I think its sad. Do you apprehend single moms who shoplift milk or baby stuff? A shoplift stays on re cord for years and makes it hard for that person to find a job.
I agree that poverty and lack of opportuni creates the conditions for crime but the fact is that most of the shoplifting that AP sees fall into a few categories.
Crimes of opportunity, folks boosting stuff because they see a chance.
Sometimes they even have the money to pay for it.
Those people are fairly easy to deter.
Thrill seekers, usually kids though I know people who have stores next to old folks homes that say it can be issue there to.
This can be expensive because that's when they do things like walk out with your entire Beats display.
Also easy to deter but they will be back.
People feeding a habit, covers a lot of ages and backgrounds.
These folks tend to go high end but they usually specialize because they know what sells and usually have a place to sell it.
They have a pattern and can be very good but since they keep coming back can be caught.
The professionals, teams of three to five.
These guys are a bitch to catch and have things worked out.
They case a store and know what they are up against before they even start.
The people who are shoplifting to feed their families or so low on that list you would be surprised.
I've even read about a couple of AP people for a major grocery store chain who when they caught a guy stealing for his kids because they were living in their car, bought them enough food to last for weeks.
That's how often they ran into that as the real reason people shoplifted.