surveillance — Page 28

Background checks and What to Look for

May 4, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

When hiring a new employee and you need to do a background check, Do you know what you need to look for to make sure you have the right candidate? First of all, you need to be knowledgeable about the laws regarding background checks in your state. What Washington seems reasonable, may not quite cut it for California and vice versa. Due you due diligence before attempting to do a background check without knowing the Ins and outs of the law. Make sure that your process about hiring and doing background checks are consistent throughout the company, you do not want to be the target of an employee discrimination lawsuit because of different treatment to different possible candidates.

What You Need To Know About Background Checks

April 29, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Many small businesses think twice about hiring a new employee, especially if that business is going through a rough time. The actual cost of hiring a new employee is expensive, and not only because of the salary they will be paying. Recruiting and training alone will be costly, not to mention the time spend for interviewing the possible candidates. Hiring the right candidate can become quite an ordeal, but by doing background checks on an employee before hiring them can save you time and money in the long run.

Class Action: Amazon Violates Federal Law With Employee Background Checks

Amazon.com Inc. and a staffing company that aids the online retailer in its hiring are facing a class action lawsuit, alleging that they have violated federal law because they did not disclose the information found in a background check that was used to deny employment.

Plaintiff Gregory Williams claims in his class action lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Washington state federal court that Amazon and Staff Management Solutions, which is also called SMX, violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Williams claims that he applied for a job with Amazon as a “puller” at one of the online retailer’s distribution centers in November 2013. SMX helps Amazon with hiring at its fulfillment centers primarily in anticipation of seasonal hiring.

As part of the application process, Williams also filled out a form giving SMX the authority “to obtain his consumer report for employment purposes.” That form stated that if anything is found in the background check that could affect his employment that he would be given a copy as well as an explanation of his rights under the FCRA. It also stated that the information can be disputed if the applicant deems that it is inaccurate.

Georgia Background Checks: What you need to know

There are a number of ways for employers to gather information on the background of an applicant for employment. Employers may simply call an applicant’s former employer to confirm the applicant’s dates of employment and title and to try to obtain a more detailed reference from a supervisor. However, more and more frequently, employers are hiring third parties to conduct background checks on applicants who have been offered employment. In addition, depending on the nature of the position, employers are requesting reports about an applicant’s driving record, criminal record, and/or credit history. There are often legal limits on employers obtaining and using this type of information. When employers hire a third party to conduct a background check or obtain reports from outside agencies, such reports are subject to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and state laws. In Georgia, employers must comply with laws concerning criminal background checks and driver’s record information.

Background Check Industry at a Crossroads: Raising Uptime Standards

Why does uptime matter?

In today’s lightning-paced business climate, companies and organizations in virtually every industry are paying more attention than ever to the speed, efficiency and dependability of the systems, software and other support tools that enable them to serve and retain customers and thrive in an increasingly competitive global economy. It’s an era of Google, Amazon and smartphone-enabled instant gratification, and we expect immediate answers to all of our questions and same-day shipment of every conceivable consumer product. And companies’ system availability, or uptime,makes this all possible.

Companies are also under heightened scrutiny from regulators, and from their own internal auditors, to meet stricter accounting and reporting guidelines, to prepare for every possible disaster scenario that could disrupt their business or their customers’ business, and to operate more efficiently in everything they do. Uptime is at the very core of all these concerns.

Filed Under: Shoplifting Prevention Tagged With: Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, Background checks, employee background checks, Employee Theft, loss prevention, Loss Prevention Seminar, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, Prevent Shoplifting, prevent shrinkage, Retail Anti Theft Devices, retail security, retail security and monitoring, surveillance

What Do You Really Know About Employment Background Checks?

April 29, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

You probably know what employment background checks are… you might have even had them run on you in the past. But do you really know what an employment background check includes? And if you are responsible for or are assisting with your company’s hiring… do you know what you should be asking for when you ask for “background checks”?

When Loss Prevention Systems runs employment background checks for Retailers, most are interested in a potential employee’s previous criminal record. In many States we can look at their record “State wide”. This means that we access the Crime Information Center for that State. That database is maintained by each State. For example, in Georgia, it is the Georgia Crime Information Center (GCIC) and it is run by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. All State, City and County arrest and conviction records in the state of Georgia are fed into this system. It is the same database used when a Police Officer stops someone in a traffic stop and “checks their record”.

