Caught a shoplifter at work today...

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Chemical_Penguin

Ajido, Volker & Trion = pwnt
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My fiancee is sooo hot ^
I work at a major retail store (not revealing the name) as a Loss Prevention Detective. Basically my job is to wear normal clothes, blend in with the shoppers, and look for thieves. Well I've only been working there for a shortwhile and haven't got the chance to catch my first thief....until today.

I noticed a woman placing a tank-top into a backpack and then trying to walk out of the store. So me and my co-worker go and apprehend her. We bring her back to the L.P. Office and call the cops. Well... after hearing "Please sir I promise I won't do it again, I dont want to go to jail, I'm scared..." about 100 times I finally spill the beans and tell her that since she stole well over $50 worth of items she was most likely going to jail for a Class B theft, but could get out on bail until the trial. I should not have done this... the poor lady urinated on herself and the office chair she was sitting on.

After going through her bag she had a total of

$84 of Stolen items from a nearby clothing store.
$50 from a Bath & Body-type store.
$54 from our store.
(Our store is inside of a mall, which is why she had stolen goods from other stores)

I thought it'd be easy cuz I watch "Cops" a fair amount and see them all being smart-asses to criminals and such, but it's so different in-person and I felt kinda sorry at this point after seeing a grown woman so scared of going to the jail environment that she pees herself and starts crying and begging to be let go. It was definitely an emotional dilemma at first, most likely cuz it was my first time to catch a criminal, but at the end of the day I felt content with her going to off to jail, because either:

1) She'll be so horrified by jail that she will never want to go back and stop stealing.

or

2) She'll end up not thinking jail is as scary as she thought, so will continue to steal and eventually will get put in jail for longer and longer and get fined more and more until her record/life is so messed up that she finally realizes she needs to quit.

So surely i'm doing the right thing because if I let her go, she'd just do it again and it'd take longer for her to finally learn her lesson and fix her life.

I don't think she was stealing because she NEEDED the clothes because aside from the clothes she also stole $40 worth of scented body lotion and instant bronze tanning lotion...clearly luxury items, not need.

Anyways, thought I'd share the experience of my first captured criminal here.
 
If she's stealing she knows the consequences if she gets caught.
 
Chemical_Penguin said:
I thought it'd be easy cuz I watch "Cops" a fair amount and see them all being smart-asses to criminals and such, but it's so different in-person and I felt kinda sorry at this point after seeing a grown woman so scared of going to the jail environment that she pees herself and starts crying and begging to be let go. It was definitely an emotional dilemma at first, most likely cuz it was my first time to catch a criminal, but at the end of the day I felt content with her going to off to jail, because either:

1) She'll be so horrified by jail that she will never want to go back and stop stealing.

or

2) She'll end up not thinking jail is as scary as she thought, so will continue to steal and eventually will get put in jail for longer and longer and get fined more and more until her record/life is so messed up that she finally realizes she needs to quit.

So surely i'm doing the right thing because if I let her go, she'd just do it again and it'd take longer for her to finally learn her lesson and fix her life.

I don't think she was stealing because she NEEDED the clothes because aside from the clothes she also stole $40 worth of scented body lotion and instant bronze tanning lotion...clearly luxury items, not need.

Anyways, thought I'd share the experience of my first captured criminal here.
Click to expand...

You do realize that people that commit these crimes use tactics to make you feel sorry for them including what you posted, and more and are generally naturals at manipulation right?

Also note some people dont steal because they need anything or consider something a luxury item. The thrill of stealing for them is what drives them to commit the act, not the object they take out of the store.

Shoplifters rarely get any major amount of time (if any) and while you feel you did a great deed for society I bet shes out in less than a month and back to her old antics, if she was ever even booked. Just dont blow up your ego to the point that you stopped someone from a minor crime that it will change their life.

But who knows maybe you were the one to stop her from continuing further, I dont know. Ive profiled many criminals and I have to say the vast majority smooth talk and sugarcoat their responses and masquerade as someone they are not.
 
sounds like someone needs to camp Jaggedy Ear Jack before they try to steal again!
 
Ryme said:
You do realize that people that commit these crimes use tactics to make you feel sorry for them including what you posted, and more and are generally naturals at manipulation right?

Also note some people dont steal because they need anything or consider something a luxury item. The thrill of stealing for them is what drives them to commit the act, not the object they take out of the store.

Shoplifters rarely get any major amount of time (if any) and while you feel you did a great deed for society I bet shes out in less than a month and back to her old antics, if she was ever even booked. Just dont blow up your ego to the point that you stopped someone from a minor crime that it will change their life.
Click to expand...

I'm well aware of the fact they use tactics to make you feel sorry for them but regardless of her fake/legit excuses, I felt perfectly confident with my decision at the end of the day as being the best for her. Not really "Oh I did this for the better of society" because shoplifting is such a minor crime that her impact on society by stealing from big corporations is minimal at best. So rather than naively doing this for the society I focus on what would be best for helping this woman get her life together. And if she continues to steal till the day she dies, hey atleast I did what I could with no regrets.

