Shoplifting

Other forms of shoplifting include swapping price labels of different items, return fraud, or consuming food and drink at a grocery store without paying for it.

Commonly shoplifted items are those with a high price in proportion to their size, such as disposable razor blades, electronic devices, vitamins, alcoholic beverages, and cigarettes.

Stores use a number of strategies to reduce shoplifting, including storing small, expensive items in locked glass cases; chaining or otherwise attaching items (particularly expensive ones) to shelves or clothes racks; attaching magnetic or radio sensors or dyepacks to items; installing curved mirrors mounted above shelves or video cameras and video monitors, hiring plainclothes store detectives and security guards, and banning the bringing in of backpacks or other bags.

First, the labels will split apart upon attempted removal, and second, virtually all retail cashiers now scan items at the register, rather than relying on price stickers.

This leaves areas of ambiguity that could criminalize some people for simple mistakes, such as accidentally putting a small item in a pocket or forgetting to pay.

Most retailers are aware of the serious consequences of making a false arrest, and will only attempt to apprehend a person if their guilt is beyond a reasonable doubt.

[citation needed] In England and Wales, theft is defined as "dishonestly appropriate[ing] property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and "thief" and "steal" shall be construed accordingly.

[5] Rutgers University criminologist Ronald V. Clarke says shoplifters steal "hot products" that are "CRAVED", an acronym he created that stands for "concealable, removable, available, valuable, enjoyable, and disposable".

The first documented shoplifting started to take place in 16th-century London, and was carried out by groups of men called lifters.

In 1591, playwright Robert Greene published a pamphlet titled The Second Part of Cony Catching, in which he described how three men could conspire to shoplift clothes and fabric from London merchants.

[11][7] In 1699, the English Parliament passed The Shoplifting Act, part of the Bloody Code that punished petty crimes with death.

Some merchants found The Shoplifting Act overly severe, jurors often deliberately under-valued the cost of items stolen so convicted shoplifters would escape death, and reformist lawyers advocated for the Act's repeal, but The Shoplifting Act was supported by powerful people such as Lord Ellenborough, who characterized penal transportation as "a summer airing to a milder climate" and the archbishop of Canterbury, who believed that strong punishment was necessary to prevent a dramatic increase in crime.

In his 1970 book Do It: Scenarios of the Revolution, American activist Jerry Rubin wrote "All money represents theft...shoplifting gets you high.

In her book The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting, social historian Rachel Shteir described how shoplifting from companies you dislike is considered by some activist groups, such as some freegans, decentralized anarchist collective CrimethInc, the Spanish anarchist collective Yomango and the Canadian magazine Adbusters, to be a morally defensible act of corporate sabotage.

[16][17][18] Commonly shoplifted items are usually small and easy to hide, such as groceries, especially steak and instant coffee, razor blades and cartridges, small technology items such as vapes, smartphones, USB flash drives, earphones, gift cards, cosmetics, jewelry, multivitamins, pregnancy tests, electric toothbrushes, and clothing.

This tactic is used because busy employees may simply not notice a person pushing a cart out without paying or walking out wearing a store-owned coat.

Many stores instruct employees other than those directly involved in theft prevention or security to confront someone only verbally to avoid any possibility of being held liable for injury or unwarranted detention.

While that may allow stolen goods to not be recovered, the loss of revenue may be judged to be acceptable in light of the cost of a potential lawsuit or an employee being injured by a fleeing shoplifter.

[1] In several countries, criminal flash mobs, primarily made up of teenagers and young adults, enter stores with the intention of stealing merchandise while accomplices distract staff.

Psychosocial motivations may include peer pressure, a desire for thrill or excitement, impulse, stealing because judgment is clouded by intoxication, or doing so because of a compulsion.

[27] Sociologists call these narratives neutralizations, meaning mechanisms people use to silence values within themselves that would otherwise prevent them from carrying out a particular act.

Observers believe that industry shoplifting numbers are over half employee theft or fraud and the rest by patrons.

[35][36] Researches say that around the world, in countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Japan, and India, people tend to shoplift the same types of items, and frequently even the same brands.

In Milan, saffron, an expensive component of risotto alla Milanese, is frequently shoplifted, and throughout Italy, parmigiano reggiano is often stolen from supermarkets.

Bookstores and magazine sellers in Japan have also complained about what they call "digital shoplifting", which refers to the photographing of material in-store for later reading.

Packaged cheese has been the most frequently shoplifted item in Norway, with thieves selling it afterwards to pizza parlours and fast food restaurants.

Store officials may detain for investigation (for a reasonable length of time) the person who they have probable cause to believe is attempting to take or has unlawfully taken merchandise (see shopkeeper's privilege).

Physical measures include implementing a one-way entry and exit system, protected with devices such as "shark teeth" gates to ensure trolleys can only pass through one way.

Sophisticated CCTV systems discriminate the scenes to detect and segregate suspicious behaviour from numerous screens and to enable automatic alerting.

EAS refers to the electronic security tags that are attached to merchandise and cause an alarm to sound on exiting the store.