Stop, Thief!

I have always wondered about the mind of criminals. Some chance chit-chat on Sunday afternoon with a local department store owner and a policeman led me into the weird world of shoplifters. I recalled my surprise when I visited a supermarket during my early months in Bim, and saw that the liquor cabinet was locked. The manager explained that it was to prevent people walking out with flasks of expensive liquor, like the quality gins or vodkas; rum is too cheap to steal.

People seem prepared to go to great lengths to get some free goods. Here are a few of the wheezes:

• Lady wore a billowy dress with pockets sewn on the inside, which she filled will goods and sashayed out of the store.
• The most unexpected persons do a bit of shoplifting, such as "the typical housewife". She may have a stroller and she'll look like any other woman on the street. You wouldn't even suspect that she is filling up her stroller with kids' clothes. Stores report stopping doctors and people in three piece suits (as if that stops someone being a thief).
  
• There are professional thieves who clean out a store; they'll unload racks of merchandise. They'll fill garbage bags up. They'll pull up a car next to the doors, run in, grab armloads of stuff, and run out the door. They'll be in the store ten seconds. In Barbados, this latter kind of shoplifting quickly finds the goods headed to Fairchild Street Market; in London it used to be Petticoat Lane.
• One lady stole a frozen chicken from a Bridgetown supermarket, and wedged it between her legs, as she walked out of the store. She was spotted by the security camera. The store detained her at the exit long enough for the chicken to start thawing and the liquids begin to drip. Gross!
• Thieves take things they can sell easily. There's obviously a market for Ferrol Compound, as one lady had several of the 24 ounce bottles on her body, and when confronted threw them to the ground and said "What bottles? I don't have anything." What a hoot.
  
• Schoolchildren are often in the ranks, doing their stuff while in uniform. Duh! Not pushed there by the likes of Fagin in 'Oliver Twist', but doing it for all sorts of reasons (like wanting a camera storage disk to take more pictures). But they don't like their parents to know. Duh!
• Eating the food in the store is another cool wheeze, and I remember that being a favourite of some people I saw in the UK: you can have a good meal while shopping. I often wondered if those fancy US food stores like "Freshfields" and "Trader Joe's" offered nice snacks and free fruit to ward off the shoplifting.
  

I asked the store owner what were the most popular items stolen. "Deodorant," he quickly replied. They are small, easy to resell, and very expensive in Barbados. Tell me that last point: we stock up in the US whenever we travel. My store man added, "A guy came in with a big holdall, and just swept the shelf clean into it, then tried to leave the store." What a world!

For the longest while, we in the Caribbean have focused on praedial larceny--with enough stories of fields of goats or cattle disappearing overnight. The goods quickly find their way into the market place. How can you tell that a side of beef has been plundered illegally? You may suspect something if the price is really cheap. There, we are talking about the "big time" crimes. I'm not sure which is costing the economy more--the robbing of the store or the robbing of the fields--but we are apparently home to good practitioners in both.