How Kleptomania Works

it yesterday. But I was listening to your sweet voice while I swept the floors in my house. Okay, and you think of dog here, you think of me? I thought, like I thought it was your voice that made me think of you. Chee Um, I thought, Man, I've been opening up the show pretty boring wise lately. Well, I'm glad you're talking about this now then. Yeah, anyway, Chuck, how you doing? Good sir? It has been a long time, hasn't it. Okay? So um, you know it's stealing season, buddy,

is it? Yeah? It pretty much kicks off in November and really goes up through the roof on what Black Friday. It's much more difficult to steal during Cyber Monday. But uh, yeah, Christmas comes around. People love to steal. People love to hold people up with guns, knives, threats of physical violence, that kind of thing. Wow, that's this is inspiring. Yeah,

it is. UM. And actually it turns out that this stealing season will probably be worse than usual because there was a report released UM called the Global Retail Theft Barometer. It was released UM mid November, a couple of weeks back, the GRTB. Yeah, I'm a fan, I know you are, UM, and it said that this year, UM businesses have lost retail businesses have lost a hundred and fifteen billion dollars worldwide from stealing from theft. What what's America? Do you

have that four five billion? Wow? Because in our article it says ten billion. Ten billion is like an average, So that's a huge increase. It is. Actually I'll tell you what. Usually, UM there, I guess there's an increase every year, and usually worldwide, Uh, it increases by about one point five I wonder if that's in direct relation to the cost of goods increasing. I think that that actually does have something to do with it. In this

time article. I read, UM this year, uh six percent increase worldwide and in America North America, there's an eight point one percent increase. So people are just stealing left and right. And they the the authors of the study UM, the Center for Retail Research apparently talked to cops, talked to shoplifters, UM and said, you know what's going on? They talked to shoplifters. How so do you know people who've been busted for shopoling? Okay, I thought you meant

that had not been caught. They just hang around Macy's and they're like, you look like a shoplifter, you scuzz ball, or I saw what you did and I won't report you if you answer these fine questions exactly and give me a saw buck. Um, what what is that? I think we've gone over this before. I think it's a fiver or okay, so um, no, it's a ten. I bet we get some listener mill and I bet it's

either a five or ten. UM, so chuck. Where they found from talking to these people is that there is an increase in UM the perception that companies are making off with all this money during while everybody else is having hard times and so they kind of feel justified in stealing, and they're seeing a much a rise in the middle class stealing people who can afford stuff and just aren't paying. Um, and apparently this this victimless crime.

That's kind of another perception. You're stealing from a giant corporation. Uh, in the United States, we paid an extra four hundred and thirty six bucks a household in consumer goods prices. Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah, same with credit card fraud, the shrinkage along, right, Yeah, it same with credit card fraud. That's why, I mean, that's not all why, but one reason why the interest rates are so sky high, because people say, I just charge a bunch of stuff and

not pay it. Insurance fraud. It's just it's just, you know, that's stupid into that stupid credit card company is gonna take the hit, but they don't, although they should they but they don't. They don't take a hit. They pass it all along. Of course they do. That's how it works. We're all slaves, chuck suckers. Anyway, somewhere in that those those statistics I just um, you know, spewed out. But um, there are a very tiny pop percentage of that population

that are kleptomaniacs. I feel like I just gave birth to a watermelon, a square watermelon. Um, yes, Josh, kleptomania is not exactly In fact, it's not at all shoplifting. Shoplifting is the means by which you would perform your kleptomania. That's an excellent definition, Chuck. And I've read this article too, and I know that that was not in there. That was a special just made it up. Although I would say you could steal from anyone and that would be

clept to me. It didn't have to be a store. Yeah, but apparently, um, it is generally stores or parties. But yeah, if you're gonna steal from another from an individual, it's usually at a party, I think. Um, but it generally

is retailers. Let's what what differentiates kleptomaniacs from shoplifters. Well, there's actually a definition, as outlined by the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that says that they outline this criteria, Josh, the individual repeatedly fails to resist the impulse to steal items that are not needed for personal use or monetary value. That's number one. Uh.

