It’s no surprise middle-class shoplifting is on the rise – no one ever checks my bag | Zoe Williams

Classism and other assumptions mean that whenever I have an unidentified item in the bagging area, the assistant will wave it through

In the radical rise of shoplifting, during which retailers have been forced to hire private armies and stock their shelves with decoy versions of the pricier goods, a crime-driver besides gangs and the cost of living crisis has been observed: the middle-class crim who shoplifts with a sense of entitlement. The chair of Marks & Spencer, Archie Norman, described the attitude of some customers to self-checkouts: This didn't scan properly, or it's very difficult to scan these things through and I shop here all the time. It's not my fault - I'm owed it." The criminologist Emmeline Taylor said: They won't think of themselves as criminals; they will think they've cheated the system [and] the big retailers are the real criminals." Add to this self-righteousness and a growing appreciation of the thrill of theft, and the trend could really get out of hand.

There is something else, though. I interviewed the actor Stockard Channing once and she described some career doldrums with the elegant line: I couldn't get arrested." It floats back to me sometimes, because I now honestly believe I couldn't get arrested. Nobody checks my bag at bag checks. When there is an unidentified item in the bagging area (not because I'm shoplifting, but because self-checkouts do not, in fact, work that well), the assistant will wave it through without a glance.