said incredulously while speaking at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual Road to Majority conference last week. A Walmart shopper in Dallas TX verified Trump’s claim, saying that it took her 20 minutes to buy some Dove soap because it was locked behind glass.

“I can imagine,” said a trucker on the same video clip. “Times are hard for everyone, but it doesn’t make it right to steal.”

“Thank the shoplifters for this!” another frustrated woman chimed in.

Meanwhile, major retail chains such as Target and Walmart as well as drug store giants like CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid are abandoning some inner-city locations. Sure, there are some ancillary reasons for the urban exodus including a lack of parking, but a recent surge in shoplifting as well as assaults on store personnel made the decision an easy one for corporate officials.

Shoplifting losses, known in the industry as “shrink rates,” rose from 1.4% in FY 2021 to 1.6% in FY2022. While a .2% increase in store thefts may not sound like much, the higher shrink rate accounts for $112.1 billion in retail losses.

And guess who winds up paying for the lost revenue? That’s right; law-abiding citizens in the form of higher prices.

I experienced the shoplifting scourge first-hand just the other day. Needing to replace a broken phone charger, I stopped by Staples last Saturday to buy a new one. It was on sale for just $13.99, which is not a bad price for an NXT 6-foot cable… but a lot to pay for an empty box.

That’s right, folks, when I opened the box in my car to install my new charger, it was missing. When I went back inside and showed it to the cashier, he said “You’d be surprised.” What he meant was that shoplifting everything from $13.99 phone chargers to laptops, printers, and other office equipment is off the charts.

Heading back to my car with a replacement box that felt a little heavier than the empty one, I imagined hearing that same out-of-control lady screaming, “People need phone chargers!” as she stuffed one in each pocket and a third (and fourth) in her purse, which I’m guessing was also stolen.

As best I can recall, the only thing I ever stole in my life was a 25-cent pack of baseball cards from my hometown 5 &10 store when I was about eight. However, my “crime spree” only lasted a few minutes before my guilty conscience plagued me so badly that I went back, fessed up to the manager, and paid for the pack (stale gum and all) in full.

Likewise, while I was in Kentucky a few weeks ago, our family stopped for lunch at a local pizza parlor that made their pies to order cafeteria style. As we got ready to leave, Deanna noticed that they had only charged us for two small pizzas when, in fact, we had ordered and eaten three. Without batting an eye, I went back to the cashier and told him that he had undercharged us. Dumbfounded, he corrected the bill and thanked me not once, not twice, but three times for being so honest.

“Most people would have just walked out,” he said. Well, friends, we as Americans – and me as a Christian – aren’t just “most people,” so let’s start acting like it.