Shoplifting is a disease plaguing the American consumer and retail stores. Almost all companies are feeling the effect of shoplifting in one way or another. The major companies have to deal with it in two ways; 1. Consumer shoplifting 2. Dishonest employees. The shrinkage due to these two factors causes the companies to take it out on the honest consumer. They(the retail companies) are forced to raise the price of their products to make up for the loss of revenue due to shoplifting dishonest employees and the methods they use to prevent these crimes from occurring.
The minority shoplifters are affecting the entire retail industry in a way that there are no winners. The retailers themselves have to raise the prices due to the loss and the consumers are the ones paying the bill. The only winner is the shoplifter. According to New Jersey Title 2C shoplifting is, in a nutshell, selecting and concealing merchandise as to prevent the merchant its use, or the ability to sell the merchandise. It is also considered that once you conceal the merchandise you are committing the crime of shoplifting.
Also stated in Title 2C under ringing is also a form of shoplifting. Switching tags as to not pay the full price for the merchandise or causing any damage to it is another form of shoplifting. Now even though Title 2C says that shoplifting has occurred when the subject conceals the merchandise, most companies take it a step farther. Boscov’s and Macy’s adds a third element into the definition of shoplifting. It is leaving the store. Their security must wait to see the subject leave the store with the merchandise and without paying for it.
That third element is introduced for several reasons. The first and most important is liability. There are an outrageous number of lawsuits going on in the United States, and companies just don’t want to deal with it. An Eddie Bauer store had to pay one million dollars in punitive damages o three young men because they young men were falsely accused of shoplifting. The guards in store made one of the boys take off a shirt that they believed he shoplifted. Even after one of the cashiers vouched for him saying that he bought it the previous day, they still kept the shirt .
When he returned later that day with the receipt they still would not give him the shirt. The young men sued Eddie Bauer for False Imprisonment and Defamation of Character. They cashed in on the law suit getting a million dollars. That is just one case in hundreds that proves that there is a lot of liability in detaining people for shoplifting. If some one physically walks out of the store with an item and they have not paid for it, and you can prove it, then you have their intentions right there. They were going to shoplift. The walking out part ensures that the charge will stick.
A person cannot honestly say that they decided to put three shirts on under the one they were already wearing and walk out of the store and say that they just forgot to take them off, or that they were going to pay for them later. That is the main reason why some stores add the third element to shoplifting. Shoplifting is so rampant that most major corporations have their own security that is considered a separate entity from the rest of the employees. The are almost like an internal affair department. They do not report to the store manager in most cases, and are not bound by the same rules that the rest of the employees have to follow.
They report directly to their manager who directly reports to the corporate manager. The store manager has no say in the day to day operations of the security department. Who are the people doing the shoplifting and why do they do it? Anyone can be considered a potential shoplifter. Shoplifting is not determined by race or by economic status. Anyone is a shoplifter, therefor there is no profiling in preventing shoplifting. Shoplifters strike for one reason they want something. Now there are many reasons why they shoplift instead of purchasing the item.
Some people do it for the rush it gives them, others do it because they can’t afford to pay for what they want to buy, and others do it just because they can. All in all it is considered a petty crime, and the punishment is minor. Now shoplifting is rampant, and stopping it is hard. But it has to be prevented as best as possible. And these methods are how stores try to prevent shoplifting. The security department of the store has the great job of preventing shoplifting. The technical term for security is Loss Prevention, that way it covers all the aspects of possible shoplifting or employee theft.
Any way these loss prevention officers have the tasks of stopping shoplifters. There are many methods that the Loss Prevention division prevents shoplifters. They use proactive methods, and retroactive methods. Proactive is stopping the crime before it happens. If the would be criminal can’t take the merchandise, or thinks that they can’t get away with shoplifting then this method has succeeded. This is a great way to prevent shrinkage, but since almost all of the officers are evaluated by the number of people they catch, it is not the favorite among Loss Prevention Officers. The most common proactive measures taken by stores are deterrents.
