As mentioned yesterday at the Lanpac (Lancashire Partnership Against Crime) business crime conference in Blackpool, Retailers Against Crime (RAC) has brought out the third edition of its booklet, Retail Crime Techniques. RAC’s MD Maxine Fraser kindly gave Professional Security Magazine editor Mark Rowe a copy, and he writes:
The A5 colour, 30-page booklet (as it says on the inside cover) is restricted to RAC members only, and only available in print – because any electronic document would be easier to copy and perhaps fall into the hands of criminals, who would then be better informed and equipped to do their thieving. Maxine told Professional Security Magazine that RAC had to update the booklet in terms of the methods used by shop thieves, ‘because there are new methods out there’. Likewise in an introduction to the booklet, Maxine writes: “We are often asked, ‘how do I recognise who is committing crime in my premises’? The message is simple, you never really know who they are. Always trust your instinct. If you feel something is wrong, it usually is.”
That said, the booklet is aimed at retailers who are not necessarily knowledgeable about security and loss prevention, let alone how criminals go about their business; hence the booklet has pages about the types of theft (at the till; or, by more than one thief working together, one to distract an employee while the other walks out with the stolen items) and fraud (at the ATM, refund, receipt and payment card).
As a sign of the times – that during and since covid, retailers and retail security contractors generally have reported more crime and violence overall, and more readiness for retail criminals to be more extreme in their threats and actual violence – the new edition has a page on ‘managing conflict’, besides new info on gift card scams, and fuel theft; besides a page about CCTV and a now common sight on the shop floor as worn by security officers and retail staff alike, body worn cameras.
About RAC
Retailers Against Crime is a Stirling-based community interest company (CIC), founded in 1997 as a not for profit retail crime partnership that gathers and provides intelligence for its members, notably on persistent offenders and organised, travelling crime groups – who, RAC points out, may well do other crime such as drugs trafficking.
RAC is running similar conferences to yesterday’s, in Belfast on May 14 and Glasgow on September 26.
Visit www.retailersagainstcrime.org.
