Decriminalise Shoplifting

national | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis Monday March 06, 2006 16:23 by Shoplifter

The law against shoplifting serves no useful purpose

Crime is now seen as undesirable because of the impact on the victim
rather than the financial impact, as such shoplifting should be decriminalised.

Bob Dylan said ‘I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now’ but in
the past I was younger than I am now and I did not understand what
shoplifting means.

Do you ever see signs in shops that say that shoplifters will be
prosecuted? When I was little this confused me because I didn’t know anyone
who could lift up a shop. The Hulk could lift up a shop and so could the
Thing and so could Cuchullain in the Red Branch Knights. At that time I did
not know of anyone else that could lift up a shop and even at that time I
knew that the Hulk and the Thing were pretend and Cuchullain was dead.
Prosecuted means that you go to jail for lifting up the shop. I would
always used to think ‘good luck sending any of those guys to jail’. If
somebody could lift up a shop than they could escape from any jail. Now I
know better.

I did not understand that shoplifting means stealing things from shops.
Shoplifters will be prosecuted means ‘if you steal from this shop you will
go to jail’. I do not think that people who steal from shops should go to
jail. In the olden days when England ruled Ireland people were mostly
worried about how much the things that were stolen were worth. This was
because there were some people who had lots of fancy things and spoke
English but most people had nothing and spoke Irish. .

Nowadays most people speak English and most people have some nice things
your DVD player is stolen people think ‘Well it is only a DVD player she
can get another one in Aldi for 79 Euro.’ But if it stolen from your house
we say : ‘Now she feels sad when she goes home in case somebody comes in
again.’

Everybody goes into shops and shopkeepers don’t feel sad about things that
go missing. Shopkeepers don’t think ‘I really miss that Snickers bar, now I
only have 399 left.’ If they do feel sad when they lose a Snickers they
should have another job because when you sell a Snickers bar you have to
let the person who gives you 65 cent take it away. If you always felt sad
then being a shopkeeper would be a tough job. I really like Snickers bars
and sometimes I think ‘Hey why did I eat that Snickers bar already? I wish
I still had that Snickers bar so I could eat it now.’ It is different for
shopkeepers they don’t eat all the Snickers bars in the shop. Not all
shopkeepers are fat and that proves that they don’t eat all the Snickers
bars. They sell most of the Snickers bars, so I think that means they can’t
be too sad when a Snickers bar is stolen. They don’t miss the Snickers bar
they only miss the money.

It costs a lot of money to send somebody to jail. Nowadays people say that
we send people to jail because they have made other people sad. This is
what being a victim means. Shopkeepers are not victims like that when there
is shoplifting so they should not send people to jail for stealing things
from shops. I think they have a cheek sending people to jail when there is
no victim.

So don’t send people to jail for shoplifting please.