There are a variety of these used, and they all perform different tasks. I have broken the deterrents into several subgroups of my own (They are broken up according to similar functions). The subgroups are 1. Visual deterrents 2. Displays 3. Employees The first subgroup is the visual deterrents These are the mechanisms used to deter the would be shoplifter just by making him think that he is being watched. There are two mechanisms that are put in this group. They are mirrors, and the camera bubbles in the ceiling. The mirrors are the more common of the two used by store. The fact that some people see themselves stealing in a mirror “freaks hem out” according to Charles Davenport. The psychology behind it is that other people are presumed to be watching the mirror to make sure that no one is stealing. Also the mirror makes it easier for employees to watch certain things or customers without hawking over them. The disadvantage with the mirrors is that the shoplifter can see the person who is supposed to be watching them. Sill it is effective in “psyching out ” the shoplifter. Another form of the visual deterrent group would be the black bubbles that are in the ceilings of most department stores. They are supposed to be housings for video cameras, but that is not always the case.
Sometimes they are hollow. Some stores just cannot afford to put a camera system in them. It gives the impression that you are being watched, and some people don’t want to take the chance. But the major downfall to this system would be that it provides no real method of security. It just sits there and is a presence. It shows no numbers, and cannot be proven effective in my opinion. The next subgroup in my proactive methods is the display group. This entire group is the most common method used by stores in preventing shoplifting. It includes glass doors with locks on them, customer pickup, and visual display setup.
The glass doors with locks on them tell the customer that they can look but they cannot touch. It is a very effective way to prevent shoplifting. The theory behind it is that if a person cannot hold something in their hands, then they cannot steal it. Plain and simply it works. The customer can still browse the merchandise and there is a low risk of it getting shoplifted. Another way that some stores like to curtail shoplifting with is with customer pickup. The best way to describe this is by describing Toys “R” Us. They keep most of the items of value that they do not want to be stolen in a stockroom.
They display only using floor models that are locked behind glass doors with locks. The customer decides what they want and then pick up a ticket that is next to the display. They go pay for it and they pick it up at customer pickup. That is the basic idea of it. Again it prevents shoplifting by not giving the consumers access to the entire stock. The major setback to customer pickup is that it can be a major inconvenience to the consumer. At certain times when the store gets busy the customer pickup can be backed up for hours while they try to find the merchandise. Or the worst possible scenario with it is that they don’t have the erchandise desired and have to go wait in line again to get a refund. But otherwise it is a great way to stop shoplifting. The last deterrent in this group is the simplest and least expensive. It is the visual setup of the merchandise. Some items that stores have are set up in a way that makes it difficult to grab. Sometimes behind the counter where a salesperson has to get. Many stores(mostly stores that sell electronics) have mastered the art of setting items of value up in areas that makes the shoplifter think twice about stealing. Other stores on the other hand (Boscov’s) makes it easier to shoplift.
Simply the arrangement of the merchandise can be the most effective way to prevent shoplifting. The way the aisles are facing or how high boxes are setup make such an impact on shoplifting. Most visual setups are designed so that there are as few blind spots (an area that is out of sight from employees and security) as possible without taking up too much space. The whole objective of the stores visual displays is to get as much merchandise as possible on the floor and still make the store look organized and clean. This isn’t a standard method to prevent shoplifting, considering that most store managers do not care about blind spots, ut it can be used to benefit security. It is not a foolproof method, but it does make shoplifting harder for the shoplifter, and there really is no downfall to it. The third and final subgroup for proactive deterrents is the employee aspects. This deals primarily with the people that a company hires and their effect on shoplifting. There are three types of employees that stores hire to prevent shoplifting; 1. Uniformed Guards 2. Fitting Room attendants 3. Salespeople. Uniformed guards can fall into either proactive or the retroactive category, but for all extensive purposes they are primarily proactive.