There is no such thing as a “Federal Records Check”. It does exist but civilians do not have any access to it under any circumstances. If a company tells you they do, they are outright lying. The National Crime Information Center (NCIC) is restricted only to Law Enforcement. It is a serious felony for someone to access it. Many years ago I asked a Congressman why we could not have legitimate access to NCIC. His response is that it will never happen as unemployment would rise sharply. Wow, they do not care if we hire criminals, have thefts and crimes caused by them, they just do not want unemployment to rise?!?!?

Not all States have State wide records checks available. In that case we run them by county. The trick is to figure out which counties. We can make an educated guess based on where the applicant indicates they have lived. However, we frequently find that applicants will lie or omit a location where they have lived that is associated with criminal records. So what is the solution?

How about “social trace”? Ever heard of that? No, it’s not a new thing on Facebook or Twitter. It’s a check that we run on an individual’s social security number that allows you to know what states and addresses the person has lived in and what other names they could have used. Sometimes, we get a red flag because a female’s maiden name wasn’t listed and pops up as an alias, which is pretty common and obviously nothing to worry about… but other times, we get a red flag on a social trace because the individual has used entirely different aliases—not misspellings, completely different names!

When we run an employment background check for a customer, we like to run a Social Trace first. This tells us then where to search the criminal records. That keeps you in control, not the applicant. By the way, Social Traces are really inexpensive.

We see it all around here. To date “the record” is held by an applicant that had over 50 pages of arrests and convictions. Many of those were VERY serious crimes that were recent. This is the kind of person that you would never want near your family, friends or employees. There’s no telling what a new day will bring. But for you, and your company, trust us when we say that it’s better for you to find out first.

If you’re not running a social security trace on your potential new hires, you could be missing out on crucial information that will keep your workplace environment safe and hold down on employee theft.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: EAS Devices, Employee Theft, Georgia Alarms systems, Georgia shoplifting prevention, Georgia shoplifting systems, Loss Prevention Seminars, Retail Anti Theft Devices, retail security, retail security and monitoring, security devices, Shoplifting Prevention, shoplifting statistics, surveillance

Background Checks and Employer Liability

April 29, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Seems like every time I turn on the news, I hear about another person who walks into their office and starts hurting people. Is this happening more and more, or do we just hear about it more? Do you ever think about those companies and wonder what goes on after something like that happens, or even before? Even more perplexing is a recent airliner crash that seemed to be caused by one of the pilots. Every day, employers around the country have the potential risk for a disgruntled, or mentally unstable employee to cause harm to their staff, or customers. Can you prevent this and if not, how can you limit your liability?

My personal opinion on random acts of violence is that you can never prevent every occurrence. You can definitely limit your exposure to the risk by barring firearms in your workplace, having a no tolerance violence policy and running background checks on all of your employees. This however, will not stop someone that is hell bent against causing harm. Again, my opinion here is that if someone wants to “go postal,” nothing on Earth will stop them. That’s a fact of the world we live in. There are ways to limit liability on your end (as a business owner).

Take for example the other day. I terminated an employee for performance related behavior. Hours later, another employee came to me with a screen shot of the terminated employee’s social media page. There, was a threat of violence towards the store and myself personally. I immediately contacted the local police. Did I really thing this person was capable of what they were posting on social media? No. Did I see it as a way to blow off steam from being terminated from a job? Absolutely. Then why did I contact law enforcement? The idea that a threat was made forces me to take that approach. Had I shrugged the threat off as “blowing off ;steam” and then 3 hours later I had that former employee burst through the front doors with a firearm, I, and my company could be potentially liable for any injuries due to failure to appropriately react to a known threat; sounds completely crazy, but it’s the truth.

You can relate this to running background checks on your employees. Let’s say you don’t perform a background check on a new hire and with 2 weeks he loses his temper with a fellow employee and severely injures that employee. Worst case scenario is that employee is no longer able to work. You find out after the incident that your new hire has 15 arrests for domestic violence and other crimes against persons. You could be potentially held liable for creating a violent workplace due to a failure to properly screen applicants. Again, it sounds completely crazy but this has happened and will continue to happen. Background checks are standard practice and every single big box retailer across the country and they should be for you as well.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, EAS Devices, Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Workshop, Retail Anti Theft Devices, retail security, retail security and monitoring, security devices, Shoplifting Prevention, surveillance

Controlling Retail Shrinkage by the Numbers

April 14, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

The margins in a retail business can be slim. It doesn’t take much shrinkage for a store to go from the black to the red. One of the primary roles of a successful store manager is to develop, follow and then tweak a comprehensive security plan. The creation of an effective plan takes a large investment of time, money and effort.

