alt Hacker NewsPeople have been shoplifting for millennia. The very first shop ever created by a caveman probably got stolen from. And people have been caught and getting away with it at some probability forever, too. Why has it all of a sudden generated such a panic?
A large number of shoplifting incidents went viral over the past few years. This drew attention to the long-standing problem of shoplifting, and generated public pressure behind the reformers with long-standing proposals for what should be done to reduce shoplifting. This is how all political change happens. (It's frustrating, of course, for people like the author who don't think the long-standing proposals are a good idea.)