If you’ve been following the news, you’ll know that shoplifting and looting have been on the rise across the US in recent months, with retailers from San Francisco to Portland to Washington, DC, forced to close up shop in the face of mounting losses from the spate of increasingly brazen burglaries.
And you’ll probably also be aware that the phenomenon is not confined to the US, with businesses in Canada and the UK and France and Australia and elsewhere similarly reporting an increase in robberies and theft since the scamdemic.
And you’ll doubtless have heard the various explanations for this phenomenon doled out by the faithful media mouthpieces of the controlled two-party paradigm:
It’s soaring inflation and the cost of living crisis that’s causing desperate people to turn to crime!
No, it’s the godless Commifornia politicians and the “woke” defund-the-police mob who are to blame!
No, it’s the scamdemic lockdowns that caused people to forget basic civility!
No, it’s the illegal immigrants!
No, it’s an organized conspiracy of retail workers!
etc.
Of course, there are grains of truth in all of these explanations, but none of them get to the real heart of the matter. So, what’s really behind this explosion in retail theft? And, more to the point, what do the powers-that-shouldn’t-be have in store as their “solution” to this (generated) problem? The answers may surprise you.
THE PROBLEM
Although the reality of a surge in shoplifting is disputed by some, it’s getting harder to deny that dramatic acts of retail theft are becoming more commonplace in this era of the Brave New Normal.
Just ask retailers in California, where increasingly audacious acts of looting and pillaging are being committed by groups of thieves—and, in some cases, even organized flash mobs—on a daily basis.
And the robbers aren’t just targeting luxury retailers (though they certainly are targeting them), they’re also going after mom-and-pop stores and local, family-owned businesses, too.
And it’s not just soft-on-crime California where burglary is out of control. Similar surges in retail theft are being seen in Seattle and New York and Portland and Chicago and Washington, D.C.
And it’s not just a problem in the US. Shoplifting is up in Canada and Ireland and the UK and even the Netherlands.
Heck, shoplifting has gotten so bad in jolly ol’ England that upscale supermarket chain Waitrose is now offering free coffee to police officers in a ploy to boost law enforcement’s presence at their stores.
So, what on earth is going on here? There are as many explanations for this seemingly global crime spree as there are talking heads and op ed writers.
Broadly speaking, commentators on the left blame the problem on systemic issues, from corporate greed and surging inflation to systemic poverty and oppressive capitalism.
Commentators on the right, meanwhile, pin the blame on progressive legislators’ decision to essentially decriminalize shoplifting and on law enforcement’s inability to establish law and order in the face of increasingly hostile anti-police sentiment.
As usual, there is an element of truth to all of these claims. But none of these factors are so fundamentally different than they were a few years ago as to account for such a surge in retail theft. Surely there must be something bigger going on here, right?
Of course there is.
One interesting part of this shoplifting pandemonium that is only beginning to get attention is that retailers themselves seem to be adding to the problem. You see, not only is California’s Senate looking to pass legislation to stop employees from confronting shoplifters, more and more companies are now adopting an official policy expressly forbidding their employees from intervening in the event of retail theft, no matter how blatant. Indeed, this past summer, Lowe’s and Lululemon both made headlines for firing employees who tried to confront shoplifters. And just last month a Colorado supermarket employee was fired for merely filming a shoplifter in the act (an action for which he was commended by local police).
PERCEPTION RESET 