Managers often have gut feelings about where their losses are, and may even have a good idea about how to control them. However, few of them understand — and therefore can’t effectively address — the full scope of the problems. A successful plan starts with knowing the numbers, not indistinct feelings or incomplete ideas.

The yearly National Retail Security Survey (University of Florida) started in 1991and is considered to be the most accurate and comprehensive in the industry. The 2014 report estimates that the total shrinkage amount for retail businesses is $44.25 billion. This is broken down into 5 categories. The numbers have been rounded and don’t add to 100%.

Employee Theft (41%) – Many managers believe shoplifting is their number 1 shrinkage problem and make the mistake of overlooking this statistic, to their detriment. Employees will steal time, money and merchandise. This is regardless of how nice or punitive their supervisor is, good guys get stolen from as much as bad ones do.

Shoplifting (33%) – People steal for a variety of reasons. With the advent of the Internet (which makes it easier to sell stolen items) and the difficult financial times of the last several years it has been steadily on the increase. But, it remains consistently second to employee theft, which has also been rising.

Administrative (15%) – This category represents common human error involving administrative tasks, not deliberate fraud. It includes things such as: miscounting or misplacing stock, money/cash register mistakes, lack of follow through on paperwork and poor record/receipt keeping.

Unknown (7%) – Some researchers view this category as a miscellaneous or catch-all one, where odd or seldom seen circumstances, which don’t fit any other classification, are located.

Vendor Fraud (6%) – This is another area of shrinkage that many managers overlook. They trust their supplier or its representative and ignore all the places (i.e. warehouse, delivery driver, invoices, order forms) where their shipment is shorted “just a few things”.

Before developing a loss prevention security plan it’s vital to understand where the loss is happening. Then valuable resources, time and money, won’t be wasted on ineffectual systems, training and equipment. Good managers know their employees, customers and suppliers, and have a feeling about where the problems are. Great managers know all that too, but they back up their subjective feelings with objective numbers.

Nicole Abbott is a writer and psycho-therapist with over 20 years of experience in the fields of mental health and addiction. She’s an educator, consultant, lecturer, trainer and facilitator, who’s conducted over 200 workshops, trainings, presentations, college classes and seminars.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Alpha 2 Alarm, Alpha 3 Alarm, Alpha High Theft Solutions, Alpha Jewel Lok, Alpha Nano Gate, Alpha Security, Alpha Spider Wrap, Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, EAS Devices, Periodic inventory, Retail Anti Theft Devices, retail security and monitoring, surveillance

Social Media and Employee Theft

March 30, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

There isn’t anything I enjoy more than catching an employee stealing. Whether it be through a lengthy investigation, or through an anonymous tip, it’s very satisfying to me. The idea that you employ someone, put money in their pocket and a chance to succeed, but they steal from you, eats at the pit of my stomach. I can’t stand a thief and to me, it’s even worse when it’s an employee. Throughout my career in Loss Prevention, I’ve handling thousands of employee theft cases. Most don’t really stand out to me, but there are a handful of stories that I like to share when I have the chance.

Social media has really changed the way we communicate and share information. Personally, I rarely watch the 9 O’clock news anymore. I just log into Twitter, or Facebook and see if there is anything relevant to me. No more are our personal communications private. Using social media as a communication device gives the entire world visibility to everything you say, or do. So, if you’re a thief, you should probably know this.

Recently I was having some issues with shoes in my store. I was constantly finding less expensive brands in the more expensive boxes. I started off finding one or two a month, so I chalked it up to a shipping error from the factory. As the weeks progressed, I began to find more and more, and I quickly realized I had a potential thief. I started running the sales for the cheaper shoes and noticed that one individual had purchased every single pair that I had found. Inside those boxes were no doubt the more expensive shoes, but who was this guy? I hadn’t a clue, and without any good leads, my case went cold. Until one of my employees helped me crack the case.

