Friday, 21st August 2009
In search of shoplifters!
For a few seconds, I toyed with the idea of borrowing my daughter's back-pack. I would load it with a thick manila envelope clearly labelled Top Secret; a few plastic sachets of talcum powder, and the joke ballpoint pen I was given, which looks like a syringe and has purple liquid sloshing about inside it.
The plan was to go to Smart Supermarket, and submit myself to a voluntary search. I wanted to see the face of the person who would have conducted it.
However, I though better of it. From where I live, it takes me 35 minutes to walk there. Alternatively, I could take two buses there, and two more back, but that means my morning would be shot.
To borrow a phrase, I decided to let my fingers (and technology) do the walking, and sent an e-mail to the address given on the website. I said I was perturbed about the fact that they had arbitrarily decided to conduct searches upon all customers, when shoplifters are the exception rather than the rule.
This would have been much easier to accept had the CCTV monitors inside the shop been manned at all times during shop-opening hours, because then searches would be based on evidence and not merely par for the course.
The public, no doubt, would appreciate knowing whether the supermarket intends to provide lockers for those who absolutely refuse to have third parties riffle through their bags. As it stands, there are so many clients at any given time, inside the shop, that it would be impossible to provide as many as there would be people. Yet this quandary could easily be solved by instituting a system akin to that of cloakroom tickets. As a corollary, one notes that many people do refuse to give up their coats, cloaks and stoles at weddings, too, and therefore searches would still be "necessary".
It appears that the management of Smart Supermarket felt compelled to take this drastic step because selfish people were going overboard with their pilfering. It was not just the odd wafer barrette that was going missing. The filched items had included raw fish and electrical appliances.
Since the Smart establishment operates partly on a Small Profit Quick Return system, even this was threatened as customers continued to walk off with merchandise. It was not small change that was involved, but tens of thousands of Euro. So far, the bag-search issue is an in-house policy. This, in plain language, means that if you decide to shop at Smart, you are implicitly agreeing to having your bag searched, thus voluntarily giving up your privacy.
At no time at all does any member of the staff forcibly take a bag from a person in order for it to be searched. This has been verified time and again. It is only when strong suspicions are aroused that Smart considers making an official report, aided and abetted by image identification footage from the aforementioned CCTV films.
A member of the staff said this was the last resort. It irks them, to have to take this kind of action against such a constant, silent, threat, since they are very jealous of their reputation as a family-friendly supermarket. This must be irritating to all the staff, whom I have always found to be courteous, even when they had interminable queues and they were obviously tired
When I shop, all I take with me is a tiny purse that contains money and a bankcard, and my house key. Yet I do understand the need of some women to take everything but the kitchen sink along. I am sometimes guilty of that when I go out, too, but definitely not when I am shopping.
But some people need to have medications on them at all times, as well as two sets of keys, or a change of clothes and nappies for a baby, or a spare pair of tights, a snack, and a bottle of water. But the fact remains that wily people will always try to out-smart Smart, and there may be instances where only a body search will reveal the pilfered items.
Attempts to steal would happen after the person has allowed you to search the handbag, so as not to arouse suspicion. Shoplifters would try and hide the pilfered goods upon their person - inside sleeves or pockets or hidden pouches, or down trouser legs, and so forth. What happens then?
As thing stand, there is no need for a police permit to conduct these superficial searches. The police will only prosecute if they receive a complaint and if they feel there is reasonable suspicion that a crime or contravention has been committed.
And if the prospect of having a bag searched is not a deterrent to potential shoplifters, well, then, they deserve to be assumed guilty while they are still innocent!
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Comments
4. So what if the owners want to safeguard their profits? They're not running a charity. Their profits keep people employed, pay bills and loans, buy new stock . . .
5. It is precisely because I want the individual to live in peace and security that I come down hard on anything that threatens him. Why should an honest person's bag be searched because someone else thinks it's fun to steal? The quicker shoplifters are caught the better.
6. Utopia is not something you make friends with - it is (in the sense I am using it) a state of mind caused by being blissfully unaware of the reality that surrounds you. What your personal appearance has to do with the topic under discussion I have not got the first idea.
7. Now go and lie down before you hurt yourself!
Honestly, this is bordering on the bizarre . . .
1. Security personnel are trained to read body language and suspicious BEHAVIOUR not dress codes or age. Shop-lifting, like nose-picking, is a bad habit that crosses all boundaries of sex, age, class and condition. Please notice that it's not what I think - it's how the system works. Do try for some informed objectivity.
2. Store detectives will ask you to step aside if, and only if, they catch you on camera as you stuff an item into a bag or under your clothing or under the covers of a pram or push chair. Suspicion is not enough reason to detain anyone. This is the law not MY opinion. It is the way our system works..
3. Searching bags is aggressive and an effective deterrent. As a deterrent it is a good thing. However it is time consuming and frankly I doubt its legality, not to mention the fact that it is deterring ALL their customers. They'd do better with cameras and store detectives.
Can you give us a profile of who you would consider suspicious? Would an excessively tatooed person, with a stud-covered face look more alarming to you than the stereotypical, pale-skinned, cardigan-wearing granny who smiles sweetly at every person she meets? what would the standing of particulary fidgety forty-or-so man with guilty looking eyes be in your enlightened judgement? And the odd cassock-wearing smelly priest?
Whether it is everyone who will be forced to submit to these nosy searches or just only individuals who some how raise eyebrows, the fact remains that Smart or whichever establishment decides to implement such moves could easily get to shoplifters through technological means and is only resorting to this measure in order to save on the expenses involved in upping its systems. In other words, rather than putting the person first, such businesses are more eager to safeguard the extent of their annual profits as opposed to the expenses.
On a personal note, utopia and i are not exactly chums, and am quite regular looking. Moreover I find seeing the human before any other society-imposed category very liberating and fair: Ms Schembri Wismayer should try it out sometimes...
I think that every sensible person knows better than to judge a book by its cover. Having an adult stressing that "If you are honest you must be seen to be honest" is alarming to say the least...brings to mind manouvres synonomous with orwell's infamous big brother. I for one will not accept having my things rummaged in just because i look suspicious-if the establishment is reluctant to spend some dole to enhance its surveillance systems, then it should also think twice before harassing its customers into exposing their private items and consequently their private lives to prying eyes.
it seems that it is not just the spanish catholic church back in the middle ages that was content with the inquisition...some individuals would be more than happy to sign up as servicepersons to supermarket-headed probings today.