To pretend shoplifting at its core stems from not having socialized health care is the height of chicanery.
The issue is all this stuff is complex and multiple causative.
For example metal thefts are by far going to be executed by two groups. 1. Criminal gangs stealing large amounts at once. 2. Methheads looking for anything they can sell for their next fix.
Group 2 can certainly be helped with clinics and healthcare.
The drug users stealing copper can only be helped if they truly want the help. A great many are not ready for that help yet. As San Francisco has amply shown, no amount of money poured into the existing homeless industrial complex will change that fact.
Meanwhile, there is actually (probably? It won't show up in the data) organized crime doing shoplifting now, and that's pretty shitty. But cops just aren't doing their jobs. They need to investigate, and they have that authority, they just choose to not do it because it's boring and there's zero penalty for police department that doesn't do it's job.
