Fox Business:
Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) has taken the law into its own hands. No, the company has not started its own jail, and any employee who wears a cape and fights crime must still do so on their own time. Instead, the retail chain has taken a new approach to fighting shoplifting that requires less involvement from the police. The retailer has been using a “restorative justice” program in 1,500 of its stores, according to The Gainesville Sun Opens a New Window.. That’s a program where people deemed low-risk, first-time offenders are given the choice of paying to take an anti-shoplifting course rather than facing arrest and prosecution.
The effort is in its early days, but the results have been good so far. The company has seen a 35% reduction in calls to law enforcement nationwide since restorative justice programs were first implemented, Wal-Mart spokesman Ragan Dickens toldThe Sun in an email.
“No retailer is immune to the challenge of crime. We recognize the importance of this issue at the highest levels of the company, and we are investing in people and technology to support our stores,” he wrote, noting that police are not being cut out of the loop. Check it out
So how do they make the crooks do the course and make them pay for it as well? What secret super power does Walmart?
This program sounds so warm and fuzzy maybe Walmart should go to Syria and require everybody pay for a course on “restorative justice”.
lemme guess who this won’t work on…
Dumb idea.
Will Walmart forego calling police if offenders repeat, just to make it look the like course is a success?
But, DinDuNuffin is too busy for the course dammit!
If you read the story at the link it looks like the biggest problem they have is with the employee’s who at last count were stealing 1,233.00 dollars per year while the average one time theft was 377.00 dollars. So if you stop the average joe that is good, but it looks like they really need to go after the people that they hire. That is still a lot of money from shop lifting. 45 billion a year, and we all pay for it in higher prices at the stores we shop at. At Walmart it is 0.02 cents for every dollar of sales. That is a lot of money.
In 2003, Wal-mart attempted to prosecute me for a $53.00 check that I was late getting to the back to cover (the next day). Wal-mart never attempted a redeposit but instead contacted the Los Angeles Prosecutor’s office, who promptly sent me an ultimatum; pay the $53.00, plus NSF fees and take a $250.00 check writing class, or go to jail.
We haven’t shopped at wal-mart since that time.
I was employed by a national retail outlet for some time. There was a constant presence by corporate internal security, conducting audits and such. While statistics may point to employee theft as a company’s biggest problem, the general public was robbing this company blind. Enterprising shoplifters knew that any potential bad publicity could possibly harm the stock price. Bitch and moan a little, claim victimhood and you just might get a gift card along with the stolen merchandise. The big payoff, return what you stole in a couple of days for a refund, no questions asked.
Unrepentant liars and thieves will have their place in the Lake of Fire.
THAT is justice.
They also fight shoplifting by just closing the high theft stores. One well known problem for they was the Supercenter at #4342: 22209 Rockside Rd., Bedford, OH 1/28/2016
Calls to police have been reduced by 35%. Of course, actual incidents of shoplifting have increased by over 260%…
Better than carrying the shoplifter into the back and smashing his hands with a hammer (which is what I thought the story was gonna be).
izlamo delenda est …
They, everybody knows who ‘they’ are, right?
They bitched and moaned about a ‘food oasis’ on the west side.
So, Publics opened a nice new store for them.
A childhood friend ran it, got transferred from the store catering to the rich and famous, I would see Bobby Gentry there all the time. She still looks ‘maavilous’.
Store stayed open about a year, closed it. I saw Tommy back at his old store, managing for the rich and famous.
When I asked him what happened, one word, shoplifting.
He said they didn’t even try and hide it, one guy walked out with a frozen turkey in each hand, when they tried to stop him he used them as a weapon.
Midnight at the food oasis.
Many years ago, when I lived in the golden (shower) state, I had more than my share of speeding tickets. More than once, I elected to go to “Traffic School” to keep the ticket off my record. Did it slow me down? Not really. Only maturity did that, and still not very well. I am, however, better at spotting cops.