A correspondent supplied a story about an incident in our M&S here at Epsom. It seems that she saw someone shoplifting, fairly blatantly stuffing stuff inside his or her coat. Being an older person and not wanting to tackle a possibly violent, younger person, she alerted a member of staff - who just shrugged as the shoplifter made off, at that point still visible. Dealing with young criminals was way off his or her pay-scale. I do shelf stacking and that's it.
Sometime later I thought of a wheeze, serviceable enough for a shop of moderate size.
Equip your staff with whistles. When one of them blows their whistle, some member of the management team presses his or her special button and the shutters come down, closing off the exits. Perhaps also blocking transit between floors while they are at it.
The security guards then round up the shoplifter(s) and put them in a cage in the middle of the store where they can wait until the police turn up. Maybe spray some identifying paint on them in case of accidents. In the meantime, the customers can take a good look and take pictures.
Only fair, given that it is them who have to carry the considerable costs of shoplifting.
PS: the image above was offered by Bing on the clue 'shoplifting'.
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