Some more interesting context from your link:
When the author anonymously interviewed students, he gathered the following responses:
• “I totally have [taken things from a store downtown without paying for it].
I think I’ve stolen from Gibson’s twice. I took a packet of those noodles that
come in boxes… It wasn’t expensive and I felt like it. I just preferred not
paying for it, but I could have.”
• A female student admitted that she has stolen many things from Gibson’s
Bakery and Ben Franklin’s. “I took a wine bottle. I had a large winter jacket
and I put the bottle in the lining and I walked right out.” And, “I took pens
from Ben Franklin because individually the pens cost $4 and I thought it
was a racket.”
• “Probably [I have stolen from downtown] but let me think about it…yeah,
no, I do that all the time.” The same student then talked about how they
stole a one-hundred-dollar ($100) bottle of wine from Gibson’s Bakery.
• “I have stolen from Gibson’s, Kim’s, IGA. I took some dumb stuff. From
Gibson’s I took some steak knives for an avocado that I also stole. I was
really drunk and that was really bad.”
• “I think I’ve taken candy and just small shit from Ben Franklin’s and the
Oberlin Market.”
• “[I have taken] a few pens from Ben Franklin over the years… they’re hard
to resist.”
• One said she’s never paid for Chapstick while at Oberlin for four years.
• The author: “I myself have stolen from the very people I’ve interviewed for
this story. I could have paid for the items easily, but I chose to steal them
instead.”
This student and/or institutional attitude was supported by the statistics provided from the
Oberlin Police Department of thefts at Gibson’s Bakery from January 1, 2011 to November 14,
2016. These statistics show that of the 40 adults arrested for theft during that time period, 33
of those adults (82.5%) were Oberlin College students.