At this point, wide-scale retail theft has become so common that it barely qualifies for a headline anymore. It’s been particularly bad on the West Coast, but many other areas have been plagued by it as well. It’s reached the stage where a number of stores have closed down, particularly pharmacies. Other outlets have taken to locking up all of their goods so that shoppers have to ask a clerk to bring them out for them. But one sociology professor from Brooklyn College thinks that everyone is just making too big of a deal out of this. Professor Alex Vitale told CNN this week that the focus on shoplifting and retail theft “is usually overblown” and shouldn’t be associated with “the collapse of social order.” (Fox News)

Shoplifting has had an “outsized impact” on discussions about crime that has been exploited by justice reform opponents, one professor argued on Friday.

Brooklyn College sociology professor Alex Vitale was one of multiple professors and researchers who discussed with CNN growing concerns over the rise in retail theft as more stores have closed or moved out of large cities. However, Vitale insisted that the concern is usually overblown.

“Historically, shoplifting has always had this outsized impact on public discourse,” Vitale said. He added, “We see examples on video of behaving badly and it gets invested with all this extra meaning about the collapse of social order.”

You can read more about Professor Vitale here. He’s very big on social justice, new models of law enforcement, and “The End of Policing.” So perhaps it’s easy to understand how he might feel that mobs of people looting the local Walgreens is nothing to get too worked up over. He explains that people who demonstrate “anxiety” over shoplifting and retail crime are actually demonstrating “a stand-in for larger concerns of cultural, economic or political changes.” That’s fancy liberal code language which translates to ‘anyone who complains about looting is a racist.’

Of course, the obvious failure in the professor’s analysis is shown by the reality that we’re not talking about “a little shoplifting” like we used to see in most places. Retail theft has become an organized crime syndicate where anyone can get in on the ground floor with almost no investment. The special detail in Los Angeles set up to look into this has already identified dozens of outlets that specialize in buying stolen goods cheaply and then turning around and selling them for a profit. And their freelance thieves still walk away with little more than a slap on the wrist if they manage to get caught.

Here’s one fine example of a retail thief who was caught on video this week. Watch this guy and his partner in action.

These people no longer feel the need to hide their faces… because they know there are zero consequences. pic.twitter.com/viQTLpjXI4

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 20, 2023

As noted by the poster, this character no longer even bothers with the pretense of wearing a mask like many others still do. He can load up his arms and stroll rather casually out the door. He knows that nothing will happen to him even if there’s a cop outside. And most of the clerks have been instructed not to step in and protect the store’s merchandise.

The example above only featured two individuals stealing. Other stores have been hit by a dozen or more criminals who can effectively empty the shelves of desirable goods that are easily resold. So it’s patently ridiculous that CNN would feature a professor saying that discussing this issue is some sort of “outsized impact on public discourse.” What we’re observing actually is the “collapse of social order” that Vitale is mocking.

There was a time not all that long ago when none of this was acceptable. You went to the store to find the things you needed, you paid for your purchases, and you left. The few people who were caught stealing were punished. The expectation of punishment provided a disincentive to such behavior, so the vast majority of society was able to go shopping and otherwise conduct their lives normally.

But now we are increasingly living in Alex Vitale’s world where the old rules of order no longer apply. There’s no need for police if nobody is going to be punished and if no one is punished, there is no disincentive to criminal conduct. The problem is that we relied on that sense of social order to keep society going for generations. When you take it away without any plan to replace it, collapse is not only possible but very likely inevitable. And yet we have so many people on the left who are still willing to embrace it. The entire concept is simply beyond my comprehension.