CCTV: exercising the right of reply

David puts forward his concerns over my article which appeared in the April edition (‘Captured on camera’, pp38-40), and in particular the terminology used to distinguish between ‘theft’ by the retail customer and ‘misappropriation’ or ‘pilfering’ by employees.

It is always good to have feedback and, in addressing David’s concerns, I think it important to emphasise the fact that in no way was my article attempting – through its use of words – to diminish either the importance or impact of staff theft on retail crime.

Contrary to the impression given by David, while a range of terms were used to refer to the problem I certainly did not shy away from calling it ‘theft’. I quote from page 38 of my article: “With the negative impact of staff theft on the bottom line once again in the spotlight through the British Crime Survey, the fact is that, historically, dishonest actions by members of staff – such as bogus refunds, on-sales, under-rings, loyalty card fraud and other forms of register theft – have been notoriously difficult to catch.”

I do fundamentally agree with David – and believe he was fully justified in drawing attention to this – that the “breach of trust” (as he puts it) involved in staff theft makes it more serious than that perpetrated by customers in many ways.

In my article, I highlighted the practical issues of actually identifying and dealing with it, noting (on page 40) “the temptation among some till staff to defraud their employer.”

Looking ahead, as the examples cited in my original article demonstrate, advances in CCTV technology – such as associating video footage with transactions – mean that the prospect of a positive outcome for retailers looking to get to grips with this perennial problem have probably never been better.

Pauline Norstrom, Marketing Manager

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