A history of shoplifting, revealing the roots of our modern
dilemma.
Rachel Shteir''s The Steal is the first serious study of
shoplifting, tracking the fascinating history of this ancient
crime. Dismissed by academia and the mainstream media and largely
misunderstood, shoplifting has become the territory of moralists,
mischievous teenagers, tabloid television, and self-help gurus. But
shoplifting incurs remarkable real-life costs for retailers and
consumers. The "crime tax"-the amount every American family loses
to shoplifting-related price inflation-is more than $400 a year.
Shoplifting cost American retailers $11.7 billion in 2009. The
theft of one $5.00 item from Whole Foods can require sales of
hundreds of dollars to break even.
The Steal begins when shoplifting entered the modern record as
urbanization and consumerism made London into Europe''s busiest
mercantile capital. Crossing the channel to nineteenth-century
Paris, Shteir tracks the rise of the department store and the
pathologizing of shoplifting as kleptomania. In 1960s America,
shoplifting becomes a symbol of resistance when the publication of
Abbie Hoffman''s Steal This Book popularizes shoplifting as an
antiestablishment act. Some contemporary analysts see our current
epidemic as a response to a culture of hyper-consumerism; others
question whether its upticks can be tied to economic downturns at
all. Few provide convincing theories about why it goes up or
down.
Just as experts can''t agree on why people shoplift, they can''t
agree on how to stop it. Shoplifting has been punished by death,
discouraged by shame tactics, and protected against by high-tech
surveillance. Shoplifters have been treated by psychoanalysis,
medicated with pharmaceuticals, and enforced by law to attend
rehabilitation groups. While a few individuals have abandoned their
sticky-fingered habits, shoplifting shows no signs of slowing.
In The Steal, Shteir guides us through a remarkable tour of
all things shoplifting-we visit the Woodbury Commons Outlet Mall,
where boosters run rampant, watch the surveillance footage from
Winona Ryder''s famed shopping trip, and learn the history of
antitheft technology. A groundbreaking study, The Steal shows us
that shoplifting in its many guises-crime, disease, protest-is best
understood as a reflection of our society, ourselves.
關於作者：
Rachel Shteir is the author of the award-winning Striptease:
The Untold History of the Girlie Show and Gypsy: The Art of the
Tease. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, The
Guardian, Playboy, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Magazine, The
Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere. She is an associate professor and
the head of the BFA program in criticism and dramaturgy at the
Theatre School at DePaul University.
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