Rachel Shteir: "The Steal"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-07-12/rachel-shteir-steal
Nearly one in 10 people have shoplifted. Many consider themselves addicts in the grip of a disease who need treatment and understanding. But society can’t decide whether to treat shoplifting as a guilty secret or a serious felony. Shoplifting is a burden shared by everyone – retailers inflate the prices of products to cover their shoplifting debts. Author Rachel Shteir takes us into the murky world of the five-fingered discount and explores what is behind the compulsion to steal. Do the penalties befit the crime, and why is it still on the rise despite centuries of effort to rein it in?
Guests
Rachel Shteir
author of "Striptease" and "Gypsy."
Comments
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
Does the definition of this 'disease' account for banksters and their behavior?
Taking someones money, losing it, and still taking a cut is, in my view, a very perverse form of stealing.
Is Shteir overlooking how poverty might underpin one's propensity to shoplift? By considering this merely a psychological condition does this indirectly suggest the poor is pathological?
How does the sense of entitlement fostered by the government contribute to this issue?
Is the stealing of information via phone hacking a disease? Sounds like we need a support group, not criminal prosecution.
Is it stealing to do a strategic default on your mortgage? Obviously it's not my fault I'm underwater on my house.
Lindsey Lohan, Wynonna Rider, etc. can you you really feel sorry for them? Spoiled rotten brats. A person who steals for need differs greatly from those who do so for attention. Need, not greed, is what should be considered the problem. To call theft for greed a disease, is to justify a lack of self-respnsiblity. Nothing is our own fault anymore. Dad was a drunk, mom was emotionally unavailable, etc....blah, blah. This kind of psyco-babble is designed to keep certain individuals from having to suffer the consequences of their actions. Like going to sex rehab is to celebrity cheaters, theft rehab is to celebrity crooks. Double standards have become the American standard.
As someone who suffers from another "impulse control disorder" (trichotillomania) I can fully accept that SOME shoplifters truly do have a psychological problem that should be addressed with therapy. I do not think that this would apply to all shoplifters, though. Is there testing available to correctly identify these differences?
I have a family member who also has trichotillomania and was also found to have been stealing large amounts of money from the family business. I have to believe that her impulse control is severely impaired and led to her misdeeds. Although I believe that she should be held accountable, I do think that this disorder should be taken into account.
A relative of my ex-husband was quite well off but shop lifted on a regular basis. It was said that she did this because she was powerless in her relationship with her husband who was quite controlling. Is this common?
I was so glad to see this controversial topic discussed on your show. My daughter was diagnosed in early adolescence with clinical depression and most likely had Borderline Personality Disorder. Shoplifting was a behavior she exhibited early on. She was mortified when she was arrested for shoplifting in her late 20s. She tried to explain the compulsiveness of her act and the "rush" it gave her. She hated the fact she did it but her control of her behavior was sporadic. (I will add that she was a compulsive shopper also.) These behaviors were part of a much bigger "package" of disorders but as a society we only want to look at the disorders as "sins" and ascribe punishment for them.
Last year my daughter took her life - at age 33 - unable to come to grips with her despair. We must come to grips with the psychological aspects of this behavior. It often has nothing to do with wanting the material goods.
I work as a Loss Prevention Officer, shop lifting seems to go hand in hand with drug addiction. In the case of my stores, I come across most thieves as being sent out by drug dealers to obtain merchandise in exchange for drugs most prevalent being meth. However the converse of my run ins are wealthy contractors who steal merchandise in order to save on overhead costs, but pass the unclaimed cost to consumers of their services. In the end I suppose my point is this crime is fueled by self gratification and greed. The disease aspect is a cop-out, people lack self discipline and morality.
I Haven't read Rachel's "gypsy" but I was wondering if after researching gypsies, Rachel became interested in shoplifting. I grew up in the catholic church in a small-town in Mississippi and every year or so the gypsies would come through and rob us blind. Please comment.
I think we can anticipate more desperation shoplifting as American incomes and our holey safety net continue to fail. Even televised public whippings would be no deterant against hunger and absolute deprivation.
But at present most retail shrinkage is the result of organized crime and insider corruption. Lucrative stealing is often perpetrated by organized . teams supervised by experts. And yet even this is a carney game using the desperate poor and drug addicts. Crashing a window to load up on cigarettes is a good example.
The real stealing is at the financial level in this society and involves fraud and embezzlement. It is structural and systematic. It is condoned and even glorified.