The individual experiences tension before stealing. Uh, the tension is relieved after stealing, and the theft is not due to anger, revenge, delusions, hallucinations, or impaired judgment. Um, and I think there's yeah, there's one more psychological disorders can't account for the stealing behaviors different other psychological disorders. It's still a little play acting. Oh I love this. Okay, Um, I'm going to be a kleptomaniac. You are going to be a tube of lipstick,

all right, Okay, hold on, let me get into character. Man, you're you're a master. Okay, I'm there, Okay, all right. So I'm walking into the store and i'm, you know, looking for some sunglasses that I intend to purchase, and all of a sudden, I feel this horrible tension. My stomach is tight. I'm starting to sweat a little bit because I just spotted Chuck, the tube of lipstick, who is sitting there as an inanimate object. Because if you talk,

then that's delusion. It doesn't count kleptomania. So I'm looking at Chuck. I'm feeling this horrible tension. I know that I'm going to steal. I don't want to steal, but I have to because it's the only way to relieve the tension. So I've just grabbed Chuck and put him in my pocket, and I don't even wear lipstick. There's

no explanation for this. I make it out of the store, and as I enter into the rest of the mall and start to feel like I'm not about to be caught, that tension goes away, maybe replaced with a little bit of a thrill, a kick right, and then boom, I get hit by this crushing guilt. I've just stolen again. Not only have I stolen from something from somebody, I

have failed to, yet again, resist this overwhelming urge. So I take the lipstick and I go to my grandmother's house, who's now dead, but in the scenarios, she's actually alive, and I just put it in with the rest of her lipstick, go about my business, feeling generally bad about myself. Toda, can I talk now? Yeah, First of all, it was

a little weird being in your pocket. Said that I liked it, But yeah, dude, you just hit on a lot of the major points, uh tension of tension, guilt, A rush, giving away what you stole, stealing something you don't need, or hoarding. Sometimes, yeah, a lot of times people will hoard it. UM. I read a case of a woman in the early twentieth century who was caught shoplifting. Upper middle class. Um. They caught her, went to her house and found all this stuff that she'd stolen, with

the price text like, clearly not used. There's not a no one. They don't use the stuff that they steal. I've got a hoarder for you, buddy, let's hear it. This dude in April of this year in Israel was busted.

They went to his house and they found motorcycle, helmets, um watches, Louis Vuitton, handbags, hundred and fifty pair of shoes, two hundred pair of sunglasses, olive oil, laundri to church, all kinds of stuff unopened in this guy's house, literally stacked in in every corner of the house, from room to room. And he admitted that he had been shoplifting for a decade, every time he went to a story, shoplifted for a decade. And he clearly lived alone. And now he has a wife and son, and he has

a family know to keep their mouth. Well, this is the funny part. And of course this is from an Israeli newspaper. It says his wife and son are suspected of knowing of his activity but doing nothing about it. I don't know if that's a formal charge. But he also was busted with a big um roll of stickers that say like paid for thank you for coming, that kind of thing. Oh yeah, see, that was part of his deal. He would go in there and like put

that on his big TV box or whatever. I wonder if that disqualifies him as a kleptomaniac, though I don't think why because he pre planned it. Huh. Because one of the things that Freud and Rich is that how we say his name the author of this article, PhD, isn't it? No? I thought it was Craig Freudlick. No, there's no hell oh, there's not totally invented that. I've been reading it that way for two and a half year.

