People's heist merchandise: shoplifting in the U.S. continues to rise
The scale of shoplifting in the United States continues to break records. Crimes without punishment have turned from a localized problem in some states into a real headache, affecting the state of the country's largest retailers. Conservatives blame Democrats for what is happening and believe the main reason for the spreading chaos is the legislation they passed to decriminalize minor offenses. As a result, Democratic-controlled California voted to revise the rules approved a decade ago. The details of the story are in the Izvestia piece.
More than just a problem
Major U.S. retailers continue to face serious problems. After the mass closure of stores of the 99 Cents Only, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar chains (all operating in the segment of so-called one-price stores), the Big Lots chain is one step away from bankruptcy. In one 2024 the number of closed retail stores is approaching 8 thousand.
This phenomenon has an obvious economic reason - the rate of consumer inflation in the US. However, shoplifting, or shoplifting, is becoming an increasingly menacing problem. The U.S. Retail Association reports annual business losses of $100 billion. Shoplifting has affected more than 80% of all U.S. retailers, and more than the rest - in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland (Oregon), i.e. cities governed by Democratic Party representatives.
The problem is so serious that big business is closing stores in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Pharmacy chain Walgreens, for example, is eliminating a quarter of its 8,600 outlets nationwide, and Wallmart has begun closing half of its stores in Chicago, one of the crime capitals of the United States.
Illegals
There are several reasons for what is happening. First on the list is the rise in crime, including among illegal immigrants. It is them that the Trump administration is going to deal with after coming to power. However, the scale of the problem is simply colossal, admits Marina Chernykh, a researcher at the Department of Domestic Policy Studies of the Institute of the United States and Canada and a lecturer at the Faculty of World Politics of the State University of Southern Russia.
- In many respects, the growth of public concern is related to the crisis in the United States, caused by the multimillion-dollar influx of illegal immigrants under the Biden administration. According to official figures, nearly 11 million people without legal grounds have arrived in the country over the past three years. However, this is only the "tip of the iceberg" - the real numbers could be many times higher. According to various estimates, we are talking about 25-30 million illegal immigrants who have arrived in the country since January 2021. For comparison: under the Trump administration, 3 million undocumented persons arrived in the country, and before Biden's arrival, according to various estimates, about 10-15 million lived in the U.S. In other words, under his administration, an unprecedented scale of illegal immigrants was recorded, which has severe social consequences for the U.S.," emphasizes the Izvestia interlocutor.
According to the expert, the situation is also complicated by various legal obstacles that prevent the police from searching for and arresting illegal immigrants.
- Most of the detainees were released, not deported, because under Biden, as well as under a number of other Democratic presidents, there is a policy of "Catch and Release" (Catch and Release), according to which detained illegal aliens are released on the territory of the United States and allowed to stay there while waiting for a hearing in immigration court. The wait, by the way, may take several months or several years. Moreover, there are currently about 1.5 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. who have been to an immigration court hearing that ruled they should be deported, but they continue to remain in the country," the expert says.
However, the prospect of huge costs and overstretching the entire government system is not the Republicans' only problem. Democrats intend to prevent the deportation of illegals. As Politico writes, the attorneys general of five Democratic-controlled states - New Mexico, New Jersey, Colorado, California and Massachusetts - have announced their intention to bring Trump to trial in several cases involving mass deportations. Apparently, the 47th president will face similar opposition to reassigning the National Guard, which by default is run by governors.
Not to understand and not to forgive
The second reason is the decriminalization of petty crimes, which has been gradually introduced since the beginning of the 21st century in a number of states, again mostly governed by Democrats. In 2014, California approved Proposition 47, which downgraded theft under $950 from a felony to a misdemeanor. Democrats attributed the importance of the document to the need to help the poor (currently 22% of the state's population) and homeless(30% of all homeless Americans), as well as the problem of prison overcrowding. Similar legislative acts were adopted in several other democratic states.
However, the effect of the new rules has been extremely negative. Violent and property crimes continue to rise, and 27 of the 30 cities that lead the nation in crime growth rankings are run by Democrats. Proposition 47 was ultimately repealed in a November referendum. New California legislation ("Proposition 36") made certain types of shoplifting more punishable. Meanwhile, behind the Democratic Party's arguments is its ideology, says RISI senior expert Mikhail Alkhimenkov.
- In California, we are indeed seeing a partial revision of legislation passed ten years ago. Now we see the negative reaction of the population to it. But even now, the new norms imply certain reservations. For example, if the offense was committed by a drug addict, they may offer forced treatment instead of jail time. It is hard to say to what extent they will succeed, because, let us repeat, we are talking about a set of factors, the main of which is negative socio-economic trends. They will have to be reversed somehow," the expert states.
The "candy experiment" and the war against the system
But, probably, another factor is much more complicated, which experts say. Back in 2008, American and British psychologists noted that shoplifters are often people with a good income and no formal reason to go to the crime. Moreover, in a special study on this topic indicated that those who earn $ 70 thousand a year, steal more often than those whose income does not exceed $ 20 thousand.
For many of them stealing is not only a psychological addiction and "dopamine hunger" masking internal problems, but also a social protest. As it turns out, it is especially widespread in Great Britain, which is also experiencing "epidemics of shoplifting". In this way, citizens take revenge on big capital and therefore, as a rule, do not regret what they have done at all. "No, I don't feel bad about stealing from Jeff Bezos," the interviewee told Buisness Insider.
Many citizens stripped of their benefits by the government or fighters for racial equality reason in the same way. At the same time, a significant part of American shoplifters are members of the middle class, which, as statistics show, is becoming smaller in the United States. This means that measures to tighten laws or fight crime alone may not be enough. And trampists will have to win not only the war with illegal immigrants, but also the "culture war" with their ideological opponents.
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