You arrived at this page by selecting:Troubles of defending yourself (YEP 01/07/07)
A shopkeeper in America has apparently come up with a hot new way of deterring thieves. Every time he discovers somebody shoplifting in his shop, he tells the thief that he will call the police unless the thief gives him one of his shoes.
His theory is that apparently this works because after giving up one of their shoes to him they are too embarrassed to come back again. Just shows you how different they are over that side of the ocean. I'm not convinced it would work in Halifax. They would be more likely to take a shoe off to clobber him with.
The report does not say what sort of shop it is. I wonder if it is a shoe shop? If so the shopkeeper still makes a loss on the deal, so maybe he is not one of America's intellectuals.
Anyway, the story then gets even stranger as this shopkeeper has got himself into trouble with the police over this. In their eyes shoplifting is just a piffling little thing, whereas demanding somebody's shoes counts as robbery, which is a far more serious offence. It probably also counts as blackmail too, although that might just be me being a bit finicky.
I'm not sure I go along with this notion that de-shoeing embarrasses thieves into not coming back again. I think if I had the brass neck to go around thieving, I don't think I'd be too bothered by the odd loss of a shoe. In fact I might well go hopping back into the same shop, not too bothered about losing the other, because its no good to me on its own and what's more 'you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb'.
What exactly this shopkeeper does with his large stack of odd shoes is not stated in this report. Nor does it say what he would do if a one legged shoplifter came into his shop. Strictly speaking, legally he would have to be treated exactly the same or else the shopkeeper might get done for disability discrimination.
So what do people do these days when faced with someone breaking the law? The police are trying to get communities involved in tackling crime but getting involved can end up with you in more trouble than the offender. There doesn't seem to be any room for common sense. I saw in the papers recently that a woman was arrested for carrying a knife on her way home from work. The fact that she was a baked potato stall holder and needed one for work purposes didn't seem to matter to the police. The bureaucratic process started and it took a long time before anyone saw sense and the charge was withdrawn.
As it stands carrying an offensive weapon is illegal in this country even if you would only ever use it to defend yourself. So, baked potato stall holders you have been warned!
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