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September 16th, 2026
Shoplifting is usually discussed in remarkably simple terms. Someone takes something from a shop without paying, breaking the law in the process, and the consequences may range from being stopped and questioned to prosecution. Yet what appears to be a straightforward act can mask a complicated mixture of financial pressure, addiction, impulsivity, emotional distress, compulsion and, in some cases, a desire for the temporary relief or excitement that the act itself can provide.
The distinction matters.
Imagine three people walking into the same supermarket. One slips a bottle of alcohol into their coat because they cannot afford to buy it and their dependence has become increasingly difficult to control. Another steals several items because they can sell them and use the money to buy drugs. A third takes something they neither need nor particularly want, despite being able to afford it, because the act of stealing has become associated with an increasingly powerful urge followed by a sense of relief.
From the outside, all three have shoplifted. Psychologically, however, they may be experiencing three very different things.
That differentiation becomes important when examining the relationship between shoplifting and addiction. Theft can be a consequence of substance dependence, with someone stealing to obtain alcohol or drugs. Alcohol or drug use can also contribute to disinhibition and impulsive behaviour, making an action that might otherwise have been resisted more difficult to control. In other cases, repeated stealing may form part of a compulsive pattern in which neither financial gain nor the usefulness of the item fully explains the behaviour.
There is also a recognised psychiatric disorder,kleptomania, in which people experience recurrent difficulty resisting impulses to steal items they do not need for personal use or because of their monetary value. It is classified as an impulse-control disorder rather than a substance addiction, although researchers have identified important overlaps between kleptomania, addictive behaviours and other mental health conditions.
So, is shoplifting itself an addiction? Can stealing become compulsive? Is it sometimes a means of funding another addiction? And what happens when the act of stealing provides its own psychological reward, independent of what is taken?
Shoplifting is rising into the public conversation
According to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, police recorded 507,086 shoplifting offences in England and Wales in the year ending March 2026. Although this represented a 4% fall compared with the previous year, it followed a substantial rise in recorded shoplifting over the preceding period. The ONS recorded 530,643 offences in the year ending March 2025, the highest figure since current police recording practices began in 2003.
Those figures have placed shoplifting firmly within the public conversation. Retailers have reported substantial losses, while police forces have faced increasing demands to respond to offences ranging from opportunistic theft to more persistent and organised behaviour. At the same time, the rise in recorded offences has prompted wider debate about why shoplifting occurs, including the roles of financial hardship, drug and alcohol dependence, repeat offending and the pressures experienced by vulnerable individuals.
There is, however, another important complication. Changes in recording practice can influence the figures independently of changes in behaviour. In April 2025, clarification of the Home Office Counting Rules meant that some incidents previously recorded as shoplifting were instead recorded as robbery of business property where violence or threats of violence were involved. The ONS says this is likely to have had a small effect on the number of shoplifting offences recorded from that point onwards.
The statistics therefore provide an important measure of the scale of recorded shoplifting, but they cannot tell us what is driving it. To understand that, we need to look beyond the offence itself.
When shoplifting is a way of funding addiction
Perhaps the most direct connection between shoplifting and addiction occurs when someone steals in order to obtain money, alcohol or drugs. In these circumstances, the theft may have little to do with the value of the items being taken or any particular attachment to stealing itself. Instead, it may form part of a wider pattern in which obtaining and using a substance has gradually come to dominate a person’s priorities, finances and decision-making.
Addiction can progressively narrow a person’s focus, with activities, responsibilities and relationships that previously carried considerable importance beginning to compete with the immediate demands of obtaining and using a substance. Money that would ordinarily be allocated to rent, food, bills or other necessities may increasingly be spent on alcohol or drugs, while attempts to maintain access to the substance can become more urgent as financial resources diminish. This does not mean that everyone experiencing addiction will steal, nor does addiction excuse theft, but it helps explain how behaviour that a person might previously have considered unthinkable can become one option within an increasingly restricted set of choices.
As money runs out, the options available to someone can become increasingly constrained. They may borrow from friends or family, sell possessions, take on debt, miss payments or seek other sources of money before turning to riskier or illegal means of obtaining it. For some people, this can include shoplifting, either because stolen goods can be sold or because they can be exchanged directly for the substance they are seeking.
