Anthony Lai, Period 7, 10/12/2023

 Anthony K Lai 

Modern Mythology 2024 

Socio-political Consciousness 

    Rise in Organized Retail Thefts Growing up as a kid I had full faith in the justice system to take down criminals and make the world safer, however in recent years I have started to question its use of its power, or rather disuse of it. If you keep up with the news as I do, you will see the occasional coverage on organized crime such as smash and grab robberies or shoplifts. Seeing these for the first time around 2 years ago didn’t particularly scare me, as I believed the thieves would simply be caught and put behind bars. However, clearly these criminal acts weren’t being punished or enforced nearly enough as I had hoped, as in New York specifically, the grand total retail theft complaints spiked from around 40,000 in 2020 to 64,000 in 2022 (NYC Criminal Justice). At that point, the trend started to make me worried, as my family owns a small business, and small businesses suffer the most from thefts, not having the large bottom-line of big businesses. So I decided to find out why thefts have risen, and it turns out that thefts under 1,000$ hardly get punished by the justice system as they get classified as a misdemeanor, encouraging people to go right back to stealing after they are released from custody! “Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police said. Collectively, they were arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.” (Hurubie Meko, New York Times) - each person was arrested on average, 20 times, even with such a long record of robberies they don’t get sent to jail! It’s just frustrating seeing more and more people thrive off of doing the wrong thing while normal people lose for doing the right thing. 

    Looking back on my sense of honor, I see it originates from my near idyllic upbringing in Staten Island. Growing up I had tons of friends in school and out of it (neighbors), a loving family and stable economic status. I would wish anyone to have experienced the same joy I did growing up, and I see realizing that dream by preserving the same values and ideas as the previous generation. Of course that carries over the less generous values too, it is safe to say prejudice is in everybody’s head in at least some form, but I have promised myself to treat everyone kindly first before seeing their character. Nonetheless, there have been times where my faith in the world was shaken, I was bullied in middle school and always the butt of the joke, my years there brought out the nihilist in me, cursing the people who insult or wrong me. The self-destructive mindset I try to suppress by laughing things off, even if it's to blow up later on because there’s this cultural stigma that I’ve subscribed to and that its boys don’t cry. To summarize, I feel like there’s a few sides to me, the person I am, the person I want to be and the part of me that tells me I can’t. I am currently just a kid, growing up and going through the motions, enjoying my life. I want to be a stoic person who will help everybody around me, but the nihilist in me says I will forever be a couch potato at home, leeching off of others. 

Works Cited 

Combating Retail Theft - Nyc.Gov, www.nyc.gov/assets/home/downloads/pdf/office-of-the- 

     mayor/2023/combating-retail-the ft-report-may-17-2023.pdf. Accessed 11 Oct. 2023. Meko,    

     Hurubie.

“A Tiny Number of Shoplifters Commit Thousands of New York City Thefts.” The New York Times,   

     The New York Times, 15 Apr. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/nyregion/shoplifting-arrests

     nyc.html.