Americans are seeing the same, tired scene play out in pharmacy aisles from coast to coast: shelves once stocked with everyday necessities are now caged behind plexiglass, and angry customers — captured on video — are losing their patience in front of locked displays. Those clips aren’t isolated; local news crews and residents in majority-Black neighborhoods have documented Walgreens and other chains locking up hair care, toiletries, and more, sparking furious confrontations and a broader online outcry.
Walgreens’ own CEO admitted the obvious truth on an earnings call: when you lock things up, you sell fewer of them, and the heavy-handed anti-theft approach has even forced store closures in high-theft urban areas. Corporate executives blamed rampant shrink and theft, but the result is clear — honest, hardworking customers are punished while the criminals who keep coming back get an ever-lazier free pass.
Retailers insist these measures are data driven and aimed at protecting inventory, yet the customer experience has collapsed — shoppers report long waits for staff to unlock cases or find keys, effectively turning quick errands into humiliating scavenger hunts. That friction drives business away, damages neighborhoods, and hands advantage to online competitors while brick-and-mortar stores bleed revenue and close their doors.
Worse still, selective locking of products tailored to communities of color has fed accusations of racial profiling and discrimination, creating a toxic cultural moment where victims of retail theft become the victims of retail policy. When Black hair products and beauty items are the ones sealed behind glass while other aisles remain open, trust evaporates and righteous anger is the predictable result.
Let’s be blunt: this mess is the predictable consequence of soft-on-crime policies, understaffed stores, and executives who prioritize short-term loss-control theater over law and order and accountability. Conservatives should be unapologetic — shoplifting is theft, it must be punished, and the people responsible for keeping neighborhoods safe — from local police to store management and city leaders — must do their jobs or step aside.
The remedy isn’t more plexiglass and virtue-signaling apologies; it’s tougher enforcement, real consequences for repeat offenders, and policies that protect honest customers and small businesses. If we want safe, thriving communities where mothers can buy baby formula and veterans can pick up toiletries without feeling like suspects, we have to restore common-sense law enforcement, demand corporate accountability, and hold elected officials to task for enabling the disorder.
Hardworking Americans deserve better than to be treated like collateral damage. Stop rewarding theft with policy concessions, stop blaming the victims, and start backing businesses and neighborhoods that stand for order, dignity, and responsibility. Our communities and our values are worth fighting for — and we will not be silenced by the broken logic of “lock it all up.”
