Just as our area was experiencing a string of robberies over the last month, thieves were also quite busy on the opposite end of the state.

A number of grocery stores and restaurants in the Erie area were targeted by thieves but in many of those cases, the robbers appear to have been shoplifters and dishonest customers from within the community. That's unlike the robbery cases in this region, which seem to have been perpetrated by outsiders.To show their disgust and to try to put an end to the thievery, a number of business owners in Erie started waging an anti-crime offensive of their own. Using pictures of thieves caught on surveillance camera, they began posting them on a "wall of shame."One Shur Fine Food Market displayed the surveillance photos in their front window in hopes other customers would recognize them. The pictures were captioned by the items stolen by the alleged thief, such as "Kool-Aid thief," "soap thief," "meat thief," and "sub thief."One market owner said he's been posting pictures of alleged thieves for years and now has enough archive photos to fill two folders.The owner of a Chinese restaurant began posting photos of people who left without paying their checks. He said the intent was not so much to catch them as to embarrass them and "let them know how bad they are."Using photos to embarrass or shame deadbeat persons and businesses who are delinquent is a tactic that some cities and municipalities have been using for years.To expand its effort to embarrass deadbeat businesses, the city of Philadelphia last year began focusing not only on those who owe the most business taxes, but on those who were delinquent gas customers. The hope was that residents who saw the business names on the deadbeat list would stop patronizing those firms.In Florida, one county went after deadbeat parents who were delinquent in their child support. County officials noted that deadbeat parents were not only cheating their former spouses and children, they were stealing money from every Florida taxpayer as well. It was estimated that more than 26,000 Florida welfare families were on the public dole partly because the primary breadwinners had skipped out on their child-support obligations.With communities stretched to the limit with their budgets and wondering how to generate more revenue, these shame tactics are sure to become more common. Posting of names of those who are delinquent has been with us for years through hard copy displays, such as community newsletters and bulletin boards.But trends to the electronic media have also affected the way we can expose and embarrass someone. Just because someone tears down that photo of a deadbeat or suspected thief on the bulletin board doesn't mean the violator is home free.These days, culprits can easily be posted on web sites for all to see and those dark reminders can stain a person's character profile forever.By Jim Zbickjzbick@tnonline.com