San Francisco professor complains about 'psychological cost' of stores locking items to prevent theft

A San Francisco professor lamented that items are being locked up in grocery stores, warning that it makes Americans feel like prisoners.

Major cities in America have been host to a spree of "serial shoplifters," who make a regular habit of bursting into stores, stealing as much as they can, and leaving. Now, a growing list of items such as shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, and razor blades have to be locked up order to prevent theft. In San Francisco, one video showed the glass doors of the frozen food section in a Walgreens chained shut after workers complained that the store gets robbed nearly 20 times a day.

University of California, San Francisco sociology professor Stacy Torres, however, wrote an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times downplaying the phenomenon, headlined, "Grocery stores used to be my happy place. Then they started locking up the detergent."

"Locked glass cabinets safeguarding merchandise are now ubiquitous in chains like Target, Walmart and Walgreens," the academic wrote. "Asking clerks to retrieve detergent and baby formula is demoralizing enough, but businesses are implementing more severe security measures that erode customers’ spirits and our social fabric, even though it’s unclear whether shoplifting has become the national crisis that some retailers claim."

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Torres linked to a CNN article from early 2023 headlined, "Stores say shoplifting is a national crisis. The numbers don’t back it up."

CNN highlighted a UC Berkeley academic's claim that it is "easier for companies and the public to blame theft for store closures and retail struggles than admit stores’ over-expansion, strategy mistakes and customers abandoning stores for online shopping."

Torres went on to argue that a grocery run "shouldn’t feel like visiting a prison, but that’s the vibe shoppers get from extreme anti-theft measures at a Safeway in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood" and "customers pay a psychological cost."

She said grocery stores should not "strip our dignity" by increasing security, and claimed that rather than providing a feeling of safety, stores "risk molding us into more anxious, suspicious people" as shoppers face "disproportionate dehumanization."

After arguing it is "unclear if beefed-up security measures are actually helping to solve these problems," the California academic offered some solutions for "organized retail theft and smaller-scale shoplifting," many of which appeared to be a checklist of left-wing initiatives.

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"[W]ithout addressing socioeconomic conditions such as inflation, poverty and opportunity deficits, the help [beefed-up security measures] do provide serves merely as a Band-Aid," she argued. "Short- and long-term investments in our social safety net, including restoring SNAP benefits slashed for millions in March, and ensuring access to high-quality education, job training and a living wage, will alleviate economic desperation."

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Matteo A. Cina and Emma Colton contributed to this report.