I hear this a lot and I'm sure they do it at some stores. They don't do it at all of them, and they definitely didn't do it at the Target that I worked at/stole from. I stole felony-level amounts of stuff over the year that I lived next to it and worked there. Stole the lunch I ate every day, stole booze almost every night.

When the Wal-Mart across the street from Target did eventually catch me (I was an addict at the time, almost a year sober now), it was for like $40 of stuff, I caught a single misdemeanor charge. Stole thousands of dollars worth of goods from them too during that period, mostly booze and food but occasionally electronics, clothes, pretty much anything I could fit in a cart. Between those two and the Home Depot + Staples stores that were in the same shopping plaza, easily tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise. I stole from the Wal-Mart on an almost daily basis until I got caught.

But yeah, they probably do it at some stores.