SHOPLIFTING IN SYDNEY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 4 February 1930, Page 7

SHOPLIFTING IN SYDNEY

WEALTHY CULPRITS

What is it that causes otherwise highly respectable people to yield to tho sudden temptation to become shoplifters? (asks the Sydney "Daily Guardian"). Central Police Court, during the Christmas shopping season, dealt with a number of shoplifting cases daily, and in most instances the persons convicted have had sufficient money in tlieir possession to pay for the article they stole many times. Yet magistrates and police are at a loss to understand the sudden impulse to steal'which lands men and women of •all classes in the Police Court. The percentage of professional shoplifters compared with the number who appear in court is low, but it is known, however, that organised shoplifting is carried on on a large scale. They are known in most cases and are usually escorted politely to the door by the evei'" watchful shop inspector, but the amateur and temporary kleptomaniac provides a problem which has puzzled criminologists and psychologists all over the world. During the last week the wife of a bank manager, the wife of a city business man, a sales manager in a city motor, firm, a Civil servant, and the wife of another Civil servant were among those convicted of stealing worthless articles from city stores. All had comfortable sums of money in their possession, ;and in every case they declined to give an explanation or ascribe, their lapse to sudden temptation. : . • . One woman who stole a glass bangle valued at 6£d had £ll 10s in her possession. < A man caught stealing a wristlet watch, drove in his own car down to the police station with detective who arrested him, first of all stopping at his bank to cash a cheque for £SO. Another man who took a box of powder valued at 6s 6d had £23 in his wallet. ' ;■■';<"".. ~ A woman leaving for America the next day was fined £2O for stealing a 25s 6d handbag. When searched she had, over £3OO. ~ ',' .-' In another case police told the magistrate that the woman accused of the theft of a pair of child's socks was living in the direst poverty. i • She on the other hand, emphatically denied that she was in poor circumstances, but'declined to give any explanation for the theft. She walked out of court smiling, and then fainted. Those are a few of the hundreds of cases which appear each year before metropolitan magistrates, it is doubtful if the heavy fines and the publicity given even to first offenders, will ever wipe out the universal instinct to acquire something for nothing.