Finding the theft of a cache luxury disgusting on its face without realizing the item in question costs only a tiny fraction of its price to make and ship, and is made by wage slaves under dire conditions, itself betrays a sickness of fetishism and systematic exploitation in our society. The curiosity of today's show is that it comes across as a warning against naughty theft by comfortable adolescents. But in its effect it is more an admonition not to try to acquire goods above one's station than anything else. In other words this is an exercise in classism and monetary etiquette. ("This is for rich, glamorous, successful people and not you.")Shoplifting is far from being a big problem as compared to bigger corruptions and is symptomatic of a larger pervasive lapse of ethics. We are too far into the process of societal cascade collapse to worry about the minor aggravations of gargantuan corporate retailers. How can you put Murdoch's stealing of cultural truth on the same level as palming a nickle candy? This is a punitive and regressive approach. Rachel Shteir's analysis seems too immersed in consumer culture to be meaningful.
Here in Cincinnati we had a professional baseball pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds get caught stealing four shirts from Macy's in downtown Cincinnati.
What if one of us 'commoners' get caught doing the same thing?
As of right now, he's had a slap on the wrist, maybe a fine, and was sent back to the minors for a while.
For the rest of 'us', it's jail time, a fine, retribution, and possible legal costs.
On the bright side, when you make a 'minimum' wage of $400,000+(before his next contract), you can afford to have your "disease" treated.
And don’t get me started on the banks...
Nowadays, more and more human problems are associated with some kind of psychological disease, particularly crimes - misdemeanor or serious. I think it is a matter where you draw the line. Otherwise, all criminals will have some kind of excuse that the crime is not the criminal's crime; rather it is a psychological urge.
Question already asked of sorts. Explain the difference between the compulsion to steal a physical item and the compulsion to steal people's money through illegal financial transactions, as on Wall Street? We throw the book at shop lifters and give bonuses to financial crooks. What more should we expect from the public knowing what we know about business as usual? PS>Bet the first hour gave many in the business particular enjoyment....:-)
Although I'm an adventurous person in many ways, I've never shop lifted. I can honestly say that I've never even been tempted. Why would some people be so tempted and others not tempted at all?
I am curious, does the author's book cover the societal distinction that is made between theft committed by people of color (especially adolescents of color) and their white counterparts?
I am often struck by how often crimes like shop lifting seem to be decriminalized when the perpetrator is white (the terms used to describe them/their actions: illness, compulsion, disorder) compared to instances when the perpetrators are African American or Hispanic (described as: looters, criminals, thieves).
Eloquently said. However, I have found that prosecution of albeit petty shoplifters(rarely resulting in imprisonment) keeps thieves away from the store. Word travels quickly at low levels about where and when you can steal without punishment. Strangely in the face of economic turmoil, my holiday season netted few arrests however this summer has been explosive including a serious rise in violence against people in my position that at current time I can't explain
Exactly WillT26; the private banks, Wall Street, the IRS, the Pentagon, and Congress, have redefined ‘stealing’ as BAILOUTS, TARP, TAXES, and QUANTITATIVE EASING 1-??? There is theft everywhere. So sad.
I used to own a retail business brick and mortar. The cost of shoplifting caused me to change my business to online Etailing only. Although there are certainly scams and other criminal behavior, I no longer have the shrinkage problem.
As an employee at a large book retailer, we are coached to be more aware of loss potential in different areas of the store. Consistently and company wide, our highest area of loss is the religion and bible section. One Easter Sunday, we prevented a Bible theft! Clearly, shoplifting of any sort is not condoned, but I find this irony especially baffling. Any comments on this particularly disturbing type of theft?
Your guest has obviously never worked in a grocery store, or she would have known the answer to the question about "grazers." Research appears to have been limited....
Has anyone mentioned the scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's in which Holly and Paul shop lift masks from the 5 and 10? I'd never dream of doing it, but those two sure make it look like fun!
Rachel was asked about the difference between shoplifting from a retail store versus bank robberies and she discussed state penalties for shoplifting. She failed to mention that bank robberies are NOT state offenses. They are federal offenses. The federal government insures deposits of bank clients via FDIC insurance and therefore bank robberies are a federal crime.
I am 51. My mom used to tell us it was OK to take a sample from the Brach's candy display when I was a kid. My kids used to have a get the "Free for Seniors and Children" cookie at a grocery store. My dad, as a Sr. Citizen/Snowbird, knew he was "allowed" to take a cookie before he left in the fall, but over the winter, the rules changed and he didn't know it. So when he came back, he took a "Free for Seniors and Children" cookie, and was humiliated to have been taken in the back of the store for "stealing". He never set foot in that store again, and moved all of his and my mom's prescriptions to another pharmacy, as well. They lost his lifelong patronage over a cookie. When is it OK to steal? Never. When is it OK to change the rules on old people?
