A former professional shoplifter panned New York City’s plans to install social service kiosks in stores to incentivize shoplifters not to steal.
Pierceon Bellemare said if he was shoplifting and saw a kiosk on the way out the door, he wouldn’t stop.
“If the kiosk provided fentanyl or money, I might stop. But if there’s a pamphlet for social services, I don’t think I would have batted an eye at that,” he explained on “Jesse Watters Primetime” this week.
Bellemare shared that he shoplifted because it fed his drug addiction and the lifestyle he was living. He added that if someone gave him a welfare check and a place to stay to incentivize him to stop the criminal behavior, he would find a way to work around the system and use the money to feed his addiction.
The former professional shoplifter spoke out against soft-on-crime policies, explaining that they don’t work.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of places now where we are forcing detoxes in places where people can get the help that they need versus just a Band-Aid on a symptom that we’ve been seeing for decades,” he said.
FORMER DRUG ADDICT CALLS FOR INCARCERATION WITH INTENTION: ‘HARM REDUCTION IS INACTION’
Shoplifters in Washington D.C. were caught on video laundry detergent in the middle of the day. (Fox News)
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“My personal experience is, yes, I believe that we are living in a world where that has been ignored and there is something deeper that I think we need to look at,” Bellemare responded. “It seems like we’re living in a very self-centered and self-seeking world. And the moment that I realized that there’s things [sic] other than me on this planet, and I’m not a victim and I have the power of choice to be a better person, that’s when I was able to really move forward.”