Shoplifting and Security Employees

There are approximately twenty-seven million shoplifters in America today. More than ten million people have been caught shoplifting in the last five years. Shoplifting affects more than the offender. It overburdens the police and the courts, adds to a store’s security expenses, costs consumers more for goods, costs communities lost dollars in sales taxes and hurts children and families. Shoplifting is a major problem in today’s world. I was recently caught shoplifting and now I have to face the consequences for the awful mistake I made. The temptation of not paying for something is exceedingly big factor in why people steal. The shoplifter thinks they are getting a product for free and doesn’t know what they are really doing to themselves and the community. Shoplifting affects yourself, your local neighborhood and the world population. After I was caught stealing, I realized how much impact something you do now will affect you for the rest of your life. I now know how much of a disadvantage it is to everyone.

The stores and police are trying to crack down on shoplifters by making the punishments as strict as possible. I was given a second chance by suffering the consequences of serving six months probation and eight hours of community service. Shoplifting affects the economy in a big way. The stores get about three percent of every dollar purchased for an item. So that means they don’t make a whole lot of money out of profit. Every shoplifter that takes a product also is taking the profit, which costs the store money, so that is also a set back and that puts them more in debt. It affects all the way up their income statement and everything. Some stores might even close down because of shoplifters forcing them to file bankruptcy. The stores usually raise their prices which then causes more shoplifting because the prices become unreasonable and people then make bad decisions due to things being more expensive, but the people that don’t shoplift just end up having to pay more for the product because the store has no other way to make up the money for what the shoplifters stole, or go somewhere else to shop.

If the customer does go to a different store because of the rising prices, the store will also lose business therefore could also cause them to go out of business. Approximately three percent of shoplifters are “professionals” who steal solely for resale or profit as a business. These include drug addicts who steal to feed their habit, hardened professionals who steal as a life-style and international shoplifting gangs who steal for profit as a business. “Professional” shoplifters are responsible for ten percent of the total dollar losses. When shoplifting occurs, the economy is negatively affected. According to the National Learning and Resource Center, offenders confess that for each forty-eight times they shoplifted, they were caught only once and turned over to the police fifty percent of the time. Shoplifting impacts the economy through profit loss, reduced consumer spending, job losses and higher taxes.

Shoplifting hurts the store’s owners, of course. It also hurts the workers at the store, because if they have a lot of loss at that store, it’s quite possible for every single lower-level employee to be fired and a whole new crew brought in. It hurts the shoppers at that store. Basically, shoplifting hurts the little guys more than it does the big guys. Also the prices of products are higher because stores have to formulate more money to pay workers to sit in rooms with cameras in order to watch people. They have hidden cameras that cost more than the cameras they sell. If you add up the price of putting electronic RFID Tags on items, it’s thousands of pieces which probably were delivered by the truck load. Then they pay people to stick them on all the items thieves like to take. When businesses increase prices and add additional security measures in response to losses from shoplifting, consumers pay the final price, compensating for losses associated with shoplifting. Shoplifting has negatively impacted the economy because of businesses having to force to close their doors because of continual losses.

A higher tax burden is placed on the consumer to recoup local and state taxes lost. When people are stealing, a store goes under a great amount of loss. They have to pay for things like security systems and wages for security employees. As well they lose the money for everything that is stolen. If the profit margins for the store are low, they need to make up for the cost for each item stolen. Grocery stores often have profit margins of around 1%. If someone shoplifts steaks worth $7.00, the store must sell goods worth $700.00 to recover the loss. It’s easy to see how shoplifting could quickly threaten the viability of a business. This can be really painful for businesses if there is a lot of shoplifting in one store. The debt will build up to the point where some stores may go bankrupt. To give you an idea of how much shoplifting is going on, in the USA more than $10 billion worth of goods are stolen from retailers each year.

That’s more than $25 million per day. To cover the costs of security employees, equipment and losses due to theft, a store has to pass the charges on to the customer. In the USA an estimated seven cents ($.07) of every dollar a store charges (nationally) is a built in cost to cover shoplifting No matter who steals or exactly what they take, the act of theft has an unfavorable effect on many people. If you are wondering just how shoplifting influences you and everyone your household- the response is that stealing is such a usual occurrence that every retail location has to compensate for their annual losses. In order for businesses to compensate they elevate the price of everything. So whenever you get anything, you are paying a little additional to offset the harsh truth that people take countless dollars worth of from establishments every year. Believe it or not, some individuals consider shoplifting to be their occupation. Actually, some perceive it as a specialized skill which they spend years perfecting.

These lawbreakers frequently have specially made garments or hand bags with hidden compartments where they could stash most anything they wish. They steal every little thing from apparel to specific well-liked fad items or electronic devices. The goods may be taken to the black market, to good friends, or on internet based public auction sites such as e-bay. In some instances, the criminal could also try to bring them back later for a cash refund. Another motivation for some people is just the act of taking something because they can. A kleptomaniac is a person who swipes products even when they don’t desire or need them. This is a significant mental illness that triggers these folks to just take things that do not belong to them. Anybody that deals with this condition needs psychological assistance to get this obsession controlled. Other criminals steal since they feel it is called for – they could think they are fighting back against a money grubbing company. Based on leading psychologists some folks actually swipe things in the hopes of being caught.

This may be a determined plea for recognition, or a sensation of needing to be disciplined for things they have done in other areas of their lives. And there are acts of theft done daily by individuals who make an impulsive choice to take something without paying. Children frequently do this to obtain a toy or other thing they want that they are unable to get otherwise. Parents need to be on the lookout for signals that their kids are stealing, such as coming across brand new products which the kid would certainly not have actually been able to get by themselves. While it might seem hard, the most effective thing parents or guardians can do if they uncover stealing something is to make them come with you back to the store and return it. Clarify what took place to a store supervisor.

This is good opportunity to make it clear that this sort of behavior can bring big unwanted consequences and that it affects not only them, but their families and the stores. The repercussions from shoplifting affect more than just the offender. The police and courts become overburdened with arrests and convictions. Family members often are burdened financially when they become responsible for a parent or child who has been arrested for shoplifting. According to investigations correspondent Joseph Shapiro, reporting for NPR in 2014, defendants and offenders pay court costs in the United States, which may result in the poor facing longer jail times than those who commit the same crime but have the means to pay.