I&#x27;m going to go with the &#x27;Rehabilitation&#x27; angle here.<p>What if, when presented with video evidence of the crime, there was already a &#x27;plea deal&#x27; that was always on the table.  Lets say that for 10X the minimum wage cost of the affected items, you could provide community service doing some type of work the community needs and would have otherwise contracted out.<p>In that case, the offender would literally work off the (retail) &#x27;cost&#x27; of the drink (maybe also a fixed &#x27;fine&#x27; in money or community service time) to the community, also providing some rehabilitation, while the company in question would be pressed in to only writing off whatever loss isn&#x27;t covered by insurance as at cost shrinkage on their taxes.<p>Note that in this case instead of all of that money spent on corrections and the &#x2F;peace&#x2F; officer is not wasted making a mountain out of a pimple.