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Under New Jersey State Law, the cost that shoplifters pay for their crimes far exceeds monetary fines and jail time. When the full retail value of stolen merchandise equals more than $2,000, the case cannot be downgraded and remanded to municipal court. However, even minor offenses have major impact the lives and finances of shoplifters. It's a serious crime, regardless of the degree, and those who get caught are punished accordingly.

Getting Caught

When employees have reasonable cause to believe customers are shoplifting, they're allowed to detain those customers and demand the hidden merchandise be returned. Employees should not touch shoplifters except for to restrain them in self-defense or prevent them from running away. Going through this process guarantees that employees won't be found criminally or civilly liable. If shoplifters refuse to cooperate, employees might need to use physical descriptions or license numbers to catch them instead. Fleeing will make shoplifters' court battles much more difficult.

Court Sentencing

If the retail value of merchandise stolen is less than $200, the crime is a "disorderly persons offense", punishable by up to 6 months imprisonment and a fine not to exceed $1,000. Fourth degree shoplifting is charged when the retail value is between $200 and $500. This is punishable by up to 18 months imprisonment and up to $10,000 in fines. Third degree shoplifting requires stolen merchandise to be worth $500 to $75,000. The sentence for this is 3 to 5 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $15,000. As part of the sentence for each of these crimes, 10 to 25 days of community service will also be required.

Paying the Price

As if imprisonment and thousands of dollars in fines weren't enough to deal with, there are less obvious expenses for shoplifters to consider. They often have to cover the court costs (e.g., attorney's fees) and other losses that businesses acquired by pressing charges. In addition, some are asked to provide DNA samples and pay for the cost of testing. Probation violators might have to submit to drug testing, which could result in another conviction, depending on the result. This would incur even more expensive court costs and further sentencing - all of which could have been avoided had the criminal not shoplifted.

Criminal Record

The cost of having a criminal record is immense. According to New Jersey law, shoplifters must wait 5-10 years to expunge first offenses (2C:52-3). They could lose not only the right to vote, but presumption against incarceration in future cases (2C:44-1). Shoplifters can also be fired from their jobs because of the crimes they committed. To make that loss of income even worse, finding any new job with a criminal record is challenging. Unemployment causes credit scores to drop, which makes it difficult for shoplifters to get loans at all, much less ones with reasonable interest rates. The cost of car insurance even goes up for people who have criminal records! The true cost of shoplifting is never worth committing the crime.

Learn more about this author, Shannon Beineke.
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