Shoplif ters ‘more
. . . and it’s costing us all Amanda Cropp
Rising retail crime is getting uglier, more violent and more organised. Losses from it cost each Kiwi household at least $800 a year and a new police retail investigation unit may finally stop more offenders from getting away with it. reports.
Retail crime nowadays is not petty or pretty. More ram raids, more brazen aggressive shoplifters, and repeat offenders stealing to order are proving expensive and stressful for store owners and staff.
Supermarket workers are being trained to deal with potentially violent customers, and in high-risk areas some employees are being kitted out with stab-proof vests, radios and body cameras.
Automatic number plate recognition, long used by petrol stations to catch drive-offs, is spreading to retail car parks, and facial recognition systems are on the radar as businesses battle the growth in ‘‘five-finger discounts’’.
TALES FROM THE FRONT LINE
Less than a month after opening his Christchurch food store Bargain Me, owner Thomas
Shaji says thieves try to steal up to $200 worth of goods a day, despite him investing $50,000 in 32 CCTV cameras, paying a fulltime security guard and selling meat in 1 kilogram packs that are harder to conceal.
‘‘They will steal anything. We recently had someone who opened a bag of [cake] slices, took them out and put them under his armpit. We saw it when they fell out, it was so bizarre.’’
In February a Briscoes
Nelson customer was left shaken after witnessing a ‘‘trolley runner’’ dash from the store with a pile of unpaid bedding, almost running over a staff member who tried to stop her as she drove away. ‘‘It was so quick and aggressive. I couldn’t believe the speed it happened and the violence, it was horrible.’’
A week later, Fred’s Four Square in Huntly was targetted by ram raiders who drove a stolen Mazda through the shopfront, doing $60,000 worth of damage before making off with beer, chewing gum, chips and lollies worth about $500, after a barred storage unit prevented them getting at the cigarettes owner Jas Sandhu says they were undoubtedly after.
Ram raids are increasing.
Last week an 11-year-old driver was among nine people apprehended after a raid on one of five Auckland dairies one one night.
Briscoes Group chief executive Rod Duke says ram raids on his homewares and Rebel Sport stores hit double figures last year, and erecting bollards is a costly but necessary prevention measure.
‘‘For us, it’s not just about the merchandise that’s stolen, it’s about the significant damage. All our premises are insured but, of course, insurance premiums go north the more claims you make.’’
RetailNZ chief executive Greg Harford is relieved a longawaited police national retail investigation support unit will finally be up and running by mid-April to tackle the rising tide of retail crime.
Five years ago research by Otago University suggested lost income from retail theft topped $1 billion a year, and retailers spent $500 million on security.
Harford says things are now much worse, with sophisticated well-organised teams targeting high-value goods such as electronics, clothing, cigarettes and alcohol that are quickly sold off on social media.
Far from being a victimless crime, shoplifting it hits everyone in the pocket as prices are raised in an attempt to cover losses.
‘‘The total hidden cost of retail crime is $800 per household per year, and it’s growing.’’
The Dairy and Business Owners Association has 4000 members and chairman Sunny Kaushal agrees a national police unit focusing on retail crime is well overdue, based on figures he obtained under the Official Information Act. They showed dairy and convenience store theft for the first 11 months of last year was up 30 per cent on 2020, with 1402 more offences reported, while arrests for them fell 23 per cent.
PROFILING THIEVES
Retail crime platform Auror collates reports for about 90 per cent of major New Zealand retailers who can upload incident reports and video footage of offences directly to police. About 10 per cent of offenders are responsible for 60 per cent of the crime, according to Auror chief executive Phil Thomson.
Repeat offenders are four times more likely to be violent or aggressive, so that’s a good reason to stop them at the front door through real-time alerts when a stolen vehicle, or one connected to a known offender, enters the car park.
Thomson says previously retail thefts tended to be treated as isolated events, but when the stats from different stores are captured, patterns show where the crimes are happening, and which groups, individuals and vehicles are
involved.
‘‘The largest criminal network we have identified in New Zealand is 837 [people]. ‘‘Most of the crime we see is committed between 9am and
5pm because going out and stealing is people’s day job.’’
Auror also has retail clients in Australia, Canada, the United States and Britain, and Thomson says some interesting high-tech options are on the horizon to stop shoplifting, such as trolleys with wheels that lock up if people try to exit without going through the checkout, and sensors to detect when someone sweeps multiple items off a shelf in one go.
Some Foodstuffs supermarkets have adopted facial recognition software to identify known thieves, and while Auror does not use the data because of issues with accuracy, Thomson is keeping an eye on advances in the
technology.
‘‘If the camera is not at the right height or of the best quality, you can get a lot of false positives.
‘‘In the US about three years ago they were really hot on facial recognition, but they had some really bad experiences, so most pulled it out of their stores. Now they’re going back to it . . .’’
