I recently listened to episode 6 of the LP Magazine Podcast (great podcast) titled
“The Unintended Consequences of California’s Proposition 47 on Retail Theft" and I’ve got to say, I was pretty disappointed in the conversation.
Too often, us Loss Prevention Professional get caught up in the same old justice-oriented conversations, framing every new problem as a "lock-em-up" issue, rather than what it can be: an opportunity to achieve greatness.
As corporate citizens, part of an ever-evolving republic, businesses and organizations must adapt to changes in society, culture and law if they are to flourish or even survive in the long term. While I am not a Californian, nor a legal expert, I do have experience decreasing crime significantly, especially ORC, in markets affected by criminal law changes meant to decrease prosecution and criminal penalties for property crime.
From 2016-2018 I was fortunate enough to help lead a $200M+ flagship retail business to a 50% reduction in external theft, a 60% reduction in fraud, a 45% reduction in total shrinkage and a 70% reduction in unit variance (inventory distortion) in one of the retail markets hit hardest by these laws.
Below are the step-by-step tactics we implemented to effectively eliminate theft & fraud and protect our business in a market critically impacted by bail reform and reduced sentencing laws. Follow these steps to quickly repeat our accomplishments in similar environments:
1. Know your company’s ultimate mission, goals and cultural values so you can align yourself and your team. Teach your team. 2. Gain understanding of state/province/locality laws - the intentions, why they were written and how they were written.
3. Gain understanding of the laws’ impact and potential consequences, from local business and community leaders.
4. Gain understanding of support abilities and obstacles from local PD.
5. Gain understanding from the violators themselves - develop interview questions for your team to employ. Get to know the top offenders by name, associates and MO.
6. Determine the best widespread prevention methods that can quickly be taught and implemented in alignment with your company’s mission.
7. Create simple, coachable steps to prevention, to teach the entire organization.
8. Over-communicate the steps to the entire organization, local business organizations and to law enforcement. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
9. Resolve all holes in the prevention strategy by adjusting personnel presence, service touchpoints, fixture placement, physical deterrents, and PD support.
10. Prioritize merchandise recovery over apprehension. 11. Judge every potential apprehension by its total ROI and create rules for apprehension decisions. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
12. Create apprehension plans for every possible theft scenario. Rehearse.
13. Implement apprehension plans, with safety and stewardship as top priorities.
Thirteen tactics to significantly decrease crime in a business impacted by "soft" criminal laws. Simply written, of course, but not necessarily easy to implement. Depending on the size of your business, implementation should take six months to one year, before you feel the “flywheel effect.”
Do not attempt step 10 until steps 1-9 are in place, taught, clarified and overcommunicated.
Attempting change at the point of apprehension, without first gaining enough data or intelligence, and without doing your homework to gain the trust of your peers and support networks, will only end in frustration and lack of momentum.
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