If you had ever run a small retail business with limited staff, you would know just how expensive being overwhelmed by large numbers of kids can be. Only a minority steal, but you can't I.D. the problem kids until you catch them. In all my working experience I had only one kid come up to me and report another kid for shoplifting. A thousand bucks worth of stock can go out the door almost as fast as it came in. It doesn't take much of that to hurt a small retailer.