I saw a shoplifter today.

the perfect example of discipline. every parent should do this instead of leaving it up to the stranger at the gas station, or worse.

At that age, a good hard yelling at is probably going to be the only thing to instil in him what he had done was wrong. That's, I'm sure, how most of us were dealt with when we did something bad. The kid will cry, he'll get over it, and he won't shoplift in the near future.

Its the illusion of possession. How can you possess something that of which is not tangible?

[edit on 19-3-2010 by onequestion]

Originally posted by Shoomoo
reply to post by LeaderOfProgress

 

yeah, but they should'nt just go ape**** on them and not tell him why they were yelling

He knew exactly why he was being yelled at... He tried to steal something and got caught... Thy went easy on him as they could have presses charges on him... Believe me... If they did that he would be going through a whole lot more than being yelled at...

They scared him and hopefully he wont do it again... They gave the kid a second chance... Something not so many are willing to do anymore...

He tried to steal... He did wrong... They taught him a lesson and hopefully he will keep it in mind the next time he thinks about stealing...

Besides it was NOT just mints he stole... That is money right there... Money that is needed for that store to stay open.... If you let them steal a little of this and a little of that.. See how long that place stays open....

Originally posted by LeaderOfProgress
reply to post by Shoomoo

 

Really..? You see the greatest part of what is so wrong in societies around the globe now days is that they seem to think that a child needs to be treated with kit gloves and should be just rationalized with. They did the right thing. They did not hit the child nor did they threaten with violence which is probably less than what I would do personally. Hell they walked the kid without calling the police, that alone was a gesture of a second chance.

if i saw a store owner corner a ten year old kid and scream at them, i would do something. and if i saw someone actually hit a child like you suggest, it would go even worse. you never put your hands on a chilld, and i'm not talking about a spanking i'm talking about hitting a child like they were a man. if i ever saw that even if it's their child they are gonna have more to deal with than a scared kid. believe that.

[edit on 3/19/2010 by murphyhurtme]

reply to post by murphyhurtme



But by intervening on the child's behalf would you not be adding to the problem the child already has? You just justified to the child that he can get away with stealing from someone and not only would he get away with it, some nice man would come to his aide and help him get away with it.

Originally posted by derickonfire
This is a good thing! My first time stealing as a kid, my mother did something great which I hope she is proud of. She called the police on me, a small charming boy.

Your mother sounds like me, except I didn't call the police.
I got to a tram-stop and found my sweet little intellectually handicapped son was clutching a little book on candy-making.
I dragged him straight back to the shop and made him apologise and give it back.
However the witless girl working there gave me a lecture on how stupid I was to bring it back after we'd already "got away with it".
I told her my son's future character was worth far more than a stolen book.

He has never stolen since.

Several years later I went through the same with my other son, but this time spoke to the (JB HiFi) manager first, who reprimanded him appropriately.
He's never forgotten the embarrassment.

The capitalist system steals from you everyday.

They take the resources that should belong to all of us and make them artificially scarce, in order to take as much money out of your pocket they can that you earned from your labour. It takes all the money created through your labour and gives you back the minimum it can get away with paying you.
The majority of the profit goes not to the people doing the actual producing but those fortunate enough to own the resources used in that production.

I ask who is the real thief the kid, or the system. Do those mints (resources) really belong to the gas station, or through an unfair system have they really been stolen from us in the first place?

It's only a gas station, but it's still a part of the system. They choose to be part of a system that steals from us everyday.

Originally posted by murphyhurtme

if i saw a store owner corner a ten year old kid and scream at them, i would do something. and if i saw someone actually hit a child like you suggest, it would go even worse. you never put your hands on a chilld, and i'm not talking about a spanking i'm talking about hitting a child like they were a man. if i ever saw that even if it's their child they are gonna have more to deal with than a scared kid. believe that.

A spanking's worth a thousand words, as they say.

An 8 year old kid used to ride around East Malvern throwing rocks through windows and breaking letter boxes off.
I waited when she was due, (this was her regular after-school activity,) and when she broke off my newly mended letter-box I chased her, dragged her off her bike, put her over my knee and spanked her thoroughly.

