Do you think all shoplifters are poor and steal out of need? The fact is that most people do not steal items out of need, but on impulse. Administrators and barristers in the United Kingdom are becoming alarmed by a surge in thefts by members of the middle class.

Last year in the UK shoplifters pilfered £5 billion of goods from stores – the equivalent of almost £600,000 every hour. This was reported in scottsman.com.

Care to guess what the most pilfered item was? I am sure you did not guess correctly – it is cheese.

A British study revealed an increase in shoplifting of more than 6%. Other items frequently purchased with the five-finger discount were clothing, meat and beauty products.

There is no typical shoplifter any more. It’s a broad profile across age, ethnic group, gender and income bands, and one finding is that it is getting broader all the time.

Detection is also hard because low-cost goods such as cheese and health and beauty items like mascara are not fitted with security tags. And let’s face it - cheese is an everyday item you can hide easily. Mascara is small and relatively easy to steal and frees up expenditure for other items.

The study found some items traditionally targeted by shoplifters, such as alcohol and electronics, had fallen out of favor due to better security measures such as tagging, plastic casing and better staff training.

Scotland, always a leader in virtually any category dealing with alcohol, bucked this trend, however, with champagne and whisky still targets for shoplifters.

The average shoplifter steals £79 of goods in a single session, according to the report.

Man, we all have to pay for thievery. Stores have to increase prices to off-set the losses from shoplifting. Perhaps a good 8 hour shoplifting class for Scottish citizens, funded by the federal government is in order.