In some cases, theft is not the primary compulsive behaviour. It is instrumental: a behaviour used to facilitate another behaviour that has become difficult to control. The person may have no particular desire to steal and may experience considerable anxiety, shame or regret about doing so, but perceive the immediate need to obtain money or a substance as overriding those concerns.
This can create a self-reinforcing cycle. Substance use can contribute to financial instability, financial instability can make obtaining the substance more difficult, and the resulting urgency can lead to increasingly risky methods of raising money. If shoplifting provides a successful way of obtaining cash or goods, that behaviour may then be repeated, not necessarily because stealing itself is rewarding, but because it has previously solved an urgent problem. Over time, the threshold for taking that risk may become lower, particularly where repeated substance use, craving or other factors are already affecting judgement and impulse control.
Theft may therefore be a means of sustaining substance use, while in other cases the act of stealing itself may form part of a compulsive pattern requiring a different psychological explanation. There can also be overlap between these situations. Someone with a substance-use disorder, for example, may experience impulsivity or disinhibition while intoxicated, making the relationship between substance use and theft more complicated than simply stealing to obtain money.
This is why the question “Why do they keep stealing?” can be less revealing than it initially appears. Repetition alone does not tell us what is driving the behaviour. A more useful approach is to ask what the behaviour is achieving for the person and where it sits within the wider sequence of events.
A more useful question may be:
“What happens immediately before they feel they have to steal?”
If the answer is an overwhelming craving for alcohol or drugs, an urgent need to obtain money, or the fear of what will happen if they cannot access the substance, the theft may be one component of a broader substance-use cycle. If the answer instead involves anticipation, tension, an irresistible urge to steal and subsequent relief that is unrelated to financial need or the usefulness of the item, a different pattern may be present.
When the addiction comes first
For someone experiencing severe substance dependence, the pattern of decision-making can become increasingly dominated by the need to obtain and use a substance. The sequence may look something like this:
Craving → seeking the substance → using → temporary relief → consequences → renewed craving.
The significance of this cycle is not simply that it can lead to theft. Addiction can alter the relative weight given to immediate and future consequences. Someone experiencing intense craving or dependence may understand the possibility of arrest, financial loss or damage to relationships perfectly well, yet perceive the immediate need to obtain the substance as more urgent.
This is one of the more difficult aspects of addiction to understand from the outside. The person may know that stealing is likely to make their situation worse and may even experience guilt or fear while doing it, yet continue because the perceived consequences of not obtaining the substance feel more immediate. The decision is not necessarily between something they want and something they do not want; it can become a choice between an immediate problem they feel unable to tolerate and a serious consequence that has not yet happened.
That does not mean addiction removes responsibility for criminal behaviour, nor does it diminish the impact of shoplifting on retailers, employees and the wider public. It does, however, help explain why repeated offending can persist even when the person understands the potential consequences.
It also illustrates why the relationship between addiction and offending cannot always be reduced to a question of morality or willpower. If the underlying substance dependence remains untreated, removing one opportunity to steal may not remove the underlying drive that produced the behaviour. The person may simply find another way of obtaining money or substances, leaving the broader cycle intact.
In this context, shoplifting may be less important as an isolated behaviour than as a visible consequence of a much larger problem. The theft is what people see; the addiction may be what keeps the cycle moving.
When alcohol and drugs remove the brakes
There is another way in which alcohol and drugs can intersect with shoplifting, and in this case the person may have no intention of using the stolen goods to fund their substance use. Instead, intoxication may affect the processes that normally help a person pause, assess a situation and consider what might happen next. Judgement can become impaired, inhibitions may be reduced and an impulse that would ordinarily be resisted can become more difficult to control.
This does not mean that alcohol or drugs cause people to steal. Most people who drink alcohol or use drugs do not shoplift, and intoxication alone cannot explain why one person engages in an offence while another does not. The relationship is more complicated because the effects of a substance can interact with characteristics and circumstances that were already present, including impulsivity, difficulties with emotional regulation, risk-taking tendencies or problems with decision-making.