We're going to call him Dr Freud. Okay, okay. Dr Freud pointed out that um P boll who are kleptomaniacs true kleptomaniacs or I think from what I gather, we don't call him kleptomaniacs. We call him People with kleptomania don't go into a store intending to steal. They don't go to steal, they're just overcome by the impulse when they're in the store. Yeah, that makes sense. The other thing that makes that guy hinky is a candidate for

a person with kleptomania, is that he's a man. Yeah, women more often and this is a little hinky too, but women are are more often diagnosed with kleptomania. But that has slanted a little bit because I think it said that women are less likely to admit to it or to report it to like their psychiatrists, that kind of thing. No, men, men who steal go to prison, women who still psychiatric evaluations. Yeah, so that that could definitely slam the population. But traditionally, um people think that

kleptomania is a feminine disorder. Have you ever seen an Ice Storm? No? I need to. Really, that's a great movie. He said that shamefully. I do feel kind of ashamed. Actually, the mother and daughter Joan Allen and Christina Ricchi both shoplift in that film at separate times, and I think she lift Heartbreakers that's Sigourney Weaver and um, what's her name, Jennifer Lovett. Yeah, no, I'm talking about The Ice Storm. I don't think. I don't think so. Yeah. In fact,

I think Joan Allen actually steals lipstick. There you go. Maybe that was me. Yeah, it is one of my favorite movies. Yes, Josh, early teens and twenties. If we're talking more about the pattern, it's usually when it begins, yeah, but it can run up to Uh. I think they've found kleptomaniacs in their late seventies. Yeah. Didn't we do a story about Japanese elderly that are stealing, Yeah, just

so they'll get caught in like have a friend. Yeah, they're so lonely, they're trying to basically make friends with the police by being arrest So that's not clept many, that's just shoping. Uh. And I don't know. I was thinking about when I saw that in the late seventies. Um, I thought of that Sign Fell episode where Jerry's finds out that his parents steal batteries and in turn finds out that almost all elderly people steal battery Yeah. Yeah,

for their tip calculators. The Willard I'm ruined. You know another thing, Josh, is uh, you hit on it again with your little play acting. They usually steal stuff they can afford, and stuff like shampoo it listed and sunglasses are big and uh, they like famously went on a writer went on a Horowitz. Excuse me, no, yeah, really that's her name. I had no idea she famously stole several thousand dollars from sex fifth Avenue, five thousand. I think, yeah,

she can definitely swing that. Yeah, and I don't know if it ever came out that they did they ever plead kleptomania or anything with her? Did they know quietly tried to you know, pay their fine? And yeah, And that that brings up a pretty good point is a kleptomania defense is really really hard to prove or to successfully get off on it is you know why, Well, your defense lawyer must argue when the argument that there was no reason for you to steal it, no financial gain,

no revenge. They gotta prove all those things beyond a reasonable doubt. First of all, Yeah, that's one you want to follow up. Well, I know that the Justice Department doesn't recognize kleptomania is a defense. So if you're for federal charges, don't even try it. Yeah, exactly, And that's that's like the Americans with Disabilities Act, that's in legislation. So good luck, and so chuck. Kleptomania, what is it? Is it an actual disease? Should it be covered in

the Americans with Disabilities Act? Should the d o J finally open up their eyes and be like, okay, okay, there's such a thing as kleptomania. Well, we don't know for sure. There's uh, some people think it's like tagged onto other psychological disorders, like what like obsessive, compulsive, or

personality and mood disorders. Okay, so it may like it could be a symptom or a byproduct of a larger disorder, right, yes, okay, but by and large it's classified as an impulse control disorder like gambling or pyromania, fire starting awesome or uh trick o tillomania. Yes, I've never heard of that. Yeah. Obsessive hair pulling, Yeah, I wonder if that means pulling your own hair. Other people's probably both, I don't know. Huh. That's an excellent question, actually, and it got our producer

Jerry giggling, so you know it's good. It's good. Yeah. So it's either a symptom of a larger disorder or it's its own impulse control disorder. UM. One of the reasons we don't know is because treatments UM for kleptomania are hit or miss. Yeah, haven't studied a lot. And the other thing is like it hit me like everything else with the brain. It's still sort of a mystery, it is. And one of the reasons why they have

had trouble studying cleptomania is finding kleptomaniacs. Like I found a study from two thousand two that was just getting off the ground at Stanford, and UM, these people were looking for twenty four kleptomaniacs for their study. And we're having to go on TV radio everywhere to try to find like true kleptomaniacs. And one of um, this guy who was quoted in a in this article on the study, UM, a guy named will cut Chick, which is a pretty cool name if you ask me. He's a Toronto psychologist.

