From the odd chocolate bar to CD's and videos, teenagers are often seen by shopkeepers as the prime suspects for shop lifting. But as young journalists from Children's Express point out, young people are often unfairly victimised.
| Most of the shopkeepers round here don’t trust kids at all. |
For Tara Aston, going out at lunchtime to the shops around her school in Firth Park is not a pleasant experience.
Because while the 13-year-old from Shire Green likes shopping, she doesn't like the victimisation that goes with it.
She is treated with suspicion by shopkeepers who see children and particularly teenagers as shoplifters.
"Most of the shopkeepers round here don't trust kids at all, she says.
"A lot of them don't let more than three of us in at a time and others watch you like hawks the whole time you're there. They treat you like you're guilty before you've even done anything."
Fourteen-year-old Sheriena Risden from Pitsmoor agrees. "There's one shop close to school which is really bad.
"It's only a tiny place but when the kids are out of school there are at least three members of staff to watch you the whole time.
"Once, I was late for school and went in there on the way. All the staff had gone and there was just one man behind the counter."
Even the bigger shops treat young shoppers with suspicion as fifteen-year-old Shefina Coke, from Firth Park, discovered.
She said: "I was in this clothes shop in town once and this security guard just followed me around everywhere I went. It made me feel really uncomfortable. I wasn't doing anything wrong but it was as if they thought I was guilty."
The youngsters' indignation is borne out by figures from South Yorkshire Police. They show that while 214 children were prosecuted for shoplifting in the Sheffield area last year, more than twice that number of adults between the ages of 26 and 30 were charged with the offence.
While figures prove the point, what's the evidence of shop lifting on the street?
Terry Clark works as a security guard at Somerfield supermarket in Firth Park and believes the kids have a point.
"Ninety per cent of the theft is by a small number of people. Once these people are identified and stopped, most of the problem will stop."
"A school-kid might nick one thing but a drug-addict will run in, grab a load of high-value items, put them in a bag and run out. We don't have a major problem in this shop with young people shoplifting."
He admits that young people have been caught shoplifting at Somerfield but it is not a widespread problem.
"Some do it as a dare, a buzz. It's a phase they go through."
But he says they don't steal to order, like many of the adult gangs that target supermarkets. "They're impulse shoplifters. They'll steal anything from a 10p bar of chocolate to something that costs 10."
Dawn Osbourne, customer services manager at Meadowhall, says their main problems are not school kids looking for a few additions to their CD collections but adults who see shoplifting as an easy way to make a living.
"Career shoplifters work in gangs. They sell stuff on in pubs at weekends. They can steal up to 100,000 a year. Things like razor blades. High priced but small."
Young people do account for some of the shoplifters they deal with at Meadowhall but they tend to act on the spur of the moment.
She says: "There are a few young people who shoplift because of peer pressure; they feel the odd one out if they don't. They're taking a chance because they're cajoled into it. They think they're not going to get caught."
Youngsters feel shopkeepers need to reassess their attitudes about children and shoplifting.
"Children always get blamed for shoplifting, says Sharina. "And that's not fair because it's adults who are mainly responsible. Children are just an easy target."
About the team
This article was produced by editor Anna Bradshaw,15 and reporters, Shakeela Alssalam and Laura Dudley, both 13. It was published in the Sheffield Star.
