Titbit: Shoplifting Has Doubled in the Last Six Years

I was just watching an article on Today Tonight, which I think is on Channel 7 (but I could be wrong), about the doubling in shoplifting over the last seven years in Australia.

Presuming Today Tonight have got their numbers right then 4 billion dollars worth of goods were stolen from retail outlets across Australia in 2011. Apparently this is about double the estimated value of shoplifting in 2005 after adjusting for inflation. This means that in ‘real’ terms people stole twice as much stuff in 2011 than they did in 2005, or maybe there are twice as many people stealing stuff now compared back then—one or the other, or a bit of both.

The Today Tonight article went into the new high-technology steps that retailers are implementing to catch and stop shoplifting, and how the cost of these steps then has to be passed on to regular customers in the price of goods. So, as usual, the honest people end up paying the cost of shoplifting.

The question I was hoping they would ask was: “Why has shoplifting increased so much over the last seven years?” But they didn’t and a quick couple of Google searches did not bring up the answer.