Have they been banned specifically for stealing? The OP doesn't say.

I can remember being about 12 years old (a long time ago!) and going to a supermarket after school to get things for my mother - I had a list in her handwriting and some cash to get things needed for that night's dinner. My school and the supermarket were a bus ride away from home and my mother worked and didn't drive so it made sense for me to do the shopping. My two friends decided to keep me company as I did the shopping. We were promptly evicted by a security guard because we looked suspicious. Even when I showed him the list I had, he wouldn't let me back in on my own. I felt humiliated and frightened that someone would judge me like that, someone with the power to take arbitrary decisions against me. I wept all the way home. My mother didn't believe such a thing would happen and punished me for 'forgetting' to get the groceries on the way home. It was too late for us to go out again and get the food. I have never, ever forgotten how that experience made me feel.

My teenage son tells me people will not sit beside him on the bus, and cross the street to avoid him and his friends. They are lovely, gentle boys who would gladly do anything for anyone. It breaks my heart to see them judged in this way.

None of this will even have occurred to the managers at Sainsburys - why would it? But demonising our young people seems like a great way to make them resent authority, not respect it.

Rant over.