The neighbours came out and cheered.

The no-good parents threatened me and took me to court, but did themselves no good by turning up drunk. I represented myself, (I don't trust lawyers, the one the court wanted to provide told me to lie and say I had not spanked the brat,) and the judge agreed I was acting lawfully in loco parentis, (in the place of a parent) and the girl's parents had to pay court costs.

It was too funny. This was the only way they could have been punished for being dreadful parents, and they brought it on themselves.

Kids need to be taught early to respect other people and their property.

A few years ago, I inadvertently witnessed theft at the local supermarket. A middle-aged male was stuffing something into his zip jacket and adjusting it.

It was the pet-food aisle. The man himself was skin and bone, unkempt. He couldn't have failed to realise I'd entered the aisle but he ignored me and continued as he was doing

I felt so sorry for him, I moved past him as invisibly as possible

Another day, upon entering the supermarket, I asked one of the staff what the commotion was about because there was a small crowd of gawpers and whisperers and the police were leading an old man out to the patrol car

Apparently, the old man had stolen some small chocolate bars because his grandchildren were coming to visit

I offered to pay for the bars, but the staff member was very self-righteous and said 'NO!'. She said the old man had been caught before (little chocolates again) and had been let off with a warning. This time, the police had been called

I'll reserve my opinions re: ruthless, price-fixing supermaket chains and the plight of elderly war-veterans compelled to exist on pittance-pensions

big deal, they'll learn some day.

i learned when i felt bad for the workers that have to pay for the stuff i took.

If they were yelling in the good nature of teaching him a lesson, then it;s cool. But if it was uncontrollable anger and bullying they were fdoing, then it was wrong. There a difference in teaching someone a lesson instead of doing it for the hell of it.

The kid learned a valuable lesson. It might have made him cry, but I bet he won't do that again.

Just in case that sounds cold to some of you, let me give you some perspective. I was that kid. I got caught shoplifting when I was 13 and they hauled my theiving butt down to the police station. I was handcuffed, hauled through the store and put in the back of the police car, driven down main street, booked, printed, got my mug shot taken, was locked in a cell for 2 hours, had to go to court and ended up on probation for 6 months and had to do 60 hours of community service. The absolute worst part was having to call my mother to pick me up from the cop shop.

It sucked at the time but I learned my lesson and looking back, I also don't have any hard feelings. If the kid never steals anything again, those guys did him a favour.

[edit on 19-3-2010 by Duzey]

Like a dog rub his nose in it and he learns. to many bleeding hearts saying it is wrong. Bah a good yelling or spanking teaches you the lessons in life. In a survival situation there is little time for being nice. it is good he got the lesson before it was his last. At least there is hope. He got a second chance. Most people now aday have to go through medal detectors inorder to go to school. The shame of it is its not the families fault. Its the so called social welfare. They won't let you spank a kid and teach him he is doing wrong. they threaten to take your kid. everyone lets someone else take care of their kids hoping someone will break through. It is ashame we find out to soon that no one broke through and they went out and killed someone. Who do you blame.?. Spank them yell at them teach them right from wrong. knowing this and being raised this way most of us know it is the right way when its needed.

I found out my kid stole a couple of times, they got their a** beat and they were taken back into the store and embarrassed by being made to confess to the clerk and even worked to pay off the debt once when they had consumed some of the stolen property, beleive me, they don't do it now!!!! They were under the age of ten, the worse part is, the one time they could've just asked for store credit as they knew us well and we already had credit going with them. They were testing bounderies and they found out momma don't play that!!!!! So what they did I agree with it.

Originally posted by Dock9
I'll reserve my opinions re: ruthless, price-fixing supermaket chains and the plight of elderly war-veterans compelled to exist on pittance-pensions

Not only that the old man is living in a system that has conditioned us that to show love we must buy people things. Forced between the heartbreaking situation where visiting relatives (kids) kinda expect to get something from Grandpa and he can't deliver, or petty theft. Again the system rears it's ugly coercive head. Kids do not understand poverty, the old man just wants to prove his love in the way he has been conditioned to, and the kids to expect.

