Routledge, 2014
Why do we steal?
This question has confounded everyone from parents to judges, teachers to psychologists, economists to more than a few moral thinkers. Stealing can be a result of deprivation, of envy, or of a desire for power and influence. An act of theft can also bring forth someone’s hidden traits – paradoxically proving beneficial to their personal development.
Robert Tyminski explores the many dimensions of stealing, and in particular how they relate to a subtle balance of loss versus gain that operates in all of us.
“Tyminski has an extraordinary talent with case studies; his are among the most vibrant I have read, approaching real tenderness at times.”
—John C. Gonsiorek, PhD
psychologist
“One of the pleasures of reading The Psychology of Theft is that Tyminski engages our discriminatory sense to review the examples in our practices with new eyes . . . Tyminski provokes discussion and offers his experience and thoughts about how to interact with theft in our clients and psyches.”
—Kathryn Staley
Jungian Analyst
Why do we steal and take what does not belong to us? Theft ranges from a child’s pilfering candy all the way to Ponzi schemes in the billions of dollars, such as the recent one associated with Bernie Madoff. The Madoff swindle cost investors over $17 billion in actual losses and ranks as the largest such crime in U.S. history. Retail store theft amounted to almost $40 billion in 2010 or about 1.5 percent of total sales. Two newer forms of stealing are identity theft in which a person’s assets are wiped out and his or her credit record is destroyed, typically as a result of Internet scams such as phishing, and piracy of intellectual property in which content is stolen for mass distribution at prices far below market value. When such crimes occur, they aggregate into huge financial losses that devour time and work, and lead to drawn-out involvement with the criminal justice system. These costs do not include the psychological pain inflicted on the victims in the form of stress, anxiety, and depression.
It might be easy to attribute the bulk of this illegal activity to bad morals and sociopathy, along the lines of “there will always be rotten apples.” That attitude clearly indicates that the crime of theft is something we are accustomed to and take for granted, seeing it as part of the human condition and believing it both a bit inevitable and beyond deeper comprehension. Frequently, superficial explanations suffice—for example, calling theft a crime of circumstance, of opportunity, of deprivation, or of greed. But what motivates people to steal, especially considering it is such a widespread activity and one that assumes various guises? Although there are appropriate legal and ethical responses to theft, when viewed psychologically, it is a tricky topic because theft often persists in the face of far better options. How many times do we hear about a theft that appears foolish, self-destructive, and completely unnecessary? How frequently is theft not a question of need?