at stores that have a “do not interfere with shoplifters” policy, are people able to just walk in, take whatever they want, and leave without paying; or are there repercussions at some point?
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Answer: there are often repercussions [i.e. police, court, jail time], but losing stuff is better than losing people.
When I worked in retail, our Loss Prevention director said we had a staff member follow a thief out to the parking lot. The thief then grabbed a gun out of their car and then threatened to shoot our staffer.
After that, our LP guy said, “Let em go. Our people are more important than x amount of money.”
My friend works in a retail clothing store and she can immediately tell the difference between true customers and those with ill intentions. The first things she looks for are:
1. Whether or not the “customer” starts noting the location of security cameras and store staff. Regular customers don’t care about that
2. If the customer moves away from staff if they approach (whether subtly or not)
3. If the customer is overly defensive or won’t look at them in the eyes
And a bunch more I can’t remember right now.
Usually it’s not a single clue but a combination of all the “tells”
One of my colleagues chased some guys outside the store, and down the street. He got beaten up.
Sinply write down licence plate record detailsof the thief and what they did, and report
Above my pay grade was my personal policy in stopping or hounding anyone for shoplifting when I worked at Urban Outfitters
I worked at a liquor store once and the policy was to help them load shit into their car if they asked. The goal was to avoid a hostage situation. Management absolutely wanted shoplifters or robbers arrested and especially they wanted that arrest to happen SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE ELSE. Replacing merchandise was manageable and they had insurance, they wanted to avoid someone getting hurt or worse.
1: Employees can’t do anything.
2: Management will get angry at you, even though they told you to do nothing.
3: Police don’t care unless a weapon was involved.
I did maintenance at a popular store that sells women’s clothing and home goods. Our location had a high percentage of theft compared to other stores, so they had me install about a dozen fake cameras around.
When people stole on a large-scale, we would phone around to the other locations in the area to describe the people to let them know to be particularly diligent with customer service and making sure customers felt checked on (so thieves know they’re being watched.)
But in theory, yes, at those stores the cameras are all fake and you could walk in, pick up a stack of jeans, and run out. We will call mall security on you, but they are gonna take half an hour to show up.
The kicker is that the only working camera in the whole store was in the back, watching the employees.
People that shoplift once tend to do it more than once. Eventually security reckognizes them on sight and will call the police the next time they’re in the store.
Security at major chain stores has drastically changed in the past decade. There are cameras everywhere, and footage doesn’t get deleted. It all gets uploaded and processed automatically with visual recognition software. Anomalies get flagged for human review, and they get linked to other incidents through facial recognition, license plate OCR, phone IMEI and MAC tracking, etc. to other videos of other visits, even at different stores, since they all use the same few security companies, and the industry cooperates on this stuff.
There’s no anonymity anymore. They don’t have to stop shoplifters at the door. They just bundle all the evidence and send it to the police. The next time the shoplifter has an encounter with law enforcement, they get picked up. And if the shoplifter has stolen multiple times or from multiple stores, it adds up and can cross into felony territory.
In the past, prosecutors would usually need to get store staff to testify, which was hard–retail has a lot of turnover and courts are slow. Now they don’t need to. Putting video clips of repeated shoplifting in front of a jury is practically an automatic guilty verdict. So shoplifting charges are getting pled out more frequently, with plea agreements requiring the defendant to pay full restitution for the stores, with interest.
That’s why chain stores don’t try to stop shoplifters at the door anymore. It’s cheaper not to. They don’t have to put staff at risk (i.e. risk an altercation/lawsuit) , they don’t have to train staff in intervention (i.e. save money) and they are very likely to collect payment for the stolen goods from the shoplifter, even if it takes a year or two.
The downside of nonconfrontation is that, despite being far more effective and cheaper, it appears to be ineffective and lawless. Bystanders and staff don’t see the shoplifter getting arrested many months later.
I worked at sobeys where it was specifically stated in training protocols not to interfere with shoplifters. the only thing we were allowed to say is “do you need a cart for that?” or offer help in some way such as “do you need help finding something?” however, all of the managers completely ignored this. they’d huddle in groups eyeing people they thought looked suspicious, they’d guard doors, follow shoplifters, it was weird. there was a family that would take food pretty often and I always felt bad for them, our store made a million dollars every 2 weeks (I saw the reports) and the family was literally just trying to feed their kids. as much as it was written in policy not to interfere, managers ignored it and would interfere as much as possible besides getting physical.
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