According to Nathaniel Meyersohn of CNN, shoplifting in America is no big deal. Barely an issue. Concern about it is simply a moral panic caused by displaced anxiety about other issues.
Carry on. Nothing to see here.
“Shoplifting panic.”
It’s just a “panic” guys. Don’t believe your lying eyes. https://t.co/2847ZFO6iS pic.twitter.com/baEP0ogX57
— Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) November 18, 2023
Nate (can I call you Nate? It is easier to type than Nathaniel) notes that people have always worried about shoplifting and that the concerns tend to amplify anxieties about other issues–linking minor criminal behavior to larger social trends that are the real concerns people have.
These headlines could be from articles today. But they’re from the early 1900s.
While shoplifting has seemingly never been a bigger problem than it is now, shoplifting has long captured the public’s attention. Anxiety over shoplifting is an enduring phenomenon and is often a stand-in for larger concerns of cultural, economic or political changes.
“The figure of a shoplifter may provide for a scapegoat for deeper problems that are more complex and intractable,” James Walsh, who…
Read the full article here