While most families are struggling with rising prices and runaway inflation, a growing number of people are finding a fast and cheap solution. They’re taking the five-finger discount, which is to say they’re shoplifting.
In fact, the United States now leads the whole world in shoplifting; an increasing amount of businesses are shutting their doors because it’s gotten so bad.
Pharmacies, grocery stores, clothing shops, and more are getting swamped daily by so many shoplifters that they’ve begun running out of ideas for how to put a stop to it.
The Shoplifting Epidemic
Take a company like CVS Pharmacy.
Started in 1963, the Rhode Island-based company has around 10,000 locations in the United States. It’s the fifth-biggest corporation in our country; it’s also experienced a 300% rise in shoplifting since 2019.
Some locations are getting so worried about the crime wave, they’ve started sending workers back in locked taxis and putting even small value items like hygiene products behind locked cabinets.
There’s already been so many issues with the supply chain and not having enough workers during the pandemic. Now, they have to worry about shoplifters and career criminals who go store-to-store and ransack the shelves of all saleable products.
It certainly doesn’t help matters in states like California either, where leftist legislators bar authorities from pursuing anyone stealing under $950 worth of items.
Many thieves are stealing as their new business. They take the products and sell them in bulk online at a cheap price for people looking for a deal. We are becoming a lawless nation. This has to stop.
Florida Walmart shopper throws 'hissy fit' after being confronted over alleged shoplifting https://t.co/MKuBVsiiog
— USA Today Sun🗨️ (@usatodaysun21) February 12, 2022
Welcome to Rite Aid in Manhattan
Let’s take a look at one Rite Aid in Manhattan as an example of what’s going on. This location just closed up after losing over $200,000 in product in the past two months.
Workers say shoplifters would just come in with bags and stuff them full multiple times per day, without being stopped by police.
The store couldn’t absorb the revenue loss; it was closed by the corporation, which obviously isn’t running a charity to help profit criminal thugs.
Some lawmakers are trying to make it harder to sell stolen stuff online, which is smart, and get tougher on bail and shoplifting punishments. However, the trend is still toward lowering bail, punishment, and going for soft-on-crime policies.
It also doesn’t help that thugs sometimes hire people with nothing to lose, finding drug addicts and homeless or mentally ill people to go in and steal on their behalf.
If these people are arrested, it doesn’t mean much to them anyway, since they’re already in and out of jail in many cases.
USA 🇺🇸 No #1 – in shoplifting
Shoplifting has gotten so bad nationally that chains like Rite Aid are closing hard-hit stores, sending terrified employees home in Ubers and locking up aisles of seemingly mundane items like deodorant and toothpaste.https://t.co/LZr3tLSgFD
SPECIAL: Get Your FREE Red Trump 2024 Hat Here
— StarBoy 🥭 (@StarboyHK) February 12, 2022
The Bottom Line
Now you know why they’re putting toothpaste in locked cabinets. We need to get tough on crime. This shoplifting epidemic is going to wreck what’s left of our mid-size businesses and employers.
