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Professionals' and non-professionals' views of shop stealing

Professionals' and non-professionals' views of shop stealing AUST & NZ JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (September 1989) 22 (167-178) PROFESSIONALS' AND NON-PROFESSIONALS' VIEWS OF SHOP STEALING Jeanette A Lawrence and Catherina E W Toh* Summary This article reports comparisons of views on shop stealers held by involved professionals (police, store detectives and shop assistants) and university students, and their card sort responses to the seriousness, appropriate penalties and categorisations of 18 sampie cases. Professionals were tougher in their penalties and seriousness ratings than students, and more consistently saw shop stealers as greedy rather than troubled or needy persons. Shop stealing annually costs business and the public large amounts of money, and ties up the judicial system with large numbers of offenders. The offence is estimated to cost Australian retailers $600 million or more annually, and most of these costs are passed on to the public (Challinger, 1983). Yet, there is little evidence of attitudes to shop stealing as a community problem. Stores have developed elaborate systems for detecting and apprehending shop stealers, but the stream of offenders passing through the hands of security and police officers continues. Detection and apprehension has not eradicated the problem that, for a variety of reasons, a large number of people do their http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology SAGE

Professionals' and non-professionals' views of shop stealing

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Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© The Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology and Authors, 1989
ISSN
0004-8658
eISSN
1837-9273
DOI
10.1177/000486588902200304
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AUST & NZ JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (September 1989) 22 (167-178) PROFESSIONALS' AND NON-PROFESSIONALS' VIEWS OF SHOP STEALING Jeanette A Lawrence and Catherina E W Toh* Summary This article reports comparisons of views on shop stealers held by involved professionals (police, store detectives and shop assistants) and university students, and their card sort responses to the seriousness, appropriate penalties and categorisations of 18 sampie cases. Professionals were tougher in their penalties and seriousness ratings than students, and more consistently saw shop stealers as greedy rather than troubled or needy persons. Shop stealing annually costs business and the public large amounts of money, and ties up the judicial system with large numbers of offenders. The offence is estimated to cost Australian retailers $600 million or more annually, and most of these costs are passed on to the public (Challinger, 1983). Yet, there is little evidence of attitudes to shop stealing as a community problem. Stores have developed elaborate systems for detecting and apprehending shop stealers, but the stream of offenders passing through the hands of security and police officers continues. Detection and apprehension has not eradicated the problem that, for a variety of reasons, a large number of people do their

Journal

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology – SAGE

Published: Sep 1, 1989

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