According to my religion, I am urged not to judge the actions of others, lest I find mine also being scrutinized. But now and again I can’t stop myself. It seems some crimes need a little extra something when the punishments are finally ladled out.
At a UPS store near our Johns Creek neighbors, the owner and an employee have been accused of stealing Target gift cards that were meant for those in need in Alabama.
The DeKalb County facilities of Habitat for Humanity have been taken three times in the last two weeks, losing expensive power tools.
And according to the folks in Marietta city government, the fountain on the town’s square has been emptied three times over the last several months, so thieves could make off with the coins tossed in.
I know we are living in times of job loss, pricey gas and economic privation, but the egregious nature of stealing seems multiplied when the victim is charity. Theft is theft, but there is something about taking bread off a table surrounded by more appetites than food that ought to carry stiffer penalties.
A friend of mine used to be a New York City detective, but now practices his craft for a large banking concern. Having spent much of his life dealing with those who shalt steal, he has come to the conclusion that if theft seems a viable option in one’s brain, the moral and educated disconnect has already taken place.
Happily for the majority of us who aren’t tempted to have our hand in the cookie jar, that disconnect almost always brings diminished intellectual capacity. In the case of the allegedly purloined gift cards there was a record of when they should have left, when they should have arrived and a tracking number on the package. That’s what my investigative journalist friends refer to as a paper trail.
Not to mention that everything that passes a cash register these days has a barcode. Some computer, somewhere, knows when and where something like, let’s say, a gift card was used.
When people get caught stealing they are inevitably asked: “What were you thinking?” If thieves could muster just a moment of clarity at that time, I doubt their answer would yield any recompense. Or they might invoke stupidity’s close relation, denial.
Life is not fair, but I hope the hooligans with Habitat’s tools are caught while the booty can be reclaimed, that Marietta’s constables keep a keener eye on that fountain and that our friends in Alabama that needed those gift cards get them.
As for the perpetrators, history tells us few will really mend their ways. Most of the time crooks are not sorry for their crimes, they are sorry they were caught committing them. Thus is the conscience of the failed criminal mastermind.
Mankind has the skills to get a three-dimensional view of a heart, to operate on a heart and to replace a heart. Sadly, we still can’t see into one. If we could, perhaps we might understand why we do what we do when we do wrong.
Jim Osterman lives in Sandy Springs. Reach him at jimosterman@rocketmail.com.
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