One caller mentioned a retailer (Costco?) who checks your receipt against your purchases, then marks the receipt with a Sharpie(R). One purpose is to "spoil" the receipt, thus preventing reuse.
When I was young I stole an mechanical pencil because it was a bit of a power trip over the adults that worked there. I never stole anything else, but that sense of power seems to fit mary.kirtley's comment. I'd have liked to ask the author what she thought of that as a reason. There are many reasons to steal, poverty and greed being common reasons but I do think for some it's the sense of control and power they get.
@ Kneo Knutts:
A brilliant observation. Our society seems to have become insufferable enablers, justifying and thus forgiving the actions of others on the grounds of some extenuating circumstance (often times psychological). Whatever happened to simple accountability? You stole, you cheated, you broke the law; you were aware of the consequences of your actions and you chose to indulge yourself anyway, even given that there may or may not have been psychological compulsions to act as you did you still did it. At some point the rule of law must be enforced or else all disintegrates into justification and negation and the guilty go free while their victims have to foot the bill. It’s absurd.
I wonder if it's even possible for this show to discuss a topic without the "usual suspects" (both left and right) trying to drag their partisanship and ideology into it.
Maybe some bankers and corporations are greedy and irresponsible. Maybe some people feel "entitled" to whatever they can get. But that has nothing to do with this topic!
Enough already!
P.S. - And yes, when a wealthy person shoplifts something they can obviously afford, and don't particularly need, that appears to be a compulsion, not a choice. Which is not to say all shoplifters "have a disease". But those people clearly do.
P.P.S. - Recognizing that sometimes shoplifting may be due to compulsion, rather than greed, is neither an excuse or a justification. As I recall, celebrity shoplifters get punished by the law as much as non-celebrities. However, after satisfying the dictates of law, there is still the issue of the underlying problem. For compulsive shoplifters the threat of punishment is clearly no deterrent. So, if treatment can accomplish what imprisonment and fines cannot (preventing future shoplifting), why not employ that as well?
There are always multiple contributing factors to behavior motivations and varying environmental influences affecting distribution and access to goods/resources. I see theft for: drugs, risk highs, affluent highs, status highs and power highs, and then there are always those simply trying to survive.”Primitive” cultures incorporate this reality of theft into traditions. There is a tribal stealing of partners, lands, goods to recognize this element of human behavior. The bank that steals your house and naivety, the CEO that steals your job, the security company that steals that which it professes to protect and now, information; isn’t that new possibility alluring to the masses currently out of control, easily available to all. Abundance, entitlement, security and just plain seeking the high that makes all of our unpleasant realities of our times go away; deeply embedded drives to correct mans laws to approach natures laws, a fix to ease corruption and imbalance. An infant bathes in infinite abundance, adults face scarcity and discomfort. Perhaps the CEO and the shoplifter are just seeking the warmth of childhood satiation.
To SLK112...I am so sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing your story.
the way this girl sounded she just didnt sound confident at all in her research. thats all i can say on that because there is something about her voice that says this whole thing is a joke to her or something. she wrote a book on the thing so i guess whatever but i heard no mention about her talking to any risk management people. not loss prevention, and they do a great job and everything but i'm talking about risk management. they have the stats. her numbers are astronomical but employee theft takes up alot of that and i mean alot because they are so close to the assets and that makes it easy for them and this makes it hard to catch them. then she made mention of some store where they just let people run out with stuff. lololol. now that is hilarious. i want that deal. there is really no such thing. no one on gods green planet would just allow people to run out of a store they work in unless they are in kahoots lololol. trust me i managed 2 big grocery retail operations and people just take it too personal. lol. but what she is probably referring to is the fact that u will sort of try to stop them with harsh words but u r not allowed to get into a physical altercation with a shoplifter because of the liability and the fact that u may get killed, or have to hurt someone or get another employee hurt. lol. also there is the possibility of your people ganging up on a shoplifter and beating the crap out of them which happens all the time and especially in low income areas. but when she sat there and said they just let them run out with whatever it was funny, lololol. i'm like no, u dont know what ur talking about lololol. but at least she made me laugh with it. humans take that stuff a little more personal than that and will (lol) at least try to cuss them out or something. lol. i guess i maybe should read her book. maybe that was her plan.