I was closing the store one Saturday night and a few hours before closing time, I started making the rounds to make sure everyone was zoning and cleaning up so we could get out at a decent time. I noticed one of my footwear employees on the computer in the manager’s office, so I started walking that way. He noticed I was heading in his direction, so he quickly left the area. A little while later, I went to check sales on that same computer and noticed there was a window still open. It was that employee’s Facebook page.

I maximized the screen, at first not realizing it was his page. What I saw shocked and amused me all at the same time. The window that opened was his private messages. Out of curiosity, I perused a bit. There, in the open, was a long conversation between my employee and a friend of his. The employee basically taking an order for shoes. My employee described how he would put the shoes in a cheaper pair, where to find them and even what cashier to check out with. I had found my shoe culprit, in the most awesome way possible. I printed out the page and a few days later, after letting his friend buy the stolen shoes, confronted the employee. He admitted to the several thousand dollars’ worth of theft and implicated several others in the store as doing the same. In total, I lost 5 employees. To this day, he has no idea that he led me to himself, and I have no plans on telling him!

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, Loss Prevention Workshop, Retail Anti Theft Devices, retail security, retail security and monitoring, security devices, Shoplifting Prevention, surveillance

E-Commerce Fraud:What You Need to Know

March 26, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

With the digital age came different types of fraud retailers were not used to encounter in their daily operations. Shoplifters came to the store and the loss prevention team knew the policies and procedures to follow to apprehend the shoplifter. Now, retailers fear online fraud and debate on how to keep customers information safe. The most prevalent fraud retailers are to be aware of is card fraud. Keeping cardholder’s information safe is a top priority for online retailers, and monitor suspicious transactions has become a top priority for them.

To learn or read more about e-commerce fraud follow the links below.

e-Commerce Fraud: The Rapidly Growing Challenge for Retail Investigations

Just as the word “e-commerce” has come to refer to a menagerie of different specialized markets, so e-commerce fraud comes in many different guises. And as the great pace of retail evolution dictates that retailers’ transaction processes are constantly changing, so the frauds change with them.

In a bid to stand on the top of the heap competitively, retailers are offering as many options to consumers as possible when it comes to ways to buy. You can place an online order at an in-store kiosk to be shipped to your house. You can place an order from your mobile device to be picked up at a local store. You don’t like the color of the new curtains you ordered through the online customer rewards program? You can return them to the nearest brick-and-mortar store to save on shipping.

There are multitudes of different ways for customers to shop in the modern omni-channel retailing world. But this proliferation of transaction processes can leave behind more and more holes that malicious actors can exploit. “You have this almost complete melding of digital and physical worlds now, and the primary challenge is keeping pace with that evolution,” said Jerett Sauer, director of loss prevention at Gap Inc. “Awareness of risk has always been a core part of any great LP program, and historically, digital space was outside that sphere of awareness; the focus was on people touching a POS or physical merchandise.

Kount and Ethoca Join Forces to Help Ecommerce Merchants Eliminate More Fraud, Accept More Orders

Kount, a leading provider of fraud detection and sales boosting technology, and Ethoca, the industry standard for collaboration-based technology solutions that help card issuers and online merchants increase transaction acceptance and stop ecommerce fraud, today announced a strategic partnership to help ecommerce merchants increase their overall acceptance levels.

Ecommerce merchants aim to strike a delicate balance: eliminating as much fraud as possible, while maximizing the acceptance of good orders. With the increasing frequency of data breaches and online security threats, many ecommerce merchants are tightening their fraud tools to stop as much fraud as possible, but that often results in too many good orders that are wrongly rejected and result in lost revenue.

Through its partnership with Ethoca, Kount now offers merchant customers worldwide an additional, complementary service with Ethoca Alerts. These alerts provide a safeguard to catch fraud that has already been confirmed between the card issuing bank and the cardholder.

Smart Card Technology Will Affect Your Fraud Prevention Strategy

With large retail chains like Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels experiencing massive data breaches, U.S. banks and brick-and-mortar merchants face serious pressure to increase credit card security measures by implementing smart card technology.

This shift to more secure card-present transactions at physical, smart-card ready terminals will impact ecommerce sites as fraudsters are stymied at brick-and-mortar stores and turn their attentions to card-not-present (CNP) transactions online.

