£10,000 SHOP-LIFTING LOSS

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 November 1934, Page 11

£10,000 SHOP-LIFTING LOSS

“ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE” TO STOP BIRMINGHAM, October 1. Birmingham shopkeepers, especially managers of the big stores, welcome the intimation from the magistrates that severer punishment will be inflicted on shoplifters. The aggregate losses from this petty pilfering are enormous. At one establishment it was put at a rough estimate of £2,000 a year; at another I was told that it might be anything up to £lO,OOO, and that as things were, despite all precautions, there seemed little possibility of stopping these losses. One business man said that shoplifters can be divided into two classes | —professionals, who usually work an accomplice, and are fairly easy after some experience to spot, and women, often in good circumstances, who apparently could not resist stealing little articles for which they could easily have paid. In dealing with women, apparently perfectly respectable, the danger of making a mistake, it was pointed out, was a great handicap. To fail in a prosecution would be very serious to the reputation of the house, while if honest customers thought they were under espionage and might be suspected business would suffer.

“So that you may say that for everyone caught and convicted, 10 or perhaps 20 manage to get away with the goods. What it really comes to is that it is practically impossible to stamp out petty pilfering by certain women, and we have to allow so much for losses of this kind annually.” Regarding thefts by professional thieves, he instanced a recent case in which a dray was required to move all the articles recovered.