They are a deterrent. Their presence is, in some way, an intimidation factor. The uniformed guard category can be broken up into two groups; 1. Rover 2. Standing Post. The Rover is that mall security guard who just walks around and everyone makes fun of him. He is truly an unappreciated person. The mall security guard is just an example, but he is the most common example. The roving guard has the same assignment that a police officer on patrol would have, to patrol and respond to any calls or any incidents. Also like the police officer he is a presence, he can call a real police officer.
The rover is usually the first responder. If some one shoplifts he is the first one at the scene and he takes the report, and apprehends the suspect. A roving guard can take a person into custody for shoplifting, or for other crimes. He has no powers of arrest other than citizen, but he does enforce the law in the mall, or store. The purpose of the roving guard is to intimidate the shoplifters, and make the consumers feel safe. The effectiveness of the mall guard in preventing shoplifting is questionable, in it a matter of opinion. Most roving guards are just a presence and from my experience have very little contact with itnessing and preventing shoplifting. Through my research their effectiveness in preventing shoplifting before it happens is minimal, they basically hold the person who was caught shoplifting until the police get there. The downfall for using the roving guards as just a preventive measure against shoplifting is the cost. They are not cost effective. But they are a necessity to stores and malls, because of their other tasks. The standing post guard is a different idea. Their number one concern is to prevent shoplifting and theft from the store. These guards are either uniformed or in plain clothes.
They have the same power as a roving guard when it comes to arrest. The standing post guard is very efficient in thwarting shoplifters. They are placed at the exits of stores and they check the bag and receipt of the consumer. They are a presence. If the shoplifter can’t get out of the store they can’t get away. The problem with that is that they can only check the shopping bags. They need probable cause to search a person. If you are standing post chances are you are not going to see a person put a nintendo game in their pants. Another problem with the standing post guard is the liability.
Some people say that it is an invasion of privacy to have a guard standing at the door checking everyone’s bag as they exit the store. In my opinion a store has a right, and according to the state of New Jersey it is not unconstitutional, a store has the right to make sure that everything going out is what is supposed to go out. Many stores have adopted this method of security for example Best Buy and the Sneaker Stadium. The next form of employees that prevent shoplifting would be fitting room attendants. The attendants sit outside the fitting rooms and check in people who want to try something on.
The attendant either gives out a number for the number of items or just asks how many. Then they escort you to the proper fitting room. This has decreased shoplifting by about 40 percent in stores that do not have any security guards. It hampers the ability of the shoplifter to hide things from the eyes of the employees. Most of the major retail stores do not like this because it costs to much money to hire some one to monitor the fitting rooms. The benefits outweigh the cost from my own experience, out of 110 apprehensions at Boscov’s 40 of them were fitting room apprehensions.
It would lower the burden on security, and those little numbers given out would make it easier for security to monitor what a person takes in and out. The shortfall is the price, that is another person that stores have to hire. The final deterrent is the sales person. The sales person can watch a person just by offering them help. Their position is not considered Loss Prevention, but they do it on their own merit. Some stores combine the salesperson’s position with the fitting room attendant. That is not a bad idea, but how much effort is really put by the salesperson to monitoring the fitting room, not that much.
Salespeople already have enough responsibility with taking care of customers and stocking the shelves neatly, telling them to watch people when they enter the fitting in some instances is pointless since the sales person is off doing one of the other responsibilities they have. Yet some stores like Boscov’s and Macy’s include that extra one with it. That concludes the proactive methods. They are in some ways very effective in preventing shoplifting before it happens. The problem with that is that it is all theoretical, unless you can ask the would be shoplifter what stopped him rom shoplifting, then there is no proof that these methods of intimidation worked. On the other hand some of the methods are more scientific than others like the fitting room attendant whose numbers speak for themselves. The next group is the retroactive group. This is catching the shoplifter after he commits the crime. There are three forms of retroactive techniques. They are; 1. Store Detectives 2. CCTV 3. Tagging system. There jobs are to catch the criminal in the act, and make sure he doesn’t get away. The first of the retroactive is the store detective. The store detective is the equivalent of an undercover cop.
