addition, shoplifting is a crime that "occurs among youths in every racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic group" (Siegel & Senna, 1997, 109), suggesting that shoplifting is not the result of social factors such as racism, poverty, or class conflict. The fact that shoplifters come from so many different backgrounds also suggests that explanations relying on the development of the antisocial personality, on levels of intelligence, or on other individual traits are not likely to be good explanations.
Social structure theories place an emphasis on the structure of society and class differences, but here again, such theories do not explain the way shoplifting is a crime that transcends social boundaries or other evidence of social stratification. Some shoplifting could be explained by social differences, for some do steal because they are poor. Much shoplifting, however, is undertaken by juveniles who are not poor and not deprived. They steal from some other type of compulsion.
Social deviance theory is one that might have something to say about shoplifting, however, for peer pressure is certain to be one reason why such behavior develops. Cultural deviance theories hold that young people commit crime because of the desire of individuals to conform to the cultural values of their immediate environment, though those values are in conflict with the values of the greater society:
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