They call it "prosecution", I call it "consequences". Would be even better if the law prevented the parents from paying the fines, and made the shoplifter to community service, or get a part time job to pay it off.

Does not bother me a bit. If you're willing to steal you should have to deal with the consequences.

...I'm joking, sincerely.

Good. Until Al Sharpton gets involved. THen it's not their fault.

Even if the prosecute a 16 year old, if it's your first offense won't you just get community service and probation for shoplifting? Most of it's probably expunged eventually anyway. This is hardly going to ruin lives if it's a relatively good kid looking for "danger" so I don't have a problem with it.

Good, prosecute to the fullest extent allowed. Why protect underage criminals?

From what I hear most retail stores don't prosecute shoplifters until they are 18 years of age, which makes teen stealing and child stealing rampant. It doesn't help that most retail stores have more cameras on the employees than they do on the shoppers. If you do it after you are 18 then that is when you get in serious trouble. Most teen and kid stealers/shoplifters are told by their parents to go and steal something from the store so when the parents get called in they fake like they are genuninely concerned about their kid then they go home and enjoy their free item, or they just don't show up at all.

"Previously, it was Walmart's policy to only prosecute first-time shoplifters who were at least 18...It remains Walmart's policy not to prosecute anyone stealing less than $25 worth of merchandise."

I seem to remember corporate policy when I worked there was to prosecute everyone between 14 and 60 for theft or damage of $4 or more.

I met a woman around christmas who had a question that I helped and found out her daughter was going to England with family friends. Her 14 year old son who had stolen some toy cars worth about $6 had his christmas in the legal fees Wal-Mart spent prosecuting him. She said the legal fees and the trip cost about the same.

It's obvious that Wal-Mart also has a weight limit that supersedes the age limit in the case of your niece's shoplifting. Hopefully, they'll let her back in so she can steal that Alli junk.

My niece has stolen from Wal-Marts in Ohio and Florida while under the age of 16 (first time she took a 3.99 clearance skirt and a tank top, second time it was an Equate-brand pregnancy test). Both times the police were called and she was prosecuted (first time, her mom wasn't called until my niece was at the police station, second time she tried to pick her up at the Wal-Mart, but the police were already there and ended up taking her away). Her first sentence was a slap on the hand because she was 13 and the judge told her not to do it again. Second one was when she was 16 and she was sentenced to a few months of counseling (which had a positive effect on her until her piss-poor mother decided her daughter wasn't as important as bingo night). She also had some community service and she was banned from all Wal-Marts in the Tampa area.

Of course, now, at the age of 20, she is a high school dropout and she lives in a tent somewhere. But, on a positive note, being homeless and broke has allowed her to lose 90lbs and she's almost under 200lbs! :)

Anyhoo, not sure why my niece was prosecuted twice if their old policy was 18+.

planning ahead XD

Are you kidding me?

(I don't buy CDs from Wal-Mart. It was the first mildly expensive thing I could think of.)

They're doing it as a service to minors. Cuz everyone knows Juvie Hall sex is much hawter than prison sex. Now they can see to it that their customers are literally - as well as figuratively - sodomized.

A friend of the family is a the front end manager of the local Wal-Mart. When they finished their quarterly inventory recently, she said that they had over 3 million dollars worth of shrinkage in the last quarter. I was really shocked because I thought they had a pretty agressive loss prevention program. Imagine my surprise when she said that corporate thought too much was being spent on LP, so they pretty much eliminated it about 3 years ago.

Didn't I read that Wal-Mart reported something like 5 billion in losses company wide recently? I don't remember if it was a quarterly or annual figure.

Good. Do the crime, do the time. Make kids think twice about stealing again.

Why? If theft isn't increasing why ramp up efforts to prosecute? That would suggest that it's your bottom line that's been hurting and I'd think that's the thing they'd want to deny.

You know your store sucks when people hate it too much to even steal from it... lol

1.) Don't shoplift, you'll get caught.

2.) Don't shop at Walmart. Even if you are just stealing their merchandise.

It's a shame but seemingly a required progression.