The scent of body mist clings to the air as pop music pulses through the store. In the makeup aisle at Sephora, Hazel’s* eyes lock on a lip gloss vial. After one glance over her shoulder, scanning for employees, she slips the gloss into her front pocket and heads for the exit. She’s lost count of how many times she’s done this.
That day, Hazel walked out of the store empty-handed and with a store ban to her name.
“I’ve taken the most from Sephora,” Hazel said. “Even though I’ve been banned from the store, I still shoplift sometimes because I don’t really care. I’ll just run for it next time. The only thing I regret is not getting away quickly enough.”
One in 11 Americans has admitted to shoplifting, while one in four adolescents has admitted to shoplifting before the age of 16. 550 thousand shoplifting incidents happen every day, according to the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention. The frequency of shoplifting cases rose by 24% in the first half of 2024, according to CBS News. Likewise, there was an 87% surge in shoplifting instances from 2019 to 2023 in the Los Angeles Area, according to Safe and Sound Security.
Hazel said she first started stealing out of necessity and has continued over the years.
“I started shoplifting around eighth grade,” Hazel said. “I went to a mall with my friend, saw him take something and realized that was an option I had. Later, when I needed food, like when I was in New York or Boston for school trips but didn’t have money, I just started taking it. I’ve taken over $1,000 a week on multiple occasions. Usually, I just put it in my pocket or walk out of the store with it in my hand. At school, I put it under my shirt or jacket. One time in the cafeteria, I put an entire churro up my arm sleeve.”
Teenagers may shoplift for several reasons, including poor impulse control, thrills, to test authority or peer pressure, according to Newport Academy, a residential mental health treatment center for adolescents. 52.6% of students at the school who shoplifted stated they were motivated by fun or thrills, while 26.3% stated it was because of impulse, according to a Chronicle poll. 18.4% said it was because of financial reasons. Vanessa*, a friend of Hazel’s, said she started shoplifting with Hazel at school because of its accessibility.
“Back in the day, when we had free time, we would take advantage of it to sneak into rooms and pretend we were looking for somebody or for a laptop charger,” Vanessa said. “We just took whatever we wanted. We wore really baggy clothes, like cargo pants. I’ve taken the most from art rooms and even other people’s lockers. Now, the most expensive thing I’ve taken is a $326 bunny keychain from Nordstrom.”
Retail stores lost $45 billion due to theft in 2024 and are estimated to lose $53 billion in 2027, according to Capital One Shopping Research. As shoplifting has been on the rise in the Los Angeles area, faculty and staff have also noticed a growing increase in student theft at school. Upper School librarians have seen a growing number of missing chargers this year. Upper School librarian Jessica Wahl said though she doesn’t think students are always deliberately not returning the chargers, the deficit of chargers has been concerning.
“I don’t think it’s malicious,” Wahl said. “But, we have to come out here and say, ‘No, you cannot take them. You have to check them out.’ There’s been disciplinary action, but that goes beyond us. I’m not sure what it was, but stealing chargers becomes a huge thing because when so many students are checking out chargers and people are taking them, we don’t have any to loan out to other students. So, we try to empty the bins on the sides of our desks so that we can make sure that they aren’t taken. We started at 25 at the beginning of the semester and now have eight.”
Wahl said she and the other librarians have also begun to notice their personal belongings being taken by students.
“We have students that come behind our desks,” Wahl said. “We have stuff available for free at our desk. That’s for you guys to take. Our own personal stuff is where we draw the line. This is our personal stuff, versus what’s available to you guys. I used to have fidget spinners, pens and other random trinkets, but now they’re gone.”
Vanessa said she and Hazel have a tacit agreement to protect each other if things went wrong.
“I’ve personally never regretted shoplifting because there have yet to be any repercussions on my part,” Vanessa said. “That day, we had hid all the stuff we stole in bushes around the mall. At the end of the day, I collected everything. We’ve been doing it for so long that we thought we wouldn’t get caught, especially at Sephora. But, the number one rule we established was never ratting out the other person. When [Hazel] got caught and the employee accused me too, she told her ‘[Vanessa] is not that type of person. She would never steal.’”
Despite the fact that they both shoplifted, Hazel was banned from the store while Vanessa was not. However, they continue to frequent the store together.
According to a Chronicle poll, about 40% of students have shoplifted. Kiesha* said shoplifting is a casual topic among friends and often receives a positive response at school.
