Original subtitles

The desperation, in some sense,

was more severe than I see here in -- in America.

¶¶

You know, you hear about the rough side of London.

I always knew that it existed.

I just never knew that, in London, you could slip so low.

People are desperate.

You have people who would give these kids a shopping list

of things to go and steal, knowing that they're on drugs.

[ Door closes, creaking ]

Williams: Our goal is just to simply show the world a window

as to why people do the things they do

and where that desperation comes from.

It's like they say, "When the system fails you,

you create your own system."

¶¶

[ Bells jingling ]

It's Black Friday.

It's regarded as the beginning of the holiday shopping season,

but this day has become the busiest

and the biggest day of the year in Britain...

for shoplifters.

Now what's interesting about this story

is what they actually steal --

a leg of lamb, turkey, anything that this community

may not necessarily be able to afford.

And we're about to meet up with a couple

who shoplift to support their drug habit.

¶¶

[ Horns honking ]

[ Horns honking ]

Williams: This is Ronni and Dennis.

They're addicted to drugs.

You know, heroin, crack cocaine.

Last year, in the UK, almost every type of crime was down

except shoplifting.

And I'm here to find out why.

-Michael. -Michael. That's right.

-Come in. This is Dennis. -It's nice to meet you.

Dennis. Michael, boss. Good to meet you.

Come in.

Yeah. I went into there and took,

um, these...

men care kits.

Ronni: The people cannot get enough of them at the moment.

And I got a iron.

Well, I mean, it does look -- sound stupid to nick an iron,

but people do buy it.

¶¶

Dennis: All cops are bastards.

Williams: How old are you guys?

Dennis: Me, I'm 21.

I'm 26.

How long have you been shoplifting?

-Under a year. -Okay.

But Dennis, since I've meet him, you've been...

Yeah, I've been shoplifting since I've been a little kid.

Are you stealing to support your habit?

Yeah.

And, like, people will ask us to steal certain things.

Things like meat, for instance.

So, people submit shopping lists to you?

[ Chuckles ] Yeah.

Almost every day, don't we?

Yeah.

How did you start using drugs?

Me, I started heroin at 13.

You were 13 years old? Yeah.

Was injected by a person

that I've looked up to like an older brother.

How'd you get started using?

The drug has been in my life since I was born.

I was born addicted to heroin.

My mom was using when I was growing up.

We both take heroin and crack. £50 each, roughly.

Yeah.

You get no judgment from -- from me.

You know what I mean? Um, I've had my own,

um, bout with narcotics, and it's an everyday struggle, so...

Do you ever wonder, if you took just 20% of all that energy

and put it towards something else, where you might end up?

We talk about that a lot, don't we?

Yeah, we talk about that a lot.

But we know that this isn't, for us, a long-term lifestyle.

Excuse me.

[ Laughter ]

[ Man laughs ]

Phil: Aye.

¶¶

In a UK context, the poor have been getting poorer,

while the rich have been getting richer.

After the financial crash in 2008,

the government in 2010 decides that the way to respond

is to cut public spending.

That's health services.

That's services for family and children.

What inequality means, increasingly,

is that your background dictates your future.

Man: One of the first acts of Britain's

new coalition government back in June

was an emergency budget announcing

swingeing cuts to public spending.

We act on behalf of everyone who knows that Britain

has got to live within its means.

[ Crowd chanting ]

Butler: Welfare benefits are harder to get,

and one of the ways in which people have responded

is survival crime.

They're stealing basics.

They're stealing bread and milk and baby food.

We're also seeing people who are deciding to go

to the black market because that's one of the ways

in which they can afford to buy certain foodstuffs.

¶¶

Williams: Dennis has been arrested for shoplifting

three times in the past two years.

So, um, what were the things that you got caught shoplifting?

It was meat. £200 worth of meat.

And another one, £101.

Okay. All right.

So what do you think your chances are?

I think, hopefully I'm going to get out.

-Yeah. -Come on then.

So we'll be waiting for you, man.

Let me know what's going on. All right.

All right, buddy, y'all be safe.

All right. All right. All right, Ronni.

Ronni: Okay.

You know, if anybody knows my story, you know,

I've -- I've not been the most model in citizen

in -- in the whole world.

I've been in some dark places myself,

and for me to be alive is a blessing.

Let's face it, you know?

These -- These two kids, man, they --

You know, both of them got hooked on drugs,

one born addicted from her mother,

and him 13 years old got turned out.

[ Chuckles ]

What happened?

They gave me a £500 fine.

And I've got to go to a drug appointment at 12:00.

-A drug appointment? -Yeah.

-Like -- Like a rehab? -Yeah.

Ronni: Like a rehab, yeah. Nine months.

How you feel about that?

I feel quite pleased, actually.

You ready to do it?

Yeah, I mean I've done eight years on drugs.

And now I think it's time to get off it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

What's the agenda for right now?

We're going to go back home

and get some stuff that we've got, just so...

And score one last time. [ Laughs ]

Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. Score, yeah.

Score one last time before tomorrow. Yeah, I mean --

¶¶

Williams: All right. So, Dennis and Ronni went home

and they picked up their last little bit of stolen goods,

and they're gonna sell it, take the money,

and go buy drugs, hopefully, for the last time.

It has been a really long day.

Yeah. Yeah.

-Yeah. -Yeah.

The -- The pub owners allow you

to go into the store and sell in there?

Into the pub -- yeah?

-Yeah. Discreetly. -Yeah.

What is all of this? What do you got?

We got makeup sets, gift sets, and steaks. [ Coughs ] Little gift sets.

