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Recession Woes: What People Steal

With the economy tanking, security pros see a spike in old-time thievery. And what do people steal in recessionary times? Cash, clothes, cigarettes, copper - pretty much everything. (Part three in a series: How to Manage Security in a Recession)

By Bill Brenner, Senior Editor

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McGoey says shoplifting will increase when customers on the brink of dishonestly are pushed over the edge by the pressure of recession. "Sometimes the high cost of living is used as justification for generally honest people to want something for nothing," he says, adding that food, cigarettes and liquor are the big target among grocery store thieves in poor neighborhoods.

There have been several recessions in the 38 years since McGoey got into the loss prevention business, and his experience is that retailers suffer most at the hands of employees who are struggling to make ends meet. In desperation, they will steal cash and put it toward rent, the mortgage, gasoline or the drugs and alcohol they consume to cope with the hard times.

Despite McGoey's assessment, Brekke says thievery from external sources far outweighs the number of internal incidents because of the company's emphasis on employee screening, training and other controls.

To prevent shoplifting, Brekke says his team uses a mix of training and technology to go after such things as ticket switching, credit card fraud and check fraud. Often, simple customer service can go a long way in minimizing thefts.

"The simple step of approaching a customer and asking if they need help finding anything tends to inhibit criminal behavior among those who prefer to remain unseen and unheard," he says. "We also train all store team members to report anything suspicious" to the assets protection department.

Metal madness
Beyond the retail environment, recession-related theft is also on the climb in and around industrial and infrastructure sites. In the best of times, copper is a particularly tempting target because of its high value. The appetite among thieves has only gotten worse as the economy tanks, if the situation at New Jersey-based PSE&G (Public Service Electric & Gas) is any indication.

Jeffrey Herbert, PSE&G's enterprise security command center coordinator, acknowledges that copper thieves have become more brazen in recent months. They're willing to climb fences and utility poles, tearing and cutting the copper clean off of them, then selling it on the black market.

"Copper theft is one of the biggest challenges we have right now," Herbert says. "It's a problem for the whole utility industry."

In one recent case, thieves cut the copper right off a row of utility poles in southern New Jersey using what appeared to be a machete. Since copper currently sells for about $4 a pound, he expects the thievery to continue. (See also this slideshow of metal-theft and burn-site images from DTE's CSO Michael Lynch.)