There used to be a saying: if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
Shoplifting from grocery stores is no longer a petty nuisance. It’s an organized, emboldened, and increasingly aggressive problem.
Retailers like Save-On-Foods are sounding the alarm, and the message is clear: Thieves know the rules of the game, and they know there are barely any consequences.
As Regan Bader, the longtime manager of Save-On-Foods at Pine Centre Mall, told the city’s Standing Committee on Public Safety, the nature of retail crime has changed dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic.
What used to be the occasional stolen bottle of mouthwash has escalated to regular, often violent, confrontations, Bader said.
Criminals take off running when approached or become combative, and many know that even if they’re caught, the punishment amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist.
That’s not an exaggeration. Bader told the board about one case where a known offender stole from his store 19 times and paid for it with just 150 days of house arrest.
In another case, a prolific thief remained unidentified for months because he lived outside the city and slipped through the cracks of enforcement and prosecution. Meanwhile, the goods he stole may have gone straight to resale markets — profit for him, losses for everyone else.
One reader shared that he had an individual approach him in the parking lot offering to get him whatever he wanted for meat, at half the price on the package.
Grocery theft is no longer just about need. As food costs soar, yes, some struggling individuals are tempted to steal out of desperation. That’s a complex social problem, one that deserves compassionate policy solutions focused on poverty, addiction, and mental health.
But at the same time, others have simply done the math. The risk of being caught is low, the consequences are minor and the rewards — from meat to alcohol to baby formula — can be flipped for easy cash.
And for the thieves, those benefits dramatically outweigh the costs. For the rest of us, it’s the opposite.
Grocers in Prince George are losing between $500,000 and $1 million per year to theft. Those grocers cannot afford to absorb those loses. Those costs are passed on to customers through higher prices and reduced services.
Then there is the personal cost for the employees in those stores. Many of them young workers, find themselves in increasingly frightening and unsafe situations.
There is an additional cost to businesses after each theft as they spend time and resources building evidence packages for police, only to see the courts fail to follow through with meaningful deterrents.
The “catch-and-release” approach to low-level crime may be rooted in good intentions — reducing incarceration for non-violent offenders, for example — but it’s being exploited.
When someone steals from the same store 19 times and keeps walking free, that’s not a failure in one part of the system. It’s a failure of the whole system.
Stores have increased their loss prevention staffing, added security guards, and elaborate camera systems.
However, they can’t be everywhere. Even with cameras — which store managers say are essential for investigations — the question remains: What good is hours and hours spent preparing video evidence or having loss prevention and security guard writing statements and testifying if the courts won’t act?
Local government and provincial leaders have acknowledged the problem. However, words of acknowledgement have not been matched by meaningful justice.
Chronic offenders must be held accountable. A justice system that turns a blind eye to theft is a justice system that fuels more of it.
If the courts don’t treat retail theft seriously, the problem will grow — and with it, the cost to our communities. Honest customers will keep footing the bill. Businesses will shutter. Workers will quit.
Yes, we must have compassion for people in need. But compassion without consequences is not justice — it’s enabling.
Theft is a crime and it’s time the provincial government started treating it that way. If they are going to do the crime, they should be doing the time.
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