Rachel Shteir's "The Steal "is the first serious study of
shoplifting, looking to history to reveal the roots of our modern
dilemma. Dismissed by academia and the mainstream media and largely
misunderstood, shoplifting has become the territory of moralists,
mischievous teenagers, tabloid television, and self-help gurus. But
shoplifting incurs remarkable real-life costs for retailers and
consumers. The "crime tax"--the amount every American family loses
to shoplifting-related price inflation--is more than $400 a year.
Shoplifting cost American retailers $11.7 billion in 2009. The
theft of one $5.00 item from Whole Foods can require sales of
hundreds of dollars to break even."The Steal "begins when
shoplifting entered the modern record as urbanization and
consumerism made London into Europe's busiest mercantile capital.
Crossing the channel to nineteenth-century Paris, Shteir tracks the
rise of the department store and the pathologizing of shoplifting
as kleptomania. In 1960s America, shoplifting becomes asymbol of
resistance when the publication of Abbie Hoffman's "Steal This Book
"popularizes shoplifting as an antiestablishment act. Some
contemporary analysts see our current epidemic as a response to a
culture of hyper-consumerism; others questionwhether its upticks
can be tied to economic downturns at all. Few provide convincing
theories about why it goes up or down.Just as experts can't agree
on why people shoplift, they can't agree on how to stop it.
Shoplifting has been punished by death, discouraged by shame
tactics, and protected against by high-tech surveillance.
Shoplifters have been treated by psychoanalysis, medicated with
pharmaceuticals, and enforced by law to attend
rehabilitationgroups. While a few individuals have abandoned their
sticky-fingered habits, shoplifting shows no signs of slowing.In
"The Steal, "Shteir guides us through a remarkable tour of all
things shoplifting--we visit the Woodbury Commons Outlet Mall,
where boosters run rampant, watch the surveillance footage from
Winona Ryder's famed shopping trip, and learn the history of
antitheft technology. A groundbreaking study, "The Steal "shows us
that shoplifting inits many guises--crime, disease, protest--is
best understood as a reflection of our society, ourselves.
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