As smart cards become standard in the U.S., forward thinking ecommerce merchants must prepare for the coming increase in online fraud. Now is the time for software companies to ensure that their fraud prevention system is ready.

Brick-and-Mortar Merchants Face Serious Pressure

Filed Under: Shoplifting Prevention Tagged With: Alpha High Theft Solutions, Alpha Jewel Lok, Alpha Security, Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Workshop, Prevent Shoplifting, prevent shrinkage, Retail Anti Theft Devices, surveillance

The 3 Essentials for a First-rate Loss Prevention Program

March 11, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment
It’s never been more profitable to be a shoplifter. In the past it was difficult to make money from stolen merchandise. A thief commonly used a third party or “fence” to offload the product. Fencing was a secretive, high risk job and “average” shoplifters had no way to establish a connection with one. If they did have one he got a share of the profits, often the biggest cut.

But, the internet has dramatically changed this process. It allows shoplifters to function as their own fence. They’re able to eliminate the middleman and sell directly to, usually, unsuspecting people. Selling stolen goods is easier, safer and more profitable than ever before. Therefore, shoplifting is on the rise and, to stay in business, stores have to be diligent when creating a loss prevention program.

There are 3 main essentials needed for a successful loss prevention program. The 1^st and most important is proper store management. This topic is thoroughly discussed in other articles on this site. But, while vital, good management goes only so far. Ultimately, an effective plan also includes 2 other essentials – towers coupled with security labels and hard tags.

Towers are the 2^nd essential piece of a successful security plan. Checkpoint System is the leading provider of towers. Checkpoint’s towers are plastic or metal structures and are positioned on both sides of an entrance. They sound an alarm when an active Checkpoint tag or label, which is attached to the merchandise, passes through them. Many shoplifters will by-pass a store with towers and, instead, target one without them.

A 3^rd essential is hard tags and labels – Checkpoint has many types of each. Tags are applied to items such as clothing, shoes, and purses; they need a special tool to be removed. Some tags are filled with ink and will open if not properly removed. Labels are attached to things like books, DVDs, cosmetics and are deactivated at the point of sale. When shoplifters see a label or tag, they’ll often move on to merchandise that’s not so well protected.

Making a store a difficult target can keep thieves out of it, which creates a more pleasant, safer environment for employees and shoppers. Just as importantly, Checkpoint can be the difference between staying in business or closing the doors. Checkpoint System, coupled with security savvy management, can go a long way towards producing a profitable store.

Nicole Abbott is a writer and psycho-therapist with over 20 years of experience in the fields of mental health and addiction. She’s an educator, consultant, lecturer, trainer and facilitator, who has conducted over 200 workshops, trainings, presentations, college classes and seminars.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Alpha 2 Alarm, Alpha 3 Alarm, Alpha High Theft Solutions, Alpha Jewel Lok, Alpha Nano Gate, Alpha Security, Alpha Spider Wrap, Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, Retail Anti Theft Devices, retail security and monitoring, security devices, surveillance

Video Surveillance In Your Store

March 9, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Surveillance in your store can be a big deterrent for shoplifting and employee theft. The knowledge that your store is protected, or at least that there are cameras capturing images of employees and customers, can help you save thousand of dollars yearly. Employee theft is costing the retail industry millions of dollars every year and installing a type of security in your store can help you reduce the shrinkage you are experiencing.

For more about shoplifting, follow the links below.

Surveillance best cure for shoplifting

Aside from the holiday seasons where people aimlessly weave through cart-to-cart traffic down aisles in department or convenience stores, it’s difficult to predict when there will be spike in theft.

Particularly, shoplifting.

As of Friday, the Hutchinson Police Department has worked two cases of shoplifting this month. Granted, only nine unpredictably cold and not-so cold days have scooted by in March. But January and February were hot months for shoplifting with officers responding to 61 combined reported cases of shoplifting, according to Hutchinson Police bulletin archives.

There were 24 reports of shoplifting in December. Numbers from the archive bulletin suggests the shoplifting occurs at three of the most recognizable stores in the city: Wal-Mart, Dillons and various Kwik Shops.

Hastings, Target, J.C. Penney and Kohl’s are also sprinkled on the list of popularly shoplifted stores.

But why the heart-monitor like spike in thefts recently? Police Lt. Martin Robertson isn’t sure of the answer himself.

