B2 – Upper Intermediate
An Italian court has ruled that stealing a small amount of food due to starvation is not a crime. A man’s sentence was overturned because his lawyer argued that he only committed the crime out of desperation.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36190557
Discussion Questions:
- Do you agree with this Italian court ruling? Why or why not?
- What are the good things and consequences of the said ruling?
- What should be done with people who are caught stealing food?
- What do people in your country do when they are starving and don’t have any money to buy food?
9 replies on “Food Theft ‘Not a Crime’”
1. Do you agree with this Italian court ruling? Yes, I agree with it. That is exactly what I think. Stealing a small amount of food due to starvation is not a crime. It have to be so difficult living without money to buy food for you and your family.
2. What are the good things and consequences of the said ruling? The good things are that hundreds of people who could go to jail won’t go. On the other hand, other thieves will be difficult to catch.
3. What should be done with people who are caught stealing food?
Firstable, we should know about their life. If they stole because they need it or not.
4. What do people in your country do when they are starving and don’t have money to buy food? There are people who go to supermarkets.
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1. Do you agree with this Italian court ruling?
I agree with this court ruling in terms of humanity and essential need of noushment. However, it has not to be the precedent or the excuse of “stealing” food whenever you want. What we are talking about it´s an essential need. On the contrary, people could die due to starvation.
2. What are the good things and consequences of the said ruling?
From my point of view, the upsides are that people who are really needed can obtain food without paying for it. But on the other hand, it can be a misunderstood by other ones. I guess that it would be fine to make a deal or a payment in kind for a exchange of a service.
3. What should be done with people who are caught stealing food? I would talk to him/her in order to understant the real situation.
4. What do people in your country do when they are starving and don’t have money to buy food?
In these cases when people don´t have money to buy food and they are starving, they can attend a food bank or places where you can have a meal without paying money for it. These places are suppoted by de government and volunteers.
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In my opinion, I agree with this court ruling because nourishment is a need, on the other hand, I believe these scenarios shouldn’t be happening as we all should have covered the basic needs, unfortunately, reality is different.
The positive part of this ruling is that people could have free food if they don’t have how to pay it, but the contras are that stealing is a crime, so maybe the law could be changed that if someone needs food, instead of abasing oneself in the ‘robbery act’ it would be better to give the food for free.
If you caught someone stealing food, talk to that person and make the preposition of don’t steal, instead ask him to help you to sort or clean something and you will give the food as payment. For sure, it has a tricky side as is not the responsibility of only one store giving food to the needs. What I mean is, probably it could be better telling the homeless he/she can ask for food in that store once per week.
Here in Spain, I heard about Banks of food, so the families can go there and ask for food. There are some other religious ‘charity centers’ which also help with this situation, providing food to the ones who need it.
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I totally agree with them on their decision for this particular case. The good thing is they have shown humanity and empathy to understand the reason for doing this, and not just applied the law withou taking into account the context.
If anyone is caught doing that I think first must diferentiate the reason, an starvation need must be ckearly differentiated from other reasons, and for that trying to solve the real problem of those peolpe.
What people in this situation usually do here is look for food at garbage containers.
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