Here's some facts before you "risk it for the biscuit".

Stealing Is Bad

A person of high-moral caliber like yourself would never steal, correct? But what if you kid, your spouse, or a friend finds themselves to be a little light fingered? It's all fun and games until a loss prevention person or a police officer shows up, and yes, that is most likely the case.

The Bottom Line

Walmart actually has a store policy that if you're caught stealing something valued under $25, and it's returned, that the store will not press charges. This is actually quite magnanimous of them, because one would think in many of those cases the smaller items would be the things picked up by teens or people with a desperate need (like a homeless person). It's possible they just don't want to ruin someone's life over that amount, or $25 is just not worth their time. If the suspect is obviously a kid, 12 and under, they won't even detain them, they'll just encourage them to put the stuff back.

Getting Physical

Of course nobody at Walmart can hit, tackle or choke you. In fact, they can only chase you about ten feet from the place where you've been accused of stealing from. Since they can't really put their hands on you, I'm not real sure what good an even 10 foot chase is.

If You're Caught

Walmart will send an associate to lead you to a detention area. They are allowed, again per company policy, to put a hand on your shoulder or hold your hand until you get there. They cannot use weapons and they can't even detain you if they think you have a weapon.  Policy also allows them to hold you for an hour. After they get you there, they'll determine whether to call the police or not.

Don't Get Overconfident

Some of this may lead you to believe that "nothing is going to happen" to you if caught. I would say that they have trained loss-prevention persons who know how to work within this framework, and chances are you were on camera the whole time and that the law will catch up with you.