A socialist New York state lawmaker is facing backlash after arguing that people who steal basic necessities such as toothpaste and soap are committing “crimes of poverty” driven by a “biological need.”
Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, a Brooklyn Democrat and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, made the remarks Thursday during a news conference outside Manhattan Criminal Court alongside other lawmakers and criminal justice advocates with Court Watch NYC.
Gallagher said the group had monitored hundreds of arraignments and found many involved misdemeanor offenses, including people accused of stealing everyday necessities.
“Most of what we saw were crimes of poverty — people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap,” Gallagher said, arguing that those accused of stealing such products likely needed them.
Gallagher went on to criticize the criminal justice system for protecting major corporations such as CVS and Walgreens while prosecuting struggling New Yorkers, saying people can face jail “simply for having a biological need.”
Gallagher and other activists at the event pushed for “treatment-not-jail” policies and called on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to follow through on his campaign pledge to end “broken windows policing,” which targets quality-of-life offenses including fare evasion and graffiti.
The remarks drew criticism from New Yorkers interviewed by the New York Post, who argued that allowing shoplifting to go unpunished would encourage additional theft and ultimately hurt law-abiding customers and neighborhood businesses.
NYPD statistics cited by the Post showed retail theft was down 14.7% as of Aug. 9 compared with the same period last year, while petit larceny was down 5.4%.
Gallagher represents parts of northern Brooklyn, including Greenpoint, in the New York State Assembly.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
4 Responses
There is the Torah Ten Commandments to address this question of taking property that does not belong to you. In Chabad. org’s interpretation there are two meanings ascribed to Theft. First, is the crime of Kidnapping an individual, “The eighth of the Ten Commandments, ‘lo tignov’, literally translates as “do not steal”. Interestingly, both the Talmud and Midrash interpret it specifically as a prohibition against kidnapping.”…Regarding Zohar the Chabad.org website explains, “What I have given to you and entrusted to you shall be yours, but do not steal what belongs to another.”
All this to say is that it is not a kindness to take from another that which does not belong to you. You don’t own it…it was not bequeathed or given to you, therefore it is not yours to take. To feel that you have a right or even permission to steal, no matter what the size of the stolen item is it still never belonged to you to begin with. All this to say, stealing and lying about it and saying it has another purpose to satisfy our basic human desires is a false teaching in Torah Law. To take what does not clearly belong to is is the point here. Saying that you are entitled to steal something because it is desirable and satisfies a need that you are entitled in your abject poverty, to take it and provide it to yourself is the height of selfishness and nothing more than that.
In all fairness, among the secular left there is a tradition of NOT helping the poor other than by getting someone else (such as the government) to help the poor. This explains that statistics in America showing the conservatives give more to charities. Also remember that in much of the Protestant tradition, the poor were considered to have no one to blame for their poverty except themselves, so giving charity would just all the to avoid “getting their act together”. PLEASE NOTE that Jewish tradition is radically different, since we have a tradition of helping the poor directly, as well as by setting up bureaucracies for the purpose.
if the dsa believes that shoplifting is the result of necessity rather than opportunity, they should agree to a simple test: give away those “necessities” for free, and see what effect it has on theft stats. because the real necessity driving theft is the need for cash to feed their addiction problems, and free soap and toothbrushes don’t go very far in that world.
Can you please post Emily Gallagher’s home address? I would like to enter and take some hygiene necessities that my family needs.