The Channel 5 documentary series Shoplifters and Scammers: At War with the Law is showing more broadly the work of the private security industry, writes Mark Rowe.
Last night’s episode showed the deployable CCTV towers with loudspeakers made by WCCTV, whose UK sales director Shea Nugent and head of comms Daniel del Soldato described how the products work with infra-red light after dark. As they work off 4G wireless networks and are powered by a fuel cell, there isn’t any cabling to pull to make the recording stop (as one set of intruders did try, as footage during the hour-long programme showed).
The programme’s regulars are the shopping centre black-uniformed security patrollers at West Orchards mall in Coventry city centre; the not for profit company Newtown Abbot Security Trust (NAST) that run a 120-camera CCTV system in the Devon market town (pictured) and day and night, uniformed and plain-clothes patrols; and the private detectives of David McKelvey’s company TM Eye.
The stock in trade of the hour is the detaining of shop thieves and the frankly uninspiring show they put up. One woman we saw held in a blank store room, quite the contrast with the ‘exclusive’ West End store. She claimed to be old and confused, and that she had made an honest mistake; she had intended to pay for her shopping at the end (having put several items in her bag that she walked out with). As David McKelvey pointed out in interview to camera, ‘shoplifting is going through the roof …. there is an impact’, in higher prices for the law-abiding.
Given that the catching of thieves and suspects and their release – that forgetful woman was let go with a store ban – can become depressingly routine, you have to clutch at moments of humour. The old woman said: “I really like your items.” The detective shot back: “You should have paid for them.”
We did see how the Newton Abbot security men and women work by night, to pull apart trouble-makers in the small hours on the main drag outside the town’s three main venues. There, and in retail, police were nowhere to be seen, which was odd given the sub-title of the documentaries. At no point did there appear to be any passing on of criminals to ‘the law’, for reasons not gone into beyond a mention that police are ‘stretched’. We can add that the prisons are full, the courts backlogged and heavily cut during the mid-2010s public sector austerity. Viewers had to work it out for themselves; but the old and confused woman could go to some other retailer; she and other thieves last night were recognised by security staff as carrying out their crime elsewhere.
In other words, who’s to say how often the thieves are caught and how often they are stealing or doing scam refunds successfully, often enough to make a living at it. And the police, courts and ‘law and order’ politicians either don’t know that or aren’t that bothered (or feel helpless?) if they do.
If you accept that bleak analysis (and TM Eye does do private prosecutions for its retail and other business clients – see this link on their website to a case for Fortnum & Mason), the documentaries remain as good as any free publicity for the private security industry, both in terms of showing the public what those with ‘Security’ on their back do, and as recruitment advertising. For one thing, private security is competing with the armed forces and the 999 services, that have (on Channel 5 and other channels) any number of ‘behind the badge’ and ’emergency heroes’ shows of their own. As for making private security more diverse, Shoplifters and Scammers does show its fair share of bearded and grizzly men, but does include a female security officer at West Orchards, who last night played her part in the thwarting of a gang of several thieves that dwelled suspiciously long in a clothing store.
We saw the quiet and undemonstrative, patient standing outside the store, the suspects and officers watching each other. Also featured in the episode was Farrah McNutt of Catch A Thief, and Richard Hupe of B-Cam, who enthused about body-cameras and radio links, for protection of officers and to aid their work against criminals. But the heart of Shoplifters and Scammers continues to be what makes it compete with all those police documentary: human interest.
If you can’t see episodes when scheduled, visit https://www.channel5.com/show/shoplifters-scammers-at-war-with-the-law.
More in the December 2023 and February 2024 print editions of Professional Security Magazine.