It is important to separate motivation from disinhibition. Someone may decide to steal because they need money for drugs; someone else may experience an urge to take something and, while intoxicated, have less capacity or willingness to resist it. A person may already be emotionally distressed or prone to impulsive decisions, while stress, anger, financial difficulties or social pressures further influence how the situation unfolds. The resulting offence may therefore reflect several interacting factors rather than a single identifiable cause.
This is where the idea of alcohol or drugs acting as a catalyst becomes useful. The substance may not create the underlying tendency towards impulsive or risky behaviour, but it can alter the circumstances in which that behaviour occurs, making an action more likely to be carried out and its potential consequences less likely to be considered.
If a person repeatedly shoplifts while intoxicated, focusing solely on the theft can overlook the wider pattern of substance use surrounding it. Equally, assuming that every theft committed while intoxicated is evidence of addiction is too simplistic. Understanding the relationship requires looking at what was happening before, during and after the offence, and whether intoxication was driving the behaviour, lowering inhibitions or simply coinciding with it.
But what if someone steals things they do not need?
There is an understandable assumption that someone who steals must have a reason for wanting what they have taken. They may intend to use it, sell it, give it to someone else or simply be unable to afford it. But the object is not always the point. For some people who repeatedly steal, the behaviour can occur despite having no financial need for the item and no obvious practical benefit.
Kleptomania is a recognised mental health disorder characterised by recurrent difficulty resisting impulses to steal objects that are not needed for personal use or because of their monetary value. The American Psychiatric Association distinguishes kleptomania from ordinary shoplifting, which is generally motivated by obtaining something of value and may involve planning or other forms of deliberate gain.
In such cases, the significance of the behaviour lies less in the object than in the process surrounding the theft. The item may be inexpensive, easily replaceable or something the person could comfortably afford to purchase, yet the urge to take it remains difficult to resist.
Clinical descriptions commonly involve a build-up of tension or arousal before the theft, followed by gratification or relief during or immediately afterwards. That relief may be temporary, particularly because it can then give way to guilt, shame, remorse or fear of being caught. The urge may subsequently return, creating a repeating pattern in which the emotional consequences of one episode do not necessarily prevent another.
The cycle can therefore look something like:
Tension → urge → stealing → relief or gratification → guilt or distress → renewed urge.
There are parallels here with repetitive, reinforcing patterns seen in some addictive behaviours, particularly the movement from an uncomfortable internal state towards temporary relief. However, kleptomania is classified as an impulse-control disorder rather than an addiction, and those similarities should not obscure the clinical differences between the conditions.
What makes kleptomania particularly relevant to the wider question is that it demonstrates how the act itself can become psychologically significant, even when the stolen item has little practical value. The important question is therefore not simply what was taken, but what the person was experiencing before, during and after the theft.
Is the rush of stealing an addiction?
This is perhaps the most provocative question in the discussion, because it asks whether the attraction of stealing can ever lie in the experience itself rather than in what the person gains from the stolen item.
Certain behaviours can produce powerful feelings of anticipation, excitement, gratification or relief, and those experiences can encourage repetition. Gambling is an obvious example, while shopping, gaming and other repetitive behaviours have also been examined in research into behavioural addiction and reward. The common thread is not simply pleasure, but the way anticipation and consequences can reinforce a pattern that becomes increasingly difficult to control.
Stealing could, in some circumstances, involve elements of this process. Someone may experience anticipation before taking an item, excitement during the act or relief afterwards. If those experiences become part of the reason the behaviour is repeated, the act of stealing may take on significance beyond the object itself.
A behaviour can be rewarding, reinforcing or difficult to control without automatically meeting the clinical definition of an addiction. Addiction generally involves persistent substance use, or, in recognised behavioural addictions, continued engagement in a behaviour despite significant adverse consequences and impaired control. Kleptomania, by contrast, is classified as an impulse-control disorder rather than a behavioural addiction, even though some of its features overlap with processes seen in addictive behaviours. Compulsions and impulse-control disorders therefore sit within different diagnostic frameworks, despite the meaningful similarities that can exist between them.
That makes the statement “shoplifting is addictive” too broad to be particularly useful. It risks grouping together people who steal to fund substance use, people whose judgement is affected by intoxication, people experiencing kleptomania and people who may simply engage in opportunistic theft, despite the very different mechanisms involved.