Right. Right. Christmas gifts today.

If he changes his mind, says, "No, I don't want you

to come into the store," then what would you do?

Go somewhere else, then.

-Go somewhere else, yeah. -Go somewhere else?

¶¶

[ Conversing indistinctly ]

Dennis: Honestly.

Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of people say, "Oh, thieves need to be hung."

[ Ronni scoffs ]

Look at us like the scum of the earth.

But at the end of the day, we're just trying to get by

on a system that's failed us completely.

Obviously, yeah, we're helping ourselves by shoplifting.

But we're also --

we help the people that buy the stuff off us.

Like, they couldn't be more grateful.

[ Horns honking ]

That was the last hurrah? That's the last of it, huh?

-Yeah. -So what are you gonna do now?

Tomorrow I start the drug treat-- treatment, yeah.

Yeah. A new year, whole new fresh outlook on life, you know?

Yeah.

Hugs! Hugs! Bring it in! Bring it in!

Good luck. Don't kill yourself, hear?

-Yeah. -Please. For real?

-Yeah. -All right, bro?

¶¶

Williams: So, we left the streets of London

and took a four-hour drive to Liverpool.

It reminded me a lot of Baltimore.

Like, they're both port cities.

The drugs that flood those city's streets in Liverpool

are on a different level than the city of London

and, you know, you mix that with no resources, no jobs,

and shoplifting is on the rise.

We met up with a mother of two,

and she had to revert to a black market to feed her family.

[ Knock on door ]

-How are you doing? -Hello.

-Hello. -Come in.

Hey, thank you for welcoming us into your home.

I understand you have a hookup on certain things

you may need, um, like,

supplies and stuff to support your family.

How do y-- How do you get that?

You know, me coming from a -- a poverty-stricken community

my-- myself -- I grew up in --

in the projects in -- in Brooklyn.

Mm-hmm.

And, grace of God, my mother, she never had to do this.

Yeah.

And, um, they're just shoplifting to get money

to support themselves or are they on drugs, like --

¶¶

Williams: She is basically on hard times.

Mental illness, no job, no benefits.

She has no way right now to feed her family.

¶¶

Williams: Gillian is basically

Liverpool's version of Ronni and Dennis.

But her situation is a little bit more desperate.

[ Gillian coughing ]

-Hey. -Okay.

Pork.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

See? It's these three.

Woman: The biggest myth people have about drug users --

There's lots, but I think the biggest one

is that are stupid.

If you got a £50 a day habit on heroin,

you're gonna have to work pretty hard.

So you're not lazy. You know your money.

You can work out how much you get in the daytime

and how much you need to use.

And it's just persistent like that.

Funny to go out raising, stealing, and I'm busy.

And they are busy.

Williams: So, what do we have here?

Yeah.

¶¶

How long do you see yourself surviving like this?

Wendy: Um...

-Yeah. Thank you so much. -You're welcome.

I want to send bless-- blessings to your family, all the best.

-Yeah, you, too. -Thank you.

-Can I give you a hug? -Of course! Oh!

[ Chuckles ] Merry Christmas.

You, too, as well. All the best.

All right. All right.

Bye. Bye.

Williams: You could see that she wasn't proud

of what she was doing.

But, you know, you have to eat.

You know, I was curious to find out

who was really benefiting from this black market.

¶¶

What's up, man?

So I understand you, uh, you move heroin?

Yeah. Okay.

You're aware they're stealing

things in the community t-to sell to make --

Yeah. And out of 10 of your customers,

how many of them are out there, um, stealing,

um, to -- to make the money to get to you?

Do you see that as an issue in your community?

Mm-hmm.

What would you like to see change in this community?

[ Man laughing ]

¶¶

Williams: Stephen French basically...

Man, this dude used to be one of the most notorious gangsters

in Liverpool. Morning.

There's probably nothing on those streets of Liverpool

that Stephen hasn't done a little bit of

and had a little bit of done to him.

This is a form of black market

where people take the stolen goods

and sell them to the community who can't afford

to feed their families. Yeah.

That is -- That's dysfunctional.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, right?

...yeah, right...

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

...yeah, right...

¶¶

Williams: You know, Dennis and Ronni,

they really touched my heart, you know?

I -- I s-- I saw so much of myself in them.

So, um, we checked up on them.

[ Lighter clicks ]

Just go on. Coming back to normality that I wanted.

[ Lighter clicks ]

And Dennis can, as well.

So we're happy. Yeah.

I'm going to completely go back to being the old Dennis.

Doing weights, running, getting healthy again.

Yeah. We want to, in the next year...

get clean and start trying for a family.

That's what we want.

My fear -- My only fear is that

we're not going to give up in time

and Dennis is going to get one bad hit and die,

to be honest,

because I've lost my mum to this drug that way.

I lost my ex-boyfriend of four years that way,

to this drug.

And that's why I'm so desperate to just get rid of it

as soon -- as soon as we can,

because I don't want... to have that one bad hit --

and have that for Dennis, as well.

It would break my heart.

A lot.

A lot. Sorry.

Dennis: Here. Found it.

¶¶

¶¶

[ Sighs ]

Being with Dennis and Ronni, it was, uh...

it was tough for me.

I-I see myself, and I'm in a lot of different ways.

I know in my heart that they deserve

a -- a -- a real shot at life.

It's a really nasty, vicious, uh, uh, cycle.

And the system that's been put in play, you know, by poverty.

I was like, "Wow."

Things could go very wrong very fast in the UK if you're poor.