So I'm not really blowing up my ego and 100% assuming I created an epiphany for her life, but being concerned in making a decision for the better of someone's life is what this job is about and why people are in this career in the first place. But because of the 2 possible things that could happen, which I listed above, I am confident that the decision I made to call the police and press charges was the decision that would most likely be the best route to lead her into a theft-free life in the long-run, if she ever finally decides to persue that road.

Afterall, this's one of the main things that drives people in this business: Getting that adrenaline rush of catching a "stealthy" thief, and knowing that you might play a part in changing someone's life for the better. I don't know many people who do this for the adrenaline rush alone, because there just isn't enough thieves being caught to satisfy that urge when you could be getting higher pay somewhere else that was more enjoyable. While this job sounds easy there's a lot of paper-work involved that most people won't want to handle if they are just doing this for a quick adrenaline rush once or twice a month.
 
{congratulations!}

Stealing is something that I really really hate. I don't care who is stolen from be it a single mom or a huge corporation...it pisses me off.
 
lol i remmber when i was like 7yrs old i stole a back of Gum at a local gas station XD
 
Davio said:
lol i remmber when i was like 7yrs old i stole a back of Gum at a local gas station XD
Click to expand...

I stole like 50 magnets from some convienience store when I was 5... damn I was such a bad ass...
 
When I was 13, I tried to steal a $5 wallet from Montgomery Wards and got caught. I was there with my Mom. I was so scared by the time they were done with me (my Mom and the store detectives), I've never stolen again :lol: .
 
_Neosquall_ said:
Davio said:
lol i remmber when i was like 7yrs old i stole a back of Gum at a local gas station XD
Click to expand...

I stole like 50 magnets from some convienience store when I was 5... damn I was such a bad ass...
Click to expand...

50!? Damn Neo you iz Gangsta nukka
 
When I was younger, not so long ago, I had a bad habbit of stealing what I now feel to be the most retarded thing: Trading cards, Pokemon and the like. You don't know how stupid I feel about it now. :oops:

Anyways, this one time I got caught. All the guy did was asked me how much I took(it was around $25 probably >_>) and he even listened to my request of not telling my parents...Some people would think that was irresponsible of him and all that stuff. But I can tell you I'm still grateful to that guy. If I had succeeded I would've probably done it again, until someday I did get caught, and then I might not have been so lucky. I was so scared for those few minutes, since then I've never thought about stealing anything, especially stuff as stupid as trading cards. :P
 
Davio said:
_Neosquall_ said:
Davio said:
lol i remmber when i was like 7yrs old i stole a back of Gum at a local gas station XD
Click to expand...

I stole like 50 magnets from some convienience store when I was 5... damn I was such a bad ass...
Click to expand...

50!? Damn Neo you iz Gangsta nukka
Click to expand...

yo they were cars, and the wheels moved. I ripped em all out the package and dumped em in my bag. Which reminds me, when I was in like 6th grade the coolest thing to do was steal stuff from the CVS across the street from school. Some little dude got caught and I rofl'ed cus I was about to do it. >_>
 
When i was up in New york 2 yrs ago, i took subway with my friend who i was staying with. She told me before i went on to hold on to my stuff. Well it turns out there are tons of fucking theives in NY subways, and i got my wallet stolen. I sent in a report and a week later Police caught the guy, i guess he was a natural burglar.
 
Heh, I think all little kids steal things. When I was 6 I stole gummy worms from a gas station through the ingeneous device of stuffing like 5 large ones in my mouth. When I tried talking to my dad he noticed the multicolored rainbow that was my mouth and made me pay the guy the whole 25 cents it would have cost, good thing I got caught then. Who knows where I would've ended up. :wink:
 
I've stolen twice in my life. I had absolutely no money and had no way of getting home, so I stole one of those $1.50 subs from wal-mart. It happened again like 2 weeks later lol, I don't really feel bad because if I wouldn't have, my stomach would've killed me until I got some food, the sub tasted very, very sub-par, and they would've eventually had to throw it out anyways.
 
When I worked for Wal-Mart I remember helping to catch a whole team of thieves. They picked up a whole shit load of dvds and stuff, and placed them around the store on shelves in strategic positions, then we caught them when they came back to get them all, it was so awesome. It was sick to see what they tried. One lady had 6, count em 6, copies of the OC's first season DVD sets in her pants. Another of my favorites was this lady who would walk in, go to the electronics section, take a dvd player off of the shelf, and walk to the returns counter and return it. She did it once a year for 4 years before getting caught. :shock:

OP: Good job, keep our streets safe from them stupid criminals.
 
I have about thirty thousand dollars worth of computer's, monitors, and computer speaker in a warehouse.... >.>
I hope you know I'm just kidding.
 
When I was a little kid, I stole a 2 foot tall hard plastic dinosaur from preschool, try fitting that in your pants as a little kid.

I use to steal candy from local shoprite, and drink mixes for no reason.

I stole TONS of toys from preschools.

I once stolea seashell a kid brought in for show in tell when I was 4, from preschool, I once stole a joker( from batman action figure ) from a kid that brought that in for show in tell.

And I've been clean since, I developed a strong conscienous(sp) about stealing and refuse to do it unless it's stealing something 'back' which is very rare.

But my god, I use to be an awsome thief! Now I can live that out in final fantasy without hurting others feelings!
 
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