A more revealing question is whether the act of stealing can become self-reinforcing, so that the anticipation, excitement or relief associated with it contributes to a repeated pattern that becomes increasingly difficult to resist.
In some cases, this may help explain why someone continues to steal despite the low value of the items and increasingly serious consequences. The behaviour may no longer be primarily about what is taken, but about the psychological effect of the act itself.
That still does not make stealing an addiction in the clinical sense. It does, however, raise a more interesting possibility: that the boundary between impulse, compulsion, reward and addiction is not always as straightforward as the word “shoplifting” makes it appear.
Why the language we use matters
The language used to describe the behaviour can sometimes become a substitute for understanding it. Words such as “thief”, “shoplifter” and “criminal” may accurately describe an act or a person’s legal position, but they tell us very little about why the offence occurred. They can also make a complex pattern of behaviour appear to be a fixed characteristic of the person who committed it, particularly when a single label is repeatedly used to describe someone whose circumstances may be considerably more complicated.
The opposite approach can be equally reductive. Describing every person who steals as an “addict” or a “kleptomaniac” imposes a psychological explanation that may not be supported by the circumstances. Not every theft has an underlying disorder, just as not every person with a disorder will steal.
This matters because the words we choose influence the questions we ask. Calling someone a “shoplifter” keeps attention on the offence; calling them an “addict” risks imposing a diagnosis that may not apply. A more useful approach is to describe the behaviour first, then consider the evidence for the factors contributing to it.
There can be accountability for an action without reducing a person to that action, and there can be a need for support without assuming a diagnosis.
What treatment might look like
There is no single treatment for “shoplifting”, because shoplifting is a behaviour rather than a diagnosis. What happens next depends on what is driving the behaviour, whether there are co-existing difficulties, and what support the individual actually needs.
Where theft is occurring in the context of alcohol or drug dependence, treatment may focus on the underlying substance-use disorder. Depending on the substance, severity and individual circumstances, this can include medically appropriate withdrawal management, psychological therapy, relapse prevention, peer support and longer-term recovery planning. Addressing the addiction may also mean addressing the circumstances surrounding it, including damaged relationships, financial difficulties and behaviours that have developed as the person has tried to maintain their substance use.
Where there is a persistent pattern of stealing that does not appear to be motivated by financial gain or the practical value of the items, a different assessment may be required. A clinician may consider whether kleptomania or another mental health difficulty could be contributing to the behaviour, with treatment potentially focusing on recognising and managing urges, developing alternative responses and addressing associated emotional or psychological difficulties. Medication may also be considered in some circumstances, depending on the individual’s needs and clinical assessment.
If financial hardship is the primary reason for theft, addiction treatment alone cannot resolve the underlying problem. If alcohol or drugs are contributing to impulsive behaviour, reducing or stopping substance use may remove an important factor while psychological support explores the patterns that remain. When several of these factors coexist, they may need to be addressed together rather than treated as separate problems.
This is why assessment is so important. The same behaviour can have very different causes, and effective support depends on identifying those causes rather than assuming that every person who shoplifts requires the same intervention.
At UKAT, treatment for alcohol and drug addiction focuses on the wider pattern of substance use and the factors that can sustain it. Where shoplifting forms part of that pattern, treatment may address the underlying addiction alongside the psychological, behavioural and practical difficulties surrounding it. Depending on individual needs, this can include detoxification where appropriate, psychological treatment, peer support, relapse-prevention work and planning for longer-term recovery.
The question behind the behaviour
Shoplifting is straightforward to define in legal terms, but the behaviour behind an offence can be considerably more complicated. The act tells us what happened; understanding its significance requires asking what drove it, what function it served and whether it has become part of a wider pattern. So perhaps the most useful answer is not to ask whether shoplifting belongs neatly within the category of addiction, but to ask what the behaviour is telling us. A theft may be driven by the need to obtain a substance, facilitated by intoxication, associated with an impulse-control disorder, shaped by financial circumstances or reinforced by the experience of the act itself. Those possibilities carry different implications for understanding and support. The offence remains an offence, but understanding what sits behind it can determine whether the response stops at the behaviour or begins to address the problem that may be sustaining it.