Shoplifting Apprehended

  Why do some women shoplift? Surely they know stealing is wrong, illegal, and damages lives. These mystifying thieves seem to be acting on influences beyond logical purposes.

Katie Haskel, a mother of three, has been hooked on shoplifting for more than 20 years. It all started when she was a new mother-bored, restless and struggling. ''We hadn't much money and I had nothing to do but shop," she says. The first item she stole was an outfit for her baby daughter. "I just threw it into her carriage and walked right out of the store." 1

  Shopping was her only pastime? How could limited finances transfer into a shopping hobby? Also, boredom doesn't necessarily bring about shopping, or shoplifting.   This woman apparently had an existing struggle controlling finances, from shopping indulgences. The unavailability of habitual spending may have led to her simply stealing items. Now,

"I'm an executive secretary," Katie continues, "and my husband is an engineer. Money stopped being an issue a long time ago. But shoplifting has remained one." 1

  She has replaced her spending habit with a shoplifting habit. Curiously, the leading stimulus for womens' shoplifting isn't merely a practicality of financial lack:

80 percent of shoplifters have the money to pay for the items they steal. 1

  Cannot women who shoplift reason that pulling out a credit card is easier than getting out of jail?

"It's a disease," says Dr. Zira DeFries, a New York City psychiatrist, "a disease that stems from depression, low self-esteem or anger." 1

"Shoplifting is a way of releasing pent-up emotions," she explains. Ripping off a big store is their way of saying, "I'll show you." 1

  Unresolved psychological issues can overflow into a bizarre and illegal outlet. Shoplifting itself is a metaphor for a hidden, emotional void that a stolen, hidden object might temporarily fulfill.

There is usually some triggering event that reminds these women of the initial trauma they suffered, Cupchik says. 3

Shoplifters perceive it as a way to self-nourish — it temporarily relieves their fear and pain, but it’s really a reflection of their inability to cope with the stressors in their lives.” 3a

  Stress can come either directly (as in low finances, boredom, or tormenting people), or indirectly (from internal trauma, repressed emotions, or frustration over addiction). From a reformed shoplifter:

I had issues where I couldn’t express my anger and it was going inward... but I finally learned that the most important lesson is to love myself first.” 4

  The symptom of shoplifting needs attention, if those women are to resume their support for family.

"You have a woman behind bars, separated in many cases from children. Wouldn't it be better if that person was rehabilitated in the community, rather than being incarcerated?" 4

  Overwhelming stressors may subtly overtake women already burdened with routine responsibilities. The shoplifting impulse needs an emotionally positive channel. The value of family and freedom may encourage struggling women to begin a psychological self-examination, to replace this negative recklessness.   This 1902 article exhibits a history of the shoplifting predicament:

THE UMBRELLA, Which Holds a Lot, but Is Rather Dangerous on a Rainy Day
...More than one shoplifter has been caught at this trick as she walked out into a pouring rain without raising the umbrella (an act which will instantly attract the attention of a detective), or by raising the umbrella in a forgetful moment and thereby unloading and exposing the results of a day's work. 2

References 1. BY ESTHER DAVIDOWITZ
From Woman's Day - January 12, 1993
Why Nice Women Steal http://www.shopliftingprevention.org/WhatNASPOffers/NRC/ArticlesTo Read/Why_Nice_Women_Steal%20.htm
2. NEW TRICKS of the SHOPLIFTERS
New York World
Sunday November 2, 1902, Magazine Section, page 8 (American Newspaper Repository) http://home.gwi.net/~dnb/read/shoplifters/shoplifters.htm
3. Why midlife women shopliftWhen a woman in midlife shoplifts, it usually signals one thing: depression
Updated: 2008-12-18 12:02
Published: 2008-04-28 00:00
By: Valerie Mutton
(3a Paula Farrell, therapist-counsellor for the Group Shoplifting Prevention Program with the Elizabeth Fry Society in Kelowna, B.C) http://www.more.ca/body-and-mind/self-and-spirit/why-midlife-women -shoplift/a/146/2
http://www.more.ca/body-and-mind/self-and-spirit/why-midlife-women-shoplift/a/146/3
4. Women shoplifters won't be jailed by Lib Dems
Published: 1:01PM BST 29 Mar 2005
quote by: Charles Kennedy, the party leader of Lib Dems http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1486664/Women-shoplifters-wont-be-jailed-by-Lib-Dems.html