Home Depot, Target, Ulta and more strike back at retail crime

A lot of crimes, at least when it comes to retail theft, are crimes of opportunity or crimes of need. Maybe you forgot to scan an item, or maybe you intentionally missed it.

It's hard to know and even harder to enforce at a self-checkout.

Related: Dollar Tree raises red flag about unexpected customer behavior

Sometimes the person stealing does it because it's easy and plausibly deniable, while in others, the person steals because they're hungry and broke. 

Shoplifting and petty checkout theft is a problem, but it's mostly a nuisance compared to organized retail crime.