He walks through the store in plain clothes and watches people, and tries to witness them in the act of shoplifting. He has no arrest powers other than citizen arrest. He is not supposed to make himself known to the customers. The store detective always looks for the first two elements, selection and concealment. If they don’t have those two then they do not have anything. Some of the stores(Boscov’s and Macy’s) have the third element of leaving the store. The store detective is a very effective measure of stopping shoplifting after it happens. They have statistics that show their performance.
Boscov’s for the year of 1998 has a total of 110 shoplifting apprehensions. I asked Macy’s but they didn’t give me the number . Not only is the store detective supposed to prevent shoplifting, but he is also responsible to stop dishonest employees. The store detective is also like the internal affairs bureau of a police department. They watch the suspected employees, and they can even pull up the employees transactions as they do them. Store Detectives do not report to the same chain of command that the rest of the employees have to. They are their own separate entity in the store.
They report to their manager, who reports to a corporate manager. That prevents any conflict of interest. That is not the letter of the law, and all stores do not necessarily follow that chart, but most(Boscov’s, Burlington Coat Factory, Value City, Macy’s and Sears) follow that structure. The next method is CCTV or closed circuit television. This is hand in hand with the store detective. It is the most effective method of surveillance. The cameraman can watch the suspect, but the suspect does not know that he is being watched. The cameras are put in those black bubble housings that let it see out but no one see in.
Some stores even have the CCTV hooked up to a VCR, that way you not only have a witness, but you evidence. The CCTV is a great way to apprehend suspects, without scaring them off. The evidence is undeniable, it is a videotape of a person shoplifting, or of an employee stealing. Some systems even allow for the video camera to bring up the cash register showing the transaction. This is good for catching employees in the process of under ringing, and people who switch tags. All of the apprehensions at Boscov’s used the CCTV in some way or another, and it is effective in catching dishonest employees.
Out of the 110 apprehensions at Boscov’s this year 17 of them were dishonest employees. Not only is the CCTV good for stopping shoplifting after it happens, it can also be a proactive measure also. They are intimidating and if you see some one shoplifting and can’t do anything about it you can always call down to the department where the about to be shoplifter is and tell the salesperson to go over there and keep an eye on him. Nine times out of ten no one is going to shoplift in front of an employee, I know because it happened to me.
Any store is foolish not to have these CCTV cameras in their stores. The major downfall to these CCTV cameras is the price. They range from anywhere $500 to $3000 dollars, plus whatever costs for maintenance. Also there is usually one person in the camera room watching the entire camera system. It is very difficult for one person to watch 50 cameras at one time. There will always be a blind spot that the cameraman missed or an area that he skipped over. All in all it is still the best retroactive method that the stores have. The last of the retroactive methods is the Tagging System.
I wasn’t quite sure under which category it would go under, but the intention is that if some one shoplifts something with a sensor tag on it the alarms will go off as they leave the store. The sensor tags have little electronic clips that are surrounded by plastic, and pinned to, or stuck to an item. There is an alarm at the doors that goes off when the sensor tag gets near it. Now the problem with the sensor tags is that if some one wants something bad enough they will just take it. The flaw with sensor tags is that they can be cut with wire cutters. That makes them useless.
So one action taken to prevent that was the design of sensors with the ink in them. When tampered with the ink goes all over the place. There are many problems with the ink tags. If some tampers with it they render the item unable to be sold afterwards because there is ink all over it. The way that a shoplifter can beat the sensor tag or the ink tag is to start running when the alarm goes off, chances are a security guard is not going to be in the vicinity to stop them. With a large head start I don’t think that a sales person will try to catch them, and if they do they leave their register there to be robbed.
