Thieves go for things that are easy to fence. For a while Tide-brand laundry detergent was famously easy to fence in some cities[1], so places had to lock up Tide.
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Teenagers who shoplift also go for things that are embarrassing or illegal for them to buy (condoms and alcohol respectively). So those are likely to be locked up as well.
1: My understanding is that drug-dealers &c. would accept payment in Tide and then sell that to organized crime, that would wholesale it to mom+pop corner stores.
That Tide factoid is darkly humorous. The selling it back to stores part makes me think of The Wire, Omar stealing a heroin shipment from Prop Joe and then selling it back to him: https://youtu.be/-q2LWHZ6O_M
In America’s defense, I’ll say that certain things are done much better than Europe.
There’s is certainly a better awareness/acceptance that growth = good. The entrepreneurial spirit also runs much stronger in your culture.
National (well, global) security is taken much more seriously, which I feel like is a facet of American federalization and thus unity. You won’t see a combined (and certainly not unified) European army for at least another few decades, everything thinks their own interests, independence and pride are too important.
[edit]
Teenagers who shoplift also go for things that are embarrassing or illegal for them to buy (condoms and alcohol respectively). So those are likely to be locked up as well.
1: My understanding is that drug-dealers &c. would accept payment in Tide and then sell that to organized crime, that would wholesale it to mom+pop corner stores.