[jorvi]

It just blows my mind that anything below, say, $75 is locked up at all.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen food items locked up in Europe, aside from genuine Parmesan, Iberico or expensive alcohol, and even then not consistently. Usually even the lower priced non-food stuff (think a $50 space heater) isn’t locked up.

Don’t get me wrong, we have smash and dash thieves here too, but usually they go for jewelry stores, fashion stores or Apple / electronic stores.

[aidenn0]

Thieves go for things that are easy to fence. For a while Tide-brand laundry detergent was famously easy to fence in some cities[1], so places had to lock up Tide.

[edit]

Teenagers who shoplift also go for things that are embarrassing or illegal for them to buy (condoms and alcohol respectively). So those are likely to be locked up as well.

1: My understanding is that drug-dealers &c. would accept payment in Tide and then sell that to organized crime, that would wholesale it to mom+pop corner stores.

[jorvi]

Thank you for all the context so far!

That Tide factoid is darkly humorous. The selling it back to stores part makes me think of The Wire, Omar stealing a heroin shipment from Prop Joe and then selling it back to him: https://youtu.be/-q2LWHZ6O_M

In America’s defense, I’ll say that certain things are done much better than Europe.

There’s is certainly a better awareness/acceptance that growth = good. The entrepreneurial spirit also runs much stronger in your culture.

National (well, global) security is taken much more seriously, which I feel like is a facet of American federalization and thus unity. You won’t see a combined (and certainly not unified) European army for at least another few decades, everything thinks their own interests, independence and pride are too important.

[lotsoweiners]

I’ve lived my entire life in America (over 40 years) and I’ve never seen any food item “locked up”. I think that would be an indication that you are in a shitty area. Similar to the pictures I’ve seen of Burger King employees working behind bulletproof glass.