Encouraging Store Theft

I was in a dollar tree store the other day and saw commotion at the front of the store. It was a young woman pushing a baby stroller with a backpack. She cursed an employee who asked to see underneath her stroller and in a backpack she carried. Yep! The security camera of the store caught her stuffing almost an entire shelf of school supplies into the backpack and underneath the blanket of the stroller. It's not shocking that some people steal but the reaction of the thief and the store employees is significant in that it reflects the entitlement/no fault era of ethics that is ever-present in much of the world today. I find it sad and indicative of the decline in morals today.

When nabbed with the stolen goods she was trying to wheel out of the store she reacted as the offended, not the offender. Cursing the employee who inspected her stroller and backpack she remarked "It's not right to look into people's stuff". How different from earlier eras when that thief like her would have been apprehended for police. But this store, like almost all others in the United States does not call police unless the amount stolen is over $200 in value. The law says that under 200 dollars is a misdemeanor, which would make prosecution difficult, expensive for the store and unlikely to bring a sentence that would be more than probation. Thus, this store and others tell employees to let the thief go.

Later, in talking with an employee involved in this incident, she said, "They will fire me if I try to force her to stay or to chase after her once she leaves the store. We loves a great deal of money to shoplifting because the corporation does not want the bad publicity that might result when an incident at the store is reported."  Thus, they rarely even notify the police. Take the theft as a business loss and raise prices to make up that loss. In fact, according to the store, this woman has shop-lifted frequently at the store in the past. Because the store does nothing about it, she continues.

All of this reflects the situational morality today. Too many people do whatever they want and feel offended if the injurious behavior they display is challenged. "If it's good for me, it is right", they think. And society reinforces that mentality by not insisting on stricter standards of behaviors. There are fewer and fewer norms today with which humans feel they must conform. This opens the door for more criminal behavior like that of the store thief. And the world becomes a less comfortable and just place.  Have you noticed this too?