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Comment by zrail | Hacker News Reader

Daily necessities being locked up is evidence that petty crime like shoplifting may be up. People shoplift necessities when they can't afford them. Nobody is stealing socks for meth money, they're stealing because their feet are cold and they don't have the money to pay.

And why, you might ask, is shoplifting up? Might have something to do with the historically horrific levels of income inequality in the US.

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No, actually—shoplifting may have historically been primarily for personal use, and that may still be the primary cause by number of shoplifters, but organized gangs of shoplifters who steal large amounts of stuff to resell online are very much a thing [0] that's widely reported on [1] across many news outlets [2] and government groups [3].

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/organized-crime-rings-p...

[1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-04/eight-ar...

[2] https://apnews.com/article/business-health-government-and-po...

[3] https://www.chp.ca.gov/notify-chp/organized-retail-theft-pro...

> Nobody is stealing socks for meth money, they're stealing because their feet are cold and they don't have the money to pay.

Or, they might be stealing these items to resell. This is the case in NYC.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/08/organized-theft-ring-that-ta...

>historically horrific levels of income inequality in the US.

You can have high inequality and low % of extreme poverty

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