Stores in America don’t close because of shoplifting, they close because they don’t treat their staff right.

About shoplifting itself: if I see someone stealing food, diapers, tampons, etc. I’ll deny seeing anything if asked. These people are desperate and just trying to get by. I know this because I was one of them. Homeless women need things.

About organized crime: we need to go after the big guys. Throwing people who may not have had much of a choice into prison ruins lives. What we need to do is give vulnerable people other options.

The people at the top take advantage of the vulnerable. The small jobs I did as part of organized crime I did for many reasons.

Firstly, it was the family business. I was “protecting” my family. I was unemployed and being abused, they offered me “work.” Anyway, they have their ways of preying on the vulnerable, the little guy.

We are the ones that go to prison, not those in charge. That means nothing will change except that the lives of the vulnerable are in even more danger because the “last one was stupid enough to get caught.”

I haven’t been involved in anything for twenty years, and I was young back then. Even if I’d been thrown in prison, it wouldn’t have changed anything except to further victimize me and trash my life further. The real villains would have just grabbed another vulnerable person particularly if they had the misfortune of being a relative.

I was able to move away and as such able to get away from them. I was lucky.