So, across the world, it should be ok for the poor to walk into stores and steal essentials like toilet paper and toothpaste. Really? Benefits are available, and theft is not a solution; it creates a trend of expectations.
We need to assist the poor, at least those willing to assist themselves, but allowing open season on stores is wrong in so many ways. Sometimes I don’t understand how people can always think of giving free stuff but never solutions for the problems, except more money. All IMO.
“A New York socialist lawmaker says people who swipe basic goods from stores shouldn’t face charges because they have a “biological need” for what they take.
State Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher made the argument Thursday at a news conference outside Manhattan Criminal Court, according to the New York Post. Gallagher is a Democrat who represents parts of northern Brooklyn. She told reporters that most theft cases she had reviewed involved essentials, and that arresting anyone over such items amounts to punishing poverty.
“Most of what we saw were crimes of poverty-people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap. And that means if you’re stealing those things, you need them,” Gallagher said in a video posted on X. She added that the city protects “billion-dollar companies, like CVS and Walgreens” over struggling residents, and called it a “true crime” that people can be jailed “simply for having a biological need.”