The sensors are not a foolproof way of preventing shoplifters. But they do deter them enough that almost every store still uses them. The reason I have them as retroactive is because they set the alarm off after the shoplifter has selected and concealed the merchandise and is starting to head out the door of the store. The retroactive method produces a lot of numbers. But what about all of the people that slip through the cracks. Just like the criminal justice system there are people that slip through the cracks. The numbers that can be offered speak to corporate managers and they prefer the retroactive methods.
Most stores do not like to divulge the amount of apprehended shoplifters they have, so that inhibits my ability to write a good research paper. But from my one source that did give me numbers, the amount of people caught,110, versus the amount of shrinkage, over $300,000 dollars for the year. That is not saying too much. But people like to see what was stopped, not what didn’t happen. There is another way that can reduce shoplifting considerably. The stores have no control over it though. If the individual states would make the shoplifting laws more severe quite possibly shoplifting would decrease.
According to Title 2C of the State of New Jersey, shoplifting is a Disorderly Persons Offence. For a fist offense of shoplifting the fine is not to exceed $500. 00. For a second offense the penalty is a fine no less than $100. 00 and no more than $500. 00. For a third offence the penalty is no less than $250. 00 and no more than $1000. 00, also for a third or subsequent offence the offender must spend no less than thirty days in prison. The penalties for a first offence of shoplifting is not even as severe as a speeding ticket. The going rate in Atlantic City for a speeding ticket is $86. 0 dollars for 6-15 miles over the speed limit, not including surcharges incurred by the insurance companies. If the state would make the penalties stricter maybe people wouldn’t shoplift as much. In Georgia they are trying to make the fourth offense of shoplifting a felony offense. If it passes the criminal gets definite prison time of no less than one year, plus a felony offence on their record. If we continue to be lax on shoplifters then they will never stop. The corporations themselves can do whatever they want to do to prevent a shoplifter that day. If some one is caught, and the store pursues to charge that violator with shoplifting, t is meaningless if after thirty minutes they are released to their own discretion. If the penalties do not seem like they are not worth the risk of getting caught then the criminal will take the chance. If he gets caught then it was worth the try. Shoplifting has become a science. Some shoplifters call it an art. If you look on the internet there is an ” Art of Shoplifting Handbook” (which has been included with my report). For every one way that a store thinks of security measures, a good shoplifter has ten ways to get by it. The science of shoplifting is easily learned, and you get two mistakes before you have to serve any jail time.
Trying to catch every shoplifter is impossible, and trying to intimidate them doesn’t always work. No one wants to live in a world where everything is under lock and key. The answer to the question of “Are the methods that companies use to prevent shoplifting effective? ” is NO! It is impossible to stop shoplifters dead in their tracks. The methods do make it more difficult for shoplifters to get away with shoplifting. But they are not capable of putting a dent the shoplifting problem. For every shoplifter caught four get away. The average value of the products taken by a shoplifter is $84. 00.
Stores still have to raise the prices of their products, not only because of the shoplifters, but because of the methods they use to prevent shoplifting. Not only do the camera systems cost money, but they have to hire people to work the cameras. The average amount of money that a security guard gets paid (including mall guards) is $6. 90, just in the Shore and Hamilton malls. The companies have to pay for those guards that are preventing the shoplifters, and in reality it is not the company paying for the guards but the consumer. So for every one out of five shoplifters that get caught, you recover on an average of $84. 0 worth of merchandise. The stores are trying, but there is nothing they can do if a shoplifter doesn’t care. If a person goes in knowing that there is a risk that he will get caught, and still does it, that sure does say something. The security guards can’t stop everyone. And the people caught don’t always pay restitution. It becomes a vicious circle. And one big waste of time. Nothing can be done unless a person knows that if they are caught they will be punished. Until then, shoplifting will continue, and those so called “Shoplifting Artists” will get better at it. And the only people that will suffer are the honest ones.