The Privacy Commissioner says businesses introducing the technology should carry out a privacy impact assessment, and be transparent about its use, so people understand what information is being collected and why. Misidentification is a risk and incorrectly branding individuals as shoplifters has serious consequences. The commissioner has had complaints about shops using publicly viewable images from
security cameras to name and shame alleged shoplifters, warning incorrect information opens managers up to defamation claims, or of breaching the Harmful Digital
Communications Act if images are posted online.
ASSAULTS AND ABUSE
By Harford’s estimate, physical and verbal abuse by customers has increased fourfold since Covid struck. Kaushal says last year assaults on dairy and convenience store workers averaged three a day.
Threats are commonly over requests to don masks, and Sandhu says it takes a toll on his staff.
‘‘I don’t understand what’s happened to the public. One of my staff resigned because of the abuse, she couldn’t take it any more.’’
An experienced supermarket worker, who asked not to be identified because of the terms of her employment contract, says there are repeat offenders with more than 150 incidents recorded against them, and shoplifters are now much more aggressive when confronted. ‘‘They start mouthing off like you are the one in the wrong for stopping them. They come across with a sense of entitlement that they have the right to walk in there and take it. Instead of taking one packet of steak, they will take three. For every one we catch about five get away.’’
In the first week of February, Foodstuffs North Island’s New World, Pak ’n Save and Four Square stores reported more than 50 incidents of aggression, and it has begun trialling virtual-reality training to teach staff how to de-escalate threatening or potentially violent situations.
First Union co-ordinator for Countdown supermarket workers Ragda Hassan says after two staff were among four people stabbed in a central Dunedin
‘Most of the crime we see is committed between 9am and 5pm because going out and stealing is people’s day job.’ PHIL THOMSON, AUROR CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
store last year, workers were advised not to approach aggressive customers.
The union recently saw a memo to Countdown managers outlining ways for staff to deal with known or suspected shoplifters, but Hassan says it is difficult to assess who it is safe to approach.
‘‘I’ve seen videos of shoplifters ramming their trolleys into the person, throwing things from their trolley at the person, or it can escalate to physical assault, and there’s a punch thrown.’’
Hassan believes only those well trained to deal with highrisk and conflict situations should be tasked to deal with shoplifters, with backup on hand if needed, and she is concerned Countdown is reducing its use of security at the very time it publicly stated customer aggression is worse than ever.
Countdown director of health safety and wellbeing Kiri Hannifin declined to provide details of security measures such as guards or use of automatic licence plate recognition.
She acknowledges that since the pandemic started, staff have been subjected to unprecedented levels of abuse and conflict, with thousands of incidents reported, but she says all staff are trained how to keep themselves and customers safe.
Last year Scotland passed a law making it a specific offence to assault, abuse or threaten retail staff, and the courts consider it an aggravating factor if an attack takes place during the attempted purchase of agerestricted
products such as alcohol or cigarettes.
Hassan favours a similar law here to send a message that abuse of retail staff is unacceptable, and she applauds KMart’s practice of regularly broadcasting a statement over store intercoms saying that it will not tolerate abuse or aggression towards staff.
CATCHING THE BAD GUYS
Trespass orders are still used to prevent known shoplifters from entering stores, and Foodstuffs estimates about 10 per cent of reported incidents involve repeat offenders who have been trespassed.
If caught stealing, trespassed shoplifters can be charged with the more serious crime of burglary on the basis that they are on the premises illegally with the intention of committing a crime.
But, in practice, Harford says trespass orders are difficult to enforce because they can only be issued for individual stores, rather than across entire chains, and breaches are seen as a low priority by police.
He has mooted a ticketing system where shoplifters are issued with an instant $300 fine for their first offence to demonstrate stealing has consequences.
Kaushal says lack of consequences is a significant bugbear for dairy owners who see offenders getting away scotfree. ‘‘Gangs use the younger offenders because they know the flaws in the law. They know the judicial system will let them go so easily.’’
Another problem is that shop owners are disheartened by lack of police action or worried about retribution by offenders.
As a result, about 40 per cent of incidents go unreported, and yet those reports will be a key part of the intelligence needed for the new police retail investigation unit.
Kaushal worries the new police unit will fail unless it takes into account the very different challenges faced by dairies and convenience stores often targeted by ram raiders and robbers seeking cigarettes.
Police say retail criminals are becoming increasingly organised, brazen and violent, and because of the different crimes affecting different types of retailers, they will not be taking a ‘‘one-size-fits-all approach’’.
Managers for the retail unit have been appointed, and they are recruiting four new staff who will use available data to identify offending patterns, and work with local police staff to specifically target repeat offenders causing the greatest harm.
Police is also providing store owners with information about installation of bollards to deter ram raiders, and further crimeprevention training and support material will be made available mid-year.
Thomson monitors overseas trends, and says we tend to be about two years behind what is happening in Britain, where more shoplifters are arming themselves with knives and screwdrivers.
‘‘We need to ask ourselves as a community, are we OK with some of our more vulnerable members of society being paid minimum wage or slightly above having to put on a stab-proof vest to go to work every day and be worried about their safety in our retail stores?
‘‘I don’t think that’s the country we want to live in, and it takes a community approach to address it.’’