If you can't, for whatever reason, participate in what the 'system' expects, you are deemed not worthy by the majority of society.

Such is social conditioning...And the system of private ownership of our resources.

Good post BTW Dock, notice most posters can't see past the reactionary, 'you're a thief you must be punished' response....

[edit on 3/20/2010 by ANOK]

reply to post by Shoomoo


serves him right, he'd probably even brag about it to his buddies and egg each other on to bigger crimes; they act big and tough so a little humiliation will go a long way in rehabilitating the punk

reply to post by Shoomoo


Good Post, definitely brought out the opinions.

Ok now everyone who said "good job" to screaming at the kid, and cornering him, you are all IDIOTS.

It doesn't matter if the kid FILLED his pockets with crap from the candy isle, until he leaves the store he has stolen nothing. And what you have condoned is assault on the kid. Assault is NOT striking the kid, that's battery. Assault is exactly what you are cheering about and it really is sad.

It doesn't matter that you think he was going to steal, it doesn't matter that he thinks he was going to steal, until he leaves the store..he stole NOTHING.

"They asked him to empty his pockets. I saw nothing in them, and a guy went in the back and found a Junior Mints on the shelf."

So what did this kid steal?...nothing....zero nada...but they sure taught him a lesson. The lesson your cheering about isn't about stealing, it's about ganging up on a defenseless person when you are in a group and forcing a "confession" out of him. Yup..good job cheering that on. The worst part, is you don't even know you are doing it.

Gawd...
..Ex

Originally posted by Shoomoo
I saw a shoplifter today at a gas station. I didn't even notice he was even doing it either. That is, until i heard someone say to go to the register.

Ok this right here by your wording means they saw him ATTEMPT to steal it, and told him to go to the register to empty his pockets and see what else he MAY have already stuffed...he apparently didn't have anything else BUT was trying to steal the mints, so only ONE idiot here. He got his a@@ chewed out as he should of and was tought that IF caught they WILL BE consequences.

According to your last post your saying that because he was only caught ATTEMPTING to steal he should of just been let go without alittle scare? Without a little no bs patty cake talk?

There were 2 other options for the guys to take.

1. Call the cops..but why, no reason to as a crime wasn't committed, so all they would of done was chewed his butt and then led into my number 2 option...

2. Call the parents and tell them what little Johnny did. Now this can go 1 of 2 ways, and SADLY these days its going the negative way. The parents could of been called and come to the store and made him apologize, or even made him work for the guy for a day. Taking out trash, sweeping, mopping, etc...and maybe even EARNED the mints and learned alittle something. OR, and most likely, the parents would of showed up and flipped a lid for the guys yelling at their child who does no wrong, NOT punished him, made him out to be a prince and left....

So, sorry but this incident was handled ok IMO....

[edit on 3/20/2010 by rcwj1975]

Originally posted by rcwj1975

Originally posted by Shoomoo
I saw a shoplifter today at a gas station. I didn't even notice he was even doing it either. That is, until i heard someone say to go to the register.

According to your last post your saying that because he was only caught ATTEMPTING to steal he should of just been let go without alittle scare? Without a little no bs patty cake talk?
So, sorry but this incident was handled ok IMO....
[edit on 3/20/2010 by rcwj1975]

So, from what I gather here, it's ok for say...me to accuse your wife of shoplifting because she maybe takes something from one shelf and puts it on another? Since that is the level of proof we are dealing with here.
But I can scream at her and berate her until she admits in a fit of tears that she was going to steal, since that's the only choice I would have given her and your "OK" with that? No harm done?...

If this would ever happen in the described fashion to my kid, my litigation lawyer would have their @sses in seconds. As you stated, no crime was committed by the kid, but the adults assaulted the kid verbally. Which is a crime. But like you said, your OK with it.

..Ex