This story started Tuesday when the NY Post covered an incident of shoplifting that was caught on camera:

A man was caught on Post video allegedly brazenly swiping about a dozen steaks from a Manhattan Trader Joe’s on Tuesday morning…

Two helpless Trader Joe’s staffers had followed the man up an escalator leading to the store’s exit but only stopped him from taking a shopping basket outside — not the meat, the video shows.

“They basically just tell us not to do anything, just let them go,” a Trader Joe’s worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, later explained to The Post.

The NY Post put the shoplifter on the cover with this amusing headline:

When it comes to shoplifting… Raise the Steaks!!! pic.twitter.com/V76wJbJfe5

— chip goines (@chipgoines) February 10, 2022

Now, as you can already tell from the cover, there are two points of outrage here. One is the brazenness of the crime and the fact that no one at the store is allowed to even try to stop it. It seems to many people that, as often as this happens, people doing it ought to be arrested and discouraged from carrying on as if this is normal behavior.

The second related point is that this isn’t a one-off. Crime is up in NYC and elsewhere. The issue here isn’t just one guy stealing a few steaks. The issue is lots of guys like him stealing stuff to the point that many stores are struggling to cope. The Post published a story the next day with video of another man shoving canned drinks into his pants at same Trader Joe’s.

Getting back to the Hamburglar, he wasn’t stealing ten expensive steaks because he’s starving. As the Post had previously reported, a lot of stolen merchandise gets sold on to bodegas. This isn’t desperation, this is boosting merchandise to make money.

Avi Kaner, the CEO and co-owner of Morton Williams said in his 25 years with the grocer, he’s never seen as much theft.

“They are coming in with garbage bags to steal for profit and sell the goods to unscrupulous businesses,” he said, alleging that much of the pilfered stuff ends up on shelves at smaller bodegas in the Bronx and elsewhere.

And the collective impact of so many thieves stealing so much from retail stores is that some stores are closing permanently. Again, the Post covered this last month:

The Rite Aid at the corner of 8th Avenue and 50th Street in Hell’s Kitchen will close Feb. 8 because of the rampant pilfering, said store sources who claim thieves have ripped off more than $200,000 worth of merchandise in the past two months alone.

A Post reporter followed one brazen thief at the store last week, watching him load four cases of beer into an oversize canvas bag in the back of the store and stride out without paying.

Stealing $200,000 in two months is a significant amount of money. That’s more than $3,000 per day. There’s no way the store can make enough on sales to overcome a loss of $3,000 per day. Just today, ABC New York reported on two other stores who are beefing up security because of the wave of shoplifting they are experiencing thanks in part to progressive bail reform:

New York City’s largest grocery chain announced Thursday it is beefing up security amid a wave of shoplifting across the city.

John Catsimatidis, Chairman and CEO of Gristedes/D’Agostino’s Supermarkets, cited a recent 40-50% spike in shoplifting incidents in adding the extra security measures…

Catsimatidis said bail reform has contributed to increases in crime throughout the city and state, leaving shop owners with little recourse and criminals with no fear of repercussions.

And that brings us to Morning Joe which talked about the Hamburglar story yesterday morning. As you’ll see, even Rev. Al Sharpton thinks things have gotten out of hand. “There are those, including me, who are concerned about overloading the system and the jails with petty crime,” Sharpton said. He continued, “But at the same time you cannot have a culture where people are just— at random— just robbing and stealing and it’s out of control and it’s put on the covers of newspapers which only encourages others to do it.”

An alleged shoplifter has been caught on tape appearing to steal 10 steaks from NYC Trader Joe’s. I joined MSNBC to speak on the need for public safety and to address criminal justice concerns.#MorningJoe pic.twitter.com/bWrNC8d8rQ

— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) February 9, 2022

For saying something fairly obvious about the need to bring down petty crime when it is up more than 23%, Nikole Hannah Jones lashed out at Sharpton and accused him of legitimizing “the carceral state.”

This drumbeat for continued mass incarceration is really horrific to watch. A person stealing steak is not national news, and there have always been thefts from stores. This is how you legitimize the carceral state.

— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) February 10, 2022

A couple of obvious points here. First, it may be a given on the left that putting people in prison for crimes caught on camera is illegitimate but I think if you look around you’ll find that’s increasingly a minority view. Most people think this brazen theft is outrageous.

Second, what alternative is Hannah Jones proposing to make people stop boosting merchandise? She doesn’t say. We’re right back to the foolishness of the defund the police movement, i.e. demanding cities tear down the existing system without any real plan for what comes next. And no, I’m not talking about specific programs like body cameras for police or sending out special teams to respond to mental health situations. Those ideas never required defunding the police. I’m talking about people who wanted funding cut and wanted to abolish prisons as well without any explanation of how to deal with either serious crime (shootings and murder) or low-level but persistent crime (shoplifting). There’s no plan, just a vague belief that it will all work out in the end. Except it isn’t working out as a review of recent violent crime and robbery figures will show.

As for the claim this isn’t national news, Hannah Jones is wrong about that too. The same thing that’s happening in New York is happening in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. The Wall Street Journal has reported on organized gangs of thieves boosting merchandise to resell it on Amazon. Even Nancy Pelosi has criticized the “attitude of lawlessness” in the country while claiming she has no idea where it came from.

Speaker Pelosi should look in the mirror to see what caused the ‘attitude of lawlessness’ spreading across the country.

Democrat politicians defunded police, raised money for rioters, and pushed policies that are soft on crime. They own this crime wave.
pic.twitter.com/g8D7vh4U3D

— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) December 15, 2021

On the other side of the argument are a surprising number of progressives who are fine with shoplifting. Nikole Hannah Jones appears to be one of them, at least in the de facto sense that she opposes putting the shoplifters in jail even if that means they’ll continue stealing because they’re well aware there are no consequences.

One guy stealing 10 steaks isn’t national news, but thousands of guys just like him stealing millions from retailers in cities on both coasts is a national story which deserves some national attention. Anyone who says the problem should be ignored is just asking for more of the same. That’s not smart, it’s not ethical and it’s not sustainable. The stores will close and then the same progressives winking at shoplifting will move on to whining about “food deserts.” But it turns out you can’t have your Trader Joe’s and eat it too. Until someone has a better idea, putting the army of petty thieves in jail should be an option.