(2 of 2)
Ryder, who pleaded innocent, donned a FREE WINONA T shirt for the cover of W magazine last June. She also spoofed her predicament on Saturday Night Live. In any case, she fits the profile of a kleptomaniac. In 1990 she checked herself in to a psychiatric ward because she was having anxiety attacks. Transcripts released after the trial suggest she is a habitual offender. And she hardly needed the items she took. "If you look at what Ryder was doing to those clothes--cutting holes in them to get the tags off--do you think she was going to wear them?" says Dr. Marcus Goldman, author of Kleptomania: The Compulsion to Steal--What Can Be Done? "They probably would have ended up in a heap in her closet."
Ryder obviously needs help, and there are plenty of therapies that work. "For most shoplifters, getting something for nothing is like giving themselves a reward that they feel they deserve," says Peter Berlin, who runs Shoplifters Alternative, a New York--based rehabilitation program. Psychotherapy may help break the habit, as may drugs such as naltrexone, used to treat alcoholics, or antidepressants like Prozac. But the best therapy may be what Ryder got. When 112 repeat shoplifters were asked in a telephone survey what would deter them, their top choice was "prosecution." --With reporting by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles