this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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As someone who works in a grocery store, most of the people I see stealing are stealing stuff like makeup or drinks and junk food, not necessities. And our regular thieves spend hundreds on cigarettes a week, while still stealing whatever they want because they know they’ll get away with it.
Yeah, the cigarettes thing is a literal drug issue. The only thing that's different between that a fentanyl is the smokes are not criminalized.
We can't expect our thieves and impoverished to be exactly rational and raid the staples, especially as we've engineered junk food to appeal to impulsivity.
As for makeup I don't have an easy explanation, though makeup is expensive and currently we do expect people to wear it rather than get accustomed to what folks look like without it. I was going to guess it's fungible, but less so than brand-name laundry detergent. Tide is currency in the underground market.
But yes, while for young people there might be a thrill in the act of stealing over buying, ultimately, when we have the capacity to fulfill our needs without careful budgeting and compromise, we're glad to do things transactionally. Professional thieves struggle to make rent.