US based company allows shoplifters to avoid the police by charging them for an online course

IN THE game of Monopoly, there’s nothing better (apart from maybe winning free parking) than turning over that community chest card to see the words “get out of jail free.”

Now imagine that someone hands you that card after you’ve committed a criminal act in real life.

That is essentially what one company based in the United States is doing.

The Corrective Education Company (CEC) is a start-up, and works with businesses to offer shoplifters an alternative path to reform other than the boring old legal system.

Founded by a pair of Harvard graduates, it offers the chance for apprehended shoplifters to pay $411 ($US320) in order to avoid a phone call to the boys in blue.

That money goes towards the cost of attending an online course which is run by CEC that claims to reduce the likelihood of recidivism for the individual.

The obliging shop owners who refer the shoplifters get a cut of about $US40 per offender, and according to Slate around 20,000 offenders have so far coughed up for the program.

That works out to be $7.2 million that CEC has profited by blatantly circumventing the established judicial system.

Walgreens Shoplifting Duo Captured On Surveillance

Filed Under: Shoplifting Prevention Tagged With: Alpha 2 Alarm, Alpha 3 Alarm, Alpha High Theft Solutions, Alpha Jewel Lok, Alpha Nano Gate, Alpha Security, Alpha Spider Wrap, anti-thefts devices, Prevent Shoplifting, prevent shrinkage, retail security and monitoring, security devices, surveillance

Shoplifting Apprehension that Turn Violent

March 2, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment
Over the past two years or so, I’ve managed well over 1,000 shoplifting cases. Just like any other job, it starts to become a routine. You watch for selection, intent, pass the points of sale, exit. Approach, process, and on to the next one. It’s strange that in my line of work the daily routine is based solely on someone committing a crime. Well, what happens when the apprehensions is not so routine? What should you, or your team do if a shoplifter becomes confrontational, or even physically violent?

I’ve seen several instances of shoplifters becoming physically violent in the very recent past. Member of my team, including myself, have been physically assaulted and even pepper sprayed by shoplifting suspects. I’ve even see greater acts of violence at surrounding retailers. Is that really worth a $50 item? Absolutely not. We are seeing very often that drug addicts, who are stealing to support their habit are committing these crimes. Their minds are focused on their addiction and they will do whatever is necessary to avoid capture, even if that means harming you or a member of your team. The best defense is always a good offense, and the first step in remaining safe in this climate is to analyze the risk associated with each and every shoplifting detention.

I train my teams to analyze the inherent risk of a stop on two simple factors. 1) What is the item being stolen? Is it on its own a weapon? 2) The perceived state of mind of the suspect. Does your suspect appear to be under the influence of drugs, or alcohol? If you can answer yes to both, then there’s a higher chance of the risk of violence and it may be a better idea to allow law enforcement to intervene. I stress this every single day with my team. They all know that there is nothing in that entire store that is worth jeopardizing their safety. Sometimes, though, violence may come from the most unsuspecting source, and you should know how to react during these instances.

If you find yourself in a situation when confronted at the time of apprehension with violence, you should immediately terminate the apprehension and allow the suspect to leave… with or, without the merchandise. Never should you put yourself, your team or your customer’s safety in jeopardy over store merchandise. If you’re confronted and need to defend yourself, then do so in as safe a manner as possible. Training your LP staff in a basic self-defense course is a great tool that is being more widely adopted at more retailers.

In addition to those common sense steps, your company should also have clearly written and accessible policies regarding shoplifting apprehensions and the use of force. If you are in charge of these policies, you should set a clear expectation of how store personnel should contact a shoplifter, as well as details regarding the use of force. The last thing you want is for an employee to get severely injured while trying to protect assets come back with a lawsuit claiming they were subjected to an unsafe work environment. Without clear, written policies, that could be a reality.

Criminals will continue to steal, and a percentage will no doubt become violent in some way. In the LP filed, it is an occupational hazard. With the proper training and common sense policies, you can ensure the safety of your teams. Several states are also currently looking into passing new legislation that would enhance the charge for shoplifters who assault an LP agent. Some states also have laws on the books that turn a shoplifting into a strong arm robbery under these circumstances. If these were to become a nationwide standard, we may be able to start reversing this very disturbing trend.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, EAS Devices, Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Seminar, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, Loss Prevention Workshop, shoplifting violence, surveillance