Abstract

This literature review is aimed to talk about shoplifting, and understand what drive people to shoplift. Some authors have found that the retail environment influences people to shoplift, we will analyse this point in order to understand how and why. Also, thanks to the theory of Bonoma, and the theory of planned behaviour theory we will try to understand what people’s motivations to shoplift are. The principal answer we are looking for is to understand if people are mainly motivated by economic hardship or not.

Actual situation and Introduction

“As a result, shoplifting has become one of the most prevalent crimes in the U.S., averaging about 550,000 incidents per day resulting in more than $13 billion worth of goods being stolen from retailers each year. That is more than $35 million in losses per day” (Peter Berlin, NASP). “More than 3.5 million people have admitted shoplifting in the past five years, according to new research. “ (BBC Website). Thank to the two previous sentences, we have seen the economic impact of shoplifting. This is a very important phenomenon because it has a cost for people and for the society as well. Finally the society sentences shoplifting. The question we can ask then, is if shoplifting is consider a crime? And if shoplifters have to go to jail to have stolen? And about young people who shoplift? “There are many forms of business crimes.” (Booth, 2008: 127). In his article, Booth (2008) is treating about business crimes, and how we should define and perceive various sort of those. “If the culprit cannot gain from the offense, a simple monetary remedy is sufficient to deter bad behaviour” (Booth, 2008: 128). Booth (2008) is saying that if we consider a business crime as a bad behaviour, just a financial pain can be applied. So if we take it into consideration what Booth said, we probably have to revise our perception of shoplifting: Do we have to condemn a pain to people who shoplift even if we do not