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Abstract

Shop theft is both an expensive and prevalent crime. Despite the introduction of security measures into retailing and refinement of the technology, the war against shop thieves does not yet appear to have been won. Many of these “situational measures” work on the assumption that offenders perceive such technology to increase their risk of apprehension and will therefore act as a deterrent. This article examines offenders' perceptions of retail security measures. Evidence is presented from interviews with 38 shop thieves and this data is supplemented by a review of research on shop theft. The research concludes that a better understanding of how offenders perceive security, is crucial to the development of effective crime reducing strategies.

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References

It also requires accurate loss figures to determine where the crime problem is located. See, Turbin

(1998) “Shrinkage Figures and Data Corruption: Lies, damned lies and statistics?” in Gill

(Ed.) Crime at Work: Increasing the Risk for Offenders, Volume II, Leicester: Perpetuity Press.

This approach has also been used by Wiersma to examine the perceptions of commercial burglars; Bennett and Wright on domestic burglars, Butler on shop thieves, and Gill and Matthews on robbers. See Wiersma

(1996) “Commercial Burglars in the Netherlands: Reasoning Decision-Makers?” The International Journal of Risk, Security and Crime Prevention . Vol.1, No.3, pp.217–225; Bennett

Wright

(1984) Burglars on Burglary: Prevention and the Offender , Hampshire: Gower; Butler

(1994) “Shoplifters' views on security: Lessons for crime prevention” in Gill

(Ed.) Crime at Work: Studies in Security and Crime Prevention , Leicester: Perpetuity Press, pp.56–72; Gill

Matthews

(1994) “Robbers on Robbery: Offenders' Perspectives” in Gill

(Ed.) Crime at Work: Studies in Security and Crime Prevention, Leicester: Perpetuity Press, pp.11–28.

Cornish

Clarke

(Eds.) (1986) The Reasoning Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on Offending, New York: Springer-Verlag, p. 13.

Ibid.

The authors would like to acknowledge the sponsorship of Bankrupt Clothing Company and the assistance of Chris Chappill (Loss Prevention Department) with this research project.

Butler

, (1994) “Shoplifters' views on security: Lessons for crime prevention” in Gill

, (Ed.) Crime at Work: Studies in Security and Crime Prevention, Leicester: Perpetuity Press, pp.56–72.

A fuller discussion of CCTV and Shop Theft can be found in Gill

Turbin

(1998) “CCTV and Shop Theft: Towards a Realistic Evaluation” in Norris

Armstrong

Moran

(Eds.) Surveillance, CCTV and Social Control . Aldershot: Gower. Also, Gill

Turbin

(1998) “Evaluating ‘Realistic Evaluation’: Evidence from a Study of CCTV” in: Tilley

Painter

(Eds.) Crime Prevention Studies, Vol.10. Monsey, New York: Criminal Justice Press.

Sennewald

Christman

(1992) Shoplifting, Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, p.77.

10.

11.

As Handford notes, other tactics include removing goods from tagged packaging, shielding tags from the sensor, passing goods around the sensor, deactivating tags with a magnet, or taking items out of the entrance where there is no sensor. See Handford

, (1994) “Electronic Tagging in Action: A Case Study in Retailing” in: Gill

, (Ed.) Crime at Work: Studies in Security and Crime Prevention, Leicester: Perpetuity Press, pp. 174–184.

12.

DiLonardo

Clarke

(1996) “Reducing the Rewards of Shoplifting: An Evaluation of Ink Tags”, Security Journal 7, pp. 11–14.

Shop Thieves' Perceptions of Retail Security

Abstract

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