Shoplifting’s many impacts

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/12/2023 (656 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s another day at one of the larger grocery retailers in the city, and yet another call for security at the front of the store.

One of several, sometimes many calls, for it seems that rare is the day when nothing happens.

On this particular occasion four women stole $1,000 worth of meat, and on that same day reportedly stole thousands more from other stores of this particular chain. At least one of them was featured in a recent Crime Stoppers most wanted of “shoplifters.”

Staff at the store is understandably frustrated over these increasingly more frequent incidents, many by repeat offenders, many who have been criminally charged numerous times before, including for using weapons.

Their stoicism that the situation will eventually improve often gives way to resignation that it won’t. I already had some idea how they felt from my 35 years in policing, and the experience I had from dealing with the people who are victimized by these types of crime. But I am especially aware of it now because I work part time in the produce department at this particular store, and so I regularly hear about it. Certainly I help out when I can, but there is company policy specifically for dealing with criminal activity at the store.

Policy of this nature is typical of many organizations, and will vary. Siloam Mission and Main Street Project, for example, had their own respective policies on this subject, and I was familiar with them from when I walked the beat in the Main Street area. The results of the company’s policy, and undoubtedly of any company’s policy, are however “situational.” Their “success” rate “varies” because you can’t put a template on criminal behaviour.

And often the results of the policy don’t sit well.

I see this especially with the veteran staff, who take it personally that the store is being “violated” in front of them, and they can only do so much.

It’s not so easily done to view this coldly and objectively, as if it’s the “new normal.”

Staff see it on a daily basis, and absorb the comments from customers, most of whom understand, but are also upset. Then there’s the trepidation over what’s going to happen on their next shift.

Concern over the “unknown” is expected in frontline policing, but it shouldn’t be at a retail store, and will inevitably wear on a person. You’re not insulated from the reality of the situation on the front line. I certainly saw this in policing, and now in retail. It’s a different perspective when you work there.

When I was still a member of the WPS, there were several occasions when I helped staff at my store with problem customers. This was while I was there off duty and shopping. It’s not so “easily done” now that I’m retired from policing, and now work there. And although still a cop at heart, when I couldn’t apprehend a shoplifter during a shift because the situation didn’t allow for it, I felt helpless.

But every situation is different, and I remain vigilant.

I have had considerable experience with this particular type of crime in my policing career. For many years going forward from 1984 when I started policing, the vast majority of these shoplifting incidents were exactly that: stealing by “lifting” the merchandise from within the shop.

The involvement of violence was rare, and the calls for service fairly “routine.” But that eventually changed, and it was progressively getting worse long before meth, and long before COVID. Weapons, threats, violence are no longer infrequent.

These once almost benign incidents are now armed robberies, and the recent incident at No Frills on Notre Dame is not exactly isolated. I have heard from co-workers and loss prevention personnel that bladed weapons have been used at my store in several incidents, sometimes menacingly. I wasn’t working on those occasions, nor was I working the day I actually witnessed our loss prevention officer being threatened with a knife by an offender. He could certainly have been injured.

The recent initiative by the Winnipeg Police Service is welcome, but the spectre of what has been occurring elsewhere, where stores have been closed because of crime, is not so isolated. It’s no longer somewhere else.

Remember there used to be a 7-11 at William and Isabel? And at Ellice and Maryland? How much more can some stores take, or some people?

People’s livelihoods are at stake too.

Kevin Birkett is a retired Winnipeg police officer.