Colin McEnroe Show: Shoplifting In America
We talk to Rachel Shteir, author of 'The Steal.'
Published: Jul 06, 2011
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Uncle Leo Shoplifts
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Colin McEnroe Show: Shoplifting In America
When I was 12, my peers in the neighborhood formed an elite and highly secretive organization called the Dog Do Club. I was invited to join, but one of the prerequisites was that I shoplift something.
I just couldn't do it. Even though I was eager to join the Dog Do Club and enjoy all the prerequisites that no doubt came with membership.
"Pick something small," they told me. "A pack of gum. Nobody's askingyou to steal a TV set."
I just couldn't do it.
Not because I was a person of great rectitude or inner conviction. I couldn't do it because I was afraid of the shame and the punishment and the nebulous fall from grace that would accompany being caught. And I think I was right. Anyway, the Dog Do Club didn't last a year.
The more I read about shoplifting, the more it seems like a crime whose sanctions, both legal and cultural, seem disproportionately huge.
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Compulsive stealing
If you have questions about compulsive stealing behaviors, kleptomania and current best treatment practices for these disorders, contact Pathways Institute for Impulse Control in San Francisco. We are nationally known experts in the field.
Compulsive shoplifting and stealing can have serious consequences and also often causes an individual great shame. Please feel free to contact us with questions or for help.
http://www.pathwaysinstitute.net/
415-267-6916
Audio Is Fixed
My apologies.
-Patrick
Colin McEnroe Show
Interesting topic, but the link above (and at WNPR) is wrong. It's the show from June 7th (6/7) about nom de plumes, instead of the show from July 6th (7/6) about shoplifting.
E-mail from D.H.
I think books and medicine should be FREE.
less people would steal if good literature and GREAT drugs were FREE!
E-mail from S.N.
I used to shoplift things that I kind of wanted but not enough to actually buy, such as fashion jewelry and hair accessories. I never got caught but do feel ashamed now that I'm more grown.
Great show!
E-mail from J.H.
Interesting topic. I have indeed shoplifted...once. I was thirteen years old, whilst in the sweating throes of puberty. I stole a Playboy Magazine from the local drug store. (Back in the 50's and 60's, we called them "drug stores.")
Being Catholic, an altar boy. (I said the Mass in Latin.) Polish and a parochial school student, I never even opened the magazine! I became so paranoid after stealing it that I was SURE God was going to flick His almighty finger and strike me dead. (Plus, I was struck with paralyzing terror when I realized that, in order to gain absolution and save my immortal soul, I would have to confess the sin to Father Ramsey!)
I hid the magazine in garage. After spending a sleepless night, I returned the book to the drug store in the morning.
Returning it is the same thing as never taking it, right? In God's eyes? That's why I never confessed it to Fr. Ramsey.
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