SYSK Selects: How Kleptomania Works

it in your pocket, and don't tell anybody. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, the Chuck, The Chuck. The Chuck is on fire. How you doing, Chuck? You've been sitting on that one for a while, just since yesterday. We've actually have not recorded in two weeks, and I have a feeling that Josh has been planning that for two weeks. I just told you. I came

up with it yesterday. I was listening to your sweet boys while I sweat, and you have floors in my house, okay, and you think of dog here, you think of me? And 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, as Christmas comes around, people love to steal. People love to hold people up with guns, knives, sorts 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 really east UM called the Global Retail Theft Barometer, and it was released UM mid November a couple of weeks back, the g r TP. 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 billion? Wow?

Because in our article it says ten billion. Ten billion is like an average, so that's a huge increation. 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 some 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 right, and they they 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 shopling? Okay, I thought you meant

that had not been caught. No, they just hang around Macy's and are 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 sawbuck. Um, what what is that? A twenty? I think we've gone over this before. I think it's a fiber 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 of this

victimless crime, that's kind of another perception. So 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,

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'll just charge a bunch of stuff and not pay it insurance fraud. It's just it's just, you know, that's stupid. In that stupid credit card company is going to 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 I just made it up. Yeah, although I would say you could steal from anyone and that would be klepto 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, right, that says that, Uh, 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 does 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. That's still a little play acting. Oh I love this, Okay, Um,

I'm going to be a kleptomaniac. Okay, 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 tend 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 and 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 a lipstick. There's no explanation for this.

I make it out of the store, and as I enter into the rest of them all 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 lips and I go to my grandmother's house, who is now dead, but in the scenario, 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 today. Can I talk now? Yeah, First of all, it was a little weird being in your pocket. Let me say

that I liked it. But yeah, dude, you just hit on a lot of the major points, uh, tension, relief 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 textin 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 pair of sunglasses, olive oil, laundry 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 alone, And now he has a wife and son and wow, he has a family who 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 uh. 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 so ye 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 preplanned it. 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 Freundlick, No,

there's no l Oh, there's not totally invented that. I've been reading it that way for two and half. You we're gonna call him Dr Freud, Okay, okay. Dr Freud pointed out that, um, people who are kleptomaniacs true kleptomaniacs, or I think from what I gather, we don't call him cleptomaniacs. 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 from the store. Yeah,

that makes sense. The other thing that makes that guy hinky as 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 is slanted a little bit because I think it said that women are less likely to admit to it or to report it to like a psychiatrist, that kind of thing. Oh, No, men, men who still go to prison, women who still psychiatric evaluation. 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. Uh. He said that shamefully. I do feel kind of ashamed. Actually, the mother and daughter Joan Allen and Christina Ricci both shoplift in that film at separate times. I think Heartbreakers, that's Sigourney Weaver and um, what's her name is 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 is 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 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 arrested. So that's not clepto any that's a shop. Uh. And I don't know. I was thinking about when I saw that in the late seventies. Um, I thought of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry finds out that his parents steal batteries and in turn finds out that almost all elderly people steal battery Yeah. Yeah, yeah

for their tip calculators. That the Willard I'm ruined. You know another thing, Josh is uh you 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 did successfully get off on it? Is? You know why what, Well, your defense lawyer must argue when the argument that there was no reason for you to steal it, no financial gain, revenge, they got to 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 as 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 right, 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 do 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, trick 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, and they 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 kleptomania 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 cup 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

percent of psychiatric patients admit to being our our diagnosis kleptomaniac. 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 kleptomania, left and went into the mall, was crushed by guilt. I remember that 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. Yeah, 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 are 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 clearly be messed up. The defect is messed up in your potentially head trauma could cause something like this. It could damage the circuits in the frontal lobes. 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 Lympic 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. There you have it, dude, Yeah, so clearly it's it could be its own disorder in the frontal lobe, reasons going on in there. Um. So did we say that treatments don't work all that well? Like, Um, sometimes U s SR rise, but not all the time. Cognitive therapy work. Sometimes you want to talk about some of the cognitive therapy. Yeah, cognitive therapy 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 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. Yeah, 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 they 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 cleptomaniac

will ever attempt too. I found another little study, though, let's hear it took in April of this year. They started a test where they gave kleptomaniacs or cleptomania. What do we call him 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 given 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 beginning? Kleptomania was um? I think it first appears in literature

in 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 Matthew 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 cleptomania, but shoplifting is a forty five billion dollar in this country took off from eighteen six team to two thousand nine. That'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 begins with k uh in the handy search bar how stuffworks 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 your old buddy Hippi Should you say something about Hippi Rob. Well, let's wait till after U. Hi, Josh and Chuck I like him when they started 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 Hippie Rob because he capitalize the H and the rob. The Hippie Rob I know is originally from vinyl Haven, Maine, a medium side a medium size island off the coast of down East, Maine. They

say things weird of their down East. His full name, I didn't say his full name here, but it's Robert Blank and uh. He has thick, blonde dreadlocks, the sure telltale 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 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 n so close. At the time, he was living off a 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 give a shout out to my girlfriend Kristen. It was an amazing sport about me listening to the podcast Galen from Portland, Maine. So, Josh, is it hippy rob No, there's a couple of things missing here is so close. I mean the age. One thing is that no one knows the origin of the real hippie rock. No one knows where hippie robs fromocks

he does um he uh. And he's blonde, although you would say more like strawberry blond ish, not true blonde. Um has a beard, kind of a little guy. Uh. In he would have been late thirties or so. World class mooch. Yeah, well you used to like, you know, we'd buy beer and we'd buy Sierra Nevada beer and Robb 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 we'd be like this,

this is not the same, rob Um. There's a dog missing, and this is a very key point. The dog Sodonna I'll have to tell you about him sometime. He's a wolf dog Sidona. Hippie Rob owned yes, no, they they were best friends. There was no he's best friends with 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 hates alcohol. He just doesn't drink

it anymore and he probably still has. Hippie Rob loves alcohol. So that was the one that was the tell tale giveaway. Alright, 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 truck who? Uh? In the mail 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 that how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page