Thnking what it feels like to be hungry for 3 days and no money to buy food.
Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry
81–90 of 406 posts
Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry
#82Reminds me of how trying to escape from prison is not illegal in certain countries.
Can you say in which countries?
The act of escape itself is legal in Germany. Other acts committed during escape, such as destruction of property are of course not, so in practice it is probably rare for a caught escapee not to receive additional punishment.
Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry
#83It's a little hard to understand how this ruling won't cause a certain degree of chaos. Can any hungry, homeless person now steal food from any store in Italy without repercussion? Certainly as a matter of compassion, this ruling can be argued as being reasonable, but how can it work as a practical matter?
No, it's just no longer a crime - IF you were hungry. You'll still get arrested and put through a lengthy trial process if you're caught stealing food. The shop can decide to let the thief have the food, or take it away from them, or call the cops. Theft is commonplace in markets and supermarkets. It's calculated into the cost of doing business. Back when I was a teenager working in a supermarket, one store claimed 1…
>> Its prices were also among the highest for any food store, so i'm sure they still did well)
I'm sure their prices could have been lower if they didn't have up to 15% shrinkage as well.
Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry
#84In other news, sky is blue and water is wet. From the Italian criminal code:
Criminal Code, article 54 – State of necessity: “A person is not punishable for having committed an act that he was forced to do in order to save himself or others from an existing risk of severe harm, a risk not voluntarily caused by him, nor otherwise avoidable, always provided that the act is proportional to the risk”.
Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
In practice I imagine it will result in homeless (or generally poor-looking) people being routinely banned from stores in Italy.
I don't think it's legal for stores to choose their customers.
In the U.S. it certainly is, as long as you're not discriminating against one of a short whitelist of protected classes (homeless isn't on that list). I don't know the law in Italy. Do you, or are you just speculating?
Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry
#86Reminds me of how trying to escape from prison is not illegal in certain countries.
Can you say in which countries?
From memory I think Germany is one of those countries.
It's not what some people imagine, though: when you break out of jail you will still be wanted for your original crime, and when caught have to continue your sentence. And while the act of breaking out isn't punishable by itself, theft, property damage, assault etc committed in order to break out is still punishable.
The human desire to be free is acknowledged and not punished, but that doesn't interfere with the punishment of crimes.
Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry
#87Who decides if a person is truly starving and homeless, or just acting it to get free food?
Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry
#88Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think anyone is saying poor people should be allowed to rob banks or mug people. The article is about stealing small amounts of food to stave off hunger.
This site has a threaded discussion system, context matters. The post you are referring to was responding to someone who specifically made the point that this was analogous to allowing poor people to steal money, which is clearly not the case. In this context, it's clear you are both in agreement.
Exactly, I was simply trying to elaborate on emodendroket's point to point out the flaw in nosotrue's logic. Sorry if I didn't make this clear enough.
Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry
#90The way the judges worded this decision makes it a lot less of a slippery slope. This was only accepted because it was an "Immediate and essential need for nourishment." I expect that if more people started stealing, they'd be put through a court process to prove that they were in this condition.
What this doesn't do is fix the problem though, it just recognizes a symptom. Why are these people forced to resort to stealing?