Shoplifting?

Shop lifting, is it the same as any other theft, or is it in a different league of its own, a league in where people do not see it as such an offensive crime?
I can tell you from working in a store, when someone attempts to steal from the store it could take at least up to half an hour for a police officer to come and sort the situation, and after the officer has arrived, that is if the thief is able to be held for the amount of time it takes for the police to arrive, the most they may walk away with is a warning and say that they are no longer welcome in the shop! Yet if the same person was to go across the round into a jewellers and attempt to shop lift in the store, I can imagine the police would be in the scene much quicker.
Thus it seems that people, including, perhaps, the authority, take a much more relaxed approach to just general shop lifting in a store, as though it is expected to happen and that there isn’t much that anyone is going to be able to do about it.
However, why do people shop lift may be the reason as to why we seem to take such a relaxed approach to it.
Most people shop lifting because they need the money that they raise from the stolen goods to fund another addiction that they have, usually drugs and alcohol. Others shop lift, not because they want or need the goods, but because of the thrill that they generate of it, as seen in the episode of ‘Family guy’. Others, because they want the object that they are attempting to steal, notice I use the word want not need! An example of this is in an episode of the ‘Simpsons’ when Bart is caught shop lifting a game that he wants yet does not have the money to pay for it.
These are all no reasons to see shop lifting as a lesser form as theft, it is just the same as anyone breaking into your house and stealing something that you have. Stealing is stealing, stealing is a crime and should be punished and shop lifting falls into stealing!