The overwhelming majority of readers who answered a Richmond News poll felt the court system is too lenient when it comes to prosecuting shoplifters.
The News polled 935 readers and asked the question: Are we doing enough to deter shoplifting?
Richmond RCMP run targeted operations to catch shoplifters, for example, between March 9 and 21, they arrested 19 suspected retail thieves and recovered more than $7,000 worth of stolen merchandise.
According to Richmond RCMP statistics, in February, there were 149 shoplifting thefts reported to them, a 28 per cent increase from January, and a 46 per cent increase from a year before.
The most commonly stolen items were clothing and accessories. Shoplifting suspects were identified in 32 per cent of the cases.
The News poll results on shoplifting are from April 4 to April 25.
Of the 935 votes, we can determine that 336 are from within the community.
The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult Richmond News readers that are located in the Lower Mainland. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 3.2%, 19 times out of 20.
Richmond News uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
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