He said, Um, in the four hundred and fifty cases I've assessed, probably only one or two of the people were actual kleptomaniacs. We're talking about a very, very small, fascinating part of the larger population, didn't they I think I saw some in the article. They said, maybe five of psychiatric patients, Yeah, admit to being are our diagnosis kleptomania, right, and and you just you revealed something else too. I

think a lot of it is admission. I mean, like, remember when me, the play acting kleptomaniac, left and went to the mall, was crushed by guilt and I wanted to get the object away from me. Do you remember? The desire to keep this secret? I think probably keeps a lot of people from coming forward. Ye. So we have no idea how large or small this population is. But I think from people who examine shoplifters, they find

that the actual kleptomaniacs among them are a very small population. Um. You know who has studied it, the University of Minnesota School of Medicine. Yeah, specifically psychiatrist John Grant, and he studied the brain and there are a few little deposits, a few theories here. One is that a a defect in a molecule that transports serotonin might be messed up. Yeah. Well,

not the defect was messed up. That would if the defect this messed up in your potentially head trauma could cause something like this, It could damage the circuits in the frontal lobes. Right, that could maybe happen and decrease in the fine structure of white matter in the frontal lobe. But it's all in the frontal lobe, right, and the olympic system, which, as of course we know is the

brain's reward center. Um. So that's in the frontal lobe, right, which also controls um impulse or the frontal lobe controls impulse mood. Yeah, so clearly it's it could be its own disorder in the frontal lobe. Pasons going on up there. Um. So did we say that treatments don't work all that well? Like? Um, Sometimes U S SR Rise work, but not all the time. Cognitive therapy work. Sometimes you want to talk about some of the cognitive therapy. Yeah, cognitive theory cracks me up

a little bit. It's like snapping a rubber band on your wrist when you have like an impure thought. Um. Covert sensitization, Josh, is when a patient wants to steal and then all of a sudden You're you're trained to imagine the consequences, which, to me, that's like I thought that's what you're just supposed to teach people. It's like, um no, it's like like you're get in trouble, bring a cat in the face, like every time it does

something you don't want with a little water bottle. Uh. Aversion therapy that is, if you feel the urge to steal, you will be told to do something like holding your breath until it's literally painful. Oh, I'm sorry. That's the one that's like you are that covert sensitization that is kind of what we as humans should be walking around doing at all times, right, thinking about the consequences of

your actions. Uh. And then the last one that uses systematic desensitization, which is relaxation therapy and substituting relaxing feelings instead of the urge to steal. All of those are probably the most difficult thing kleptomaniac will ever attempt to. I found another little study though, let's hear it check. In April of this year, they started a test where they gave kleptomaniacs or cleptomania, what do we call them again, those with kleptomania, people with cleptomania. I guess no one

wants to be called a maniac in any way. Uh. They they studied they got twenty five habitual thieves men and women between seventeen seventy five, and they gave them the drug nal trek Zone, which is what they give alcoholics and drug addicts to curb their their bad behavior. Is that the stuff that makes your hangover really really bad? I think so it's supposed to quell those impulses, and

it kind of worked. Um. After eight weeks they found that two thirds of the people who had not give them the placebo had no urge to steal, and only like eight percent had placebo did so. They also ate their vegetables and went to bed when they were told to be good drug we could use that, chuck. Is that it almost we're going to travel back to the beginning now or this should have been at the beg name kleptomania was um. I think it first appears in

literature in three seven CE. Okay, Uh St Augustine admitted to Uh, lusting to thieve by St. Augustine was something mounts he really was if he existed at all um and then it ends up in the medical literature. In eighteen sixteen, a Swiss physician by the name of Matthey wrote of a unique madness characterized by the tendency to

