More than just prices driving shoplifting crisis

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/06/2024 (437 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Some grocers are getting much-needed relief from shoplifting.

Winnipeg police have been busy patrolling retailers plagued by shoplifters, offering some peace of mind to staff frustrated and defeated by repeat thieves. The initiative seems to be bearing fruit: Justice Minister Matt Wiebe, whose government put in $378,000 to fund a month’s worth of police patrols targeting retail hot spots, says the province will further fund the crackdown after these early positive results.

Winnipeg Police Service Superintendent of Investigations Cam Mackid says the patrols are just part of a multi-pronged approach which also includes targeted enforcement and working with retailers and business groups to boost public safety.

All well and good. However, it can’t be a permanent solution.

The Free Press reported Monday that shoplifting incidents were up 45.2 per cent in Winnipeg last year. The need to deal with it feels acute right now, but retailers in Winnipeg and beyond began hardening themselves against theft long ago. First it came in the form of moving some non-prescription drugs behind the counter to prevent their being used to make harder street drugs; then the razor blades went behind locked plexiglass. Police or private security are becoming increasingly common at the grocery store.

Punishing inflation is making life more difficult for everyone. Major grocery chains such as Loblaw have come under fire for what many see as opportunistic price hiking in the name of profit, contributing to, if nothing else, a lack of sympathy for store owners. The poor are up against a financial wall. Housing is ever more expensive, if it can even be found. Those struggling with mental health issues have few resources, as do those in the grip of addiction. All of these issues have been highlighted in this space ad nauseam.

Crimes such as shoplifting are often framed in terms of desperation, but it may be there is a powerful element of disillusionment at work as well.

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Social order is a proposition — we all agree to follow set rules, and if we all go along with the common cause we all benefit. The responsibility and payoff are two-way streets. But if someone concludes there is no benefit to following those rules as set, that society is not holding up its end of the bargain, you have fertile ground for criminality.

Sector-wide buy-in for stronger security measures at retailers, a la upgrades to Manitoba Liquor Marts, is unlikely. But let’s assume for a moment it actually happened: we could keep police in the aisles arresting shoplifters on the spot, enforcing the rules through legal punishment. We could keep locking up more merchandise behind plexiglass. We would eventually get to the point where there is nothing to steal because everything is nailed down. It would stop thefts but make their stores a prison for all.

It’s not a way we should want to live.

We have heard from the justice minister that he’s pleased with the results of more boots on the ground in the stores. But this problem needs a plan of action from across the provincial cabinet. So, let’s start hearing some plans from the ministers responsible for housing, addictions and mental health, families, education and early childhood learning, labour, and economic development, for instance. All these areas have a part to play in creating a Manitoba where fewer people feel compelled to thumb their nose at law and order and turn the retail sector into an anarchy of wanton theft, driving up everyone’s stress levels in the process.

The extra policing is a good stop-gap measure. But this problem is bigger than handcuffs and locks can solve.