People have long stolen from work places. They take stationery, use computers and phones free, and steal time too. Many regard it as harmless, ‘victimless’ crime. Have we crossed a line into a belief that public theft is somehow acceptable?

The 2011 English riots saw organised gangs of criminals stealing and damaging. Schools, hospitals, council offices and depots regularly suffer pilfering from a minority of staff and visitors. When the 2008 recession began there were reports of school students recharging their mobiles in classroom sockets, at taxpayers’ expense.

It’s not a new phenomenon. By the end of the last world war, thousands of troops took souvenirs from places they were liberating, bodies they were passing. Organisations and companies today are plagued with regular petty pilfering with occasional outbursts on an industrial scale.

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