“It’s pretty common for people our age,” Kiesha said. “It’s fairly normalized, to be honest, especially when it comes to stealing at Sephora or maybe at the grocery store. I tell people after I’ve stolen. I’ll tell my friends to look at my mascara, and they’ll ask where I got it. And I’ll be like, ‘I literally just stole it from Sephora.’ I literally do not care. My friends then say, ‘cool. I might get that for myself.’”
Upper School Bookstore Manager Gil Garibaldo said that although he hasn’t seen as many shoplifting cases at the school, they are increasingly prevalent at the university level.
“Here at the Upper School, everyone abides by the honor system, which is great,” Garibaldo said. “But in previous places where I’ve worked, most specifically in universities, the most common type of shoplifting was seen in students. Students there would go into the bookstore, find the book that they needed and just take pictures. That is a form of stealing because, really, they can just simply go to the library. In some instances where it was a repeat offender, we would just ask them to be removed from the store and delete the photos. But, we were understanding, and our customer service was set to prevent any future instances and shoplifting in general.”
Angel S., an Urban Outfitters sales associate, said the store has implemented several measures for loss prevention because shoplifting is so commonplace at the store.
“We have shoplifting cases every day, with many more happening during the summer or around the holidays,” Angel said. “That’s why we have security guards, count people’s items in the fitting rooms, people walking around and an alarm system that goes off in the front of the store. If someone does shoplift, we budget for that so we don’t lose money, for the most part. Based on how much we lost the prior year, we will keep that in mind and think, ‘oh, we’re probably gonna have this amount of theft and this amount of loss’ so that we don’t overspend.”
Josephine Wiener ’26 said that although she believes petty theft may not affect big corporations as much, it harms other consumers.
“It encourages negative behavior that can be ongoing,” Wiener said. “I think a lot of the time, the actual effects of shoplifting are not that bad. For example, I think Target can afford to lose a few items. But, on the other hand, it also encourages not taking responsibility. A lot of these corporations have to raise the prices of their goods in general to account for shoplifting. So, that makes people who don’t shoplift have to pay a little bit extra.”
Lauren Kim ’26 said the culture of shoplifting among students is detrimental to other families who are lower-income.
“There are no good- faith actors among teenagers stealing from large corporations,” Kim said. “Frankly, most kids at our school probably don’t need to shoplift in an economic or financial sense. So, by having shoplifting be an encouraged culture among students, prices are raised, which affects people outside our school who actually do have to structure their lives around those prices.”
Assembly Bill 2943, or the California Retail Theft Reduction Act, was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom in Aug. 2024 and was put into effect Jan. 1, 2025. The legislation states that an individual can be charged after the aggregate value of stolen goods across several incidents and locations reaches $950 or more, according to CA.gov.
Lauren Daub ’26 said she thinks shoplifting is a burden to small businesses.
“It disrupts local communities,” Daub said. “I was going shopping for some ingredients to cook some food. The whole grocery store, because it was a little mini-mall selling specialty ingredients and not a big box grocery store, had all these signs saying, ‘don’t shoplift, or we’re gonna post you on YouTube.’ These companies don’t like it.”
Kiesha said that the first time she took something was by accident, but now she shoplifts when she sees something she wants but can’t afford.
“The first time was when I was five years old, and I stole a packet of stickers from an art store,” Kiesha said. “My mom made me return them. The last time I took something was a couple of months ago, at Sephora. If there’s something that I like, and it’s super expensive, I just put it in my pocket. I don’t like stealing from small businesses, but with large corporations, I feel like it’s fine, especially if I don’t have money on hand. I never feel guilty.”
Shoplifters are caught 2% of the time, with the average being arrested once out of every 100 incidents, according to Capital One Shopping Research. Angel said that when he does catch shoplifters, his response depends on the severity of the incident.
“If the thing stolen is worth little, we’ll usually let them go,” Angel said. “But if it’s a good amount, we file a police report and then keep a note on them and then don’t let them back in the building. If they do come back, we call the police as soon as possible.”
Garibaldo said the best way to prevent shoplifting is by making sure customer service is equitable and store associates are proactive.
“Treat everyone awesomely,” Garibaldo said. “No one assumes that you’re following them around the store. They just assume, ‘oh, the employees are just on top of it. They’re servicing everybody in the store, so I don’t feel like I’m being targeted or anything like that.’”
*Name has been changed.
