How Shoplifting Policies Affect Employee Theft

May 2012 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

By Barbara Staib, director of communications, National Association of Shoplifting Prevention (NASP)

Retailers cannot afford a generalized employee culture that thinks it is okay to steal until a certain age and within certain limits.

Every week there is a new article detailing the latest policy changes about which offenders and what incidents the police will or will not attend to, which cases the prosecutor will or will not take, and which offenders will or will not get into the system to face any real sanctions. These changes mean that the retailer’s ability to address petty and juvenile theft is being challenged every day. The policies raise dollar thresholds and age limits to reduce the number of shoplifters the system has to deal with today. But what about tomorrow when these juveniles are dishonest adults and untrustworthy employees, because they learned early on that petty retail theft is worth the risk and this particular crime does pay? At NASP (National Association For Shoplifting Prevention), we have long believed that an employee thief is just a shoplifter that the retailer had the misfortune to hire.