Casual readers of the weekly court case conclusions this newspaper publishes on Mondays know one of the most prevalent crimes in our community is shoplifting.

Municipal Court Judge Jim Blough says the problem has been getting worse in recent years, so much so that he’s been ramping up the severity of the punishment for those convicted of the crime.

But at the moment, nothing seems to be helping.

While shoplifting may seem a non-violent, victimless crime, the truth is police say many items that are stolen are traded for drugs. We all know that the illegal drug trade often leads to violence, thus so-called harmless shoplifting can be a gateway to much more heinous crimes.

Let’s also consider the cost of stolen goods on business owners. Nationally, some $45 billion in goods are lost to theft, with that split between employee thefts and shoplifters.

Though most retailers won’t release detailed information about specific losses for a given location, the amounts stolen locally likely reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars — or higher.

Stolen merchandise raises rates of goods for all of the law-abiding citizens out there.

We encourage the municipal court’s efforts to “throw the book” at shoplifters and hope more citizens will alert store authorities when they see something that looks fishy while shopping.