a cultural history of shoplifting

"despite high-tech treatments and many studies on shoplifting...most researchers have failed to explore the question of who is doing the lifting, and why.

It’s a difficult question to answer, but in my research, a clear, if symbolic, pattern emerged: the items people stole provided enormous, almost embarrassing insights into their deepest wounds and desires.

A high-flying I.T. consultant with a tumultuous family story told me she had spent decades shoplifting household items — lavender, hand towels, sage. A divorced former flight attendant working hard to start over stole a heavy doorstop shaped like a monkey, as if she hoped the hot item would anchor her in place. A young director who lived in Hollywood shoplifted a DVD player. Even the more mundane stories were revealing. One housewife, who had shoplifted for over three decades, told me she took “almost anything,” including Advil and steak — which happen to be two of the most commonly stolen items.

For some, stealing was a way to inhabit a more generous persona. Many shoplifters gave their heist to a beloved. A writer bragged that when he was a grad student, he’d filched 400-thread-count Egyptian sheets to please a lover. A nurse gave her son, a policeman, a shower curtain she’d lifted from Macy’s.


...While women took clothes, groceries and perfume, men grabbed TVs, household appliances and power tools. According to Mr. Bamfield, men tended to hide their power tools in backpacks, while women were more likely to smuggle the perfume out in strollers. Men also saw shoplifting as a transitional crime, a pit stop to more profitable criminal pursuits, whereas women sometimes shoplifted for years — though many stopped after marriage.


The source of this apparently primal urge remains elusive. I believe that it may be more poetic than scientific, that behind a seemingly simple, petty crime, lurks a mysterious world of hidden desires and obscure longings."


fascinating.