steal without motive and without necessity. Do you have an eighteen sixteen And then Freud came in and said that has something to do with penis envy, no kidding, And now it's a forty five well not just a kleptomania, but shoplifting is a forty five billion dollar in this country, took off from eighteen sixteen to two thousand nine. It's good stuff, all right, Well that's kleptomania. If you want to know anymore, you can read the article by our

own Dr Freud um by typing in kleptomania. Remember it because with the cake uh and the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com. And since I just said that, of course, dear friends, this means listener. Mayo, Josh, I'm just gonna call this hippie Rob followed up, you're old buddy, hippie. Should you say something about hippie Rob? Well, let's wait till after h Hi Josh and Chuck. I like him when they stripped that way. I don't normally

right into TV shows or radio shows, etcetera. But I've heard Josh talk about Hippie Rob and at the end of the Hangover podcast, he mentioned that he wanted to hear from people who knew of his whereabouts. I do, in fact know at Hippie Rob and wanted to offer my knowledge of this person to determine if it was the same hippie Rob. And I've seen this email and I know that it's a real Hippi Rob because he

capitalized the h and the robber. The hippie Rob I know is originally from vinyl Haven, Maine, a medium side a medium sized island off the coast of down East Main and say things weird there. Dummy his full name, I didn't say his full name here, but it's Robert Blank and uh. He has thick, blonde dreadlocks. He's sure tell tale sign of a hippie. Sure he was about five ten and never talked about his age, but I would put him in the upper thirties and possibly lower

forties in nine. He loves coffee, hates alcohol, and he mentioned one of his other habits that he loves, which we're not going to mention on the air. But his name is Hippie Rob. So fill in the blanks. Uh. He squatted at my apartment in Portland, Maine the summer of nine. So close. At the time, he was living off the Social Security from a quote permanent work related accident. I think we've all known a hippie Rob, but something told me that his permanent disability was not physically related.

I would see him every few summers in Maine and he would shoot the breeze. We would shoot the breeze while drinking coffee and doing other things. He was a terrible mooch. I know that he loved to travel the warm places in the winter, with his favorite being Hawaii. And uh, if you read this on the air, could you have a shout out to my girlfriend Kristen, who was an amazing sport about me listening to the podcast Galen from Portland, Maine. So, Josh, is it can't be Rob?

Know there's a couple of things missing here. Is so close? I mean the age one thing is this. No one knows the origin of the real hippie Rock. No one knows where Hippie Robs from. He does um, he uh. And he's blonde, although you would say more like strawberry blonde ish, not true blonde. Um has beard, kind of a little guy. Uh. In he would have been late

thirties or so. World class. Yeah, well you used to like, you know, we'd buy beer, and we'd buy Sierra Nevada beer and Rob didn't have any money for a while, and then he get paid and um, he would be his turn to buy the beer and he'd buy like a twelve pack of Milwaukee beast ice and would be like this, this is not the same Rob. Um. There's a dog missing. And this is a very key point. The dogs Sudonna. I'll have to tell you about him some time. He's a wolf Dogsdona. Hippie Rob owned yes, no,

they they were best friends. There was no best friends. Um. And then the real giveaway was that hippie Rob loved alcohol right that he would never even now he could have given up booze. No one would have. No one would say, hippy Rob hayes alcohol. He just doesn't drink it anymore and he probably still has. Hippy Rob loves alcohol. So that was the one that listed tale tale giveaway. So not hippie Rob unfortunately. Yeah, and uh, I guess if you know where Hippie Rob is. I've revealed some

more clues here, send us an email. We still want to know. We're looking for him. And uh is it Kristen or Kirsten Chuck Uh? In the email Galen's girlfriend Kristen Kristen special thanks to you for letting Galen listen to us. We appreciate that. If you have any cool stories about your significant other letting you do something um that you want to do, uh, put it in an email. Also, if you know where Hippie Rob is, we want to

hear that too. You can email Chuck and me at all times at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot Com home page. M HM brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you