'Parents force kids to steal or face violence if they come home empty-handed'
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Children are being forced to go out late at night to shoplift for their parents and face violence if they fail to return with what is demanded.
Support charity Childline has told how children are contacting it out of desperation after being caught stealing by the shop owners.
Childline director of services, Caroline O'Sullivan said: “We have received calls from children who have stolen and want to talk to us about it.
“They want to talk to us about the embarrassment of being caught and the shame and the expectations of parents who want them to go back out and do it again.
"Of course, kids feel like they have no choice because these are their parents. Children are being coerced. This has become their norm and their everyday reality.”
The charity is willing to work with parents to break the cycle of childhood petty crime.
Ms O’Sullivan referred to the charity's CTSS (Childline Therapeutic Support Services) programmes which see it work with parents to help change their ways without fear of legal repercussions.
“There was a time in Dublin where a lot of children were being sent out to beg. People were complaining when it wasn’t the children’s fault. During that time we worked with a lot of parents and the problem was no longer prominent.”
The issue is by no means confined to Dublin.
Shane Gleeson, who owns five Spar stores in Limerick, has seen shoplifting carried out by kids as young as 4 at his service station in Hurlers Cross, Limerick.
He stressed that the kids are not to blame.
Each of his stores loses an average of €50,000 to shoplifting every year. Yet he often gives the children biscuits to take home to their parents because he knows otherwise they might face a beating.
He has caught children as young as 4, trained by their parents, stealing from his 24-hour service station at Hurlers Cross on Castletroy’s Dublin Road in the early hours of the morning.
One woman who once taught her children to steal is now doing the same with her grandchildren at the store years later.
“It’s a regular occurrence,” he told the Irish Examiner. “This is happening at 1.30am with kids who are 8, 9, and 10.
"They try and sneak in by hanging outside the shop until it gets really busy. Once they are in they will lay low, see what they can grab and run."
He struggles with seeing such vulnerable kids being exploited.
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“It's horrible because we are sitting there watching them crying and wondering what the right thing to do is. The truth is we don’t really know.
"Sometimes we will give them a few biscuits just so they have something to bring back. That’s all you can do. The kids aren’t intrinsically bad at all. If they were in a different family they would be just like any other children.”
He wants the parents to be held accountable.
"They are quite polite and quiet but you can see them beaten into submission when in another life they probably would have gone to college.”
The store owner has been accumulating evidence of thefts.
“I have a video of a 4-year-old kid stealing. Her granny is with her. She teaches them. I’ve watched her teach her daughters to steal and now her granddaughters are stealing as well. I’ve heard parents telling their children to put an item under their jersey. They tell them to grab the stuff and send them out of the shop with it.
"That is absolutely routine now as well. They think this is normal because they have been told by their parents to do it. What else are they supposed to do?”
Parents will fight back on occasion with intimidation tactics, he says.
“The instant reaction from parents is to tell us we said something that we didn’t so they can try and take a defamation case against us.
"That’s why we have to put sound on the cameras at the tills. We have to be careful what we say at the counter in case a staff member is accused of defamation. A lot of the time they will make it up so that’s why having sound on the cameras is so important.”