On the road to recovery

Meantime, statistics produced by Retail Loss Prevention (RLP), which runs the UK's National Civil Recovery Programme, suggest that only 7% of the 820,000 shop thieves apprehended each year are actually required to appear in a Court of Law. The remainder are merely given a warning or a police caution.

One of the original members of the Programme was supermarket giant Safeway. The company took part in the Programme's first-ever civil recovery pilot scheme in the West Midlands, and has now rolled-out civil recovery in all of its UK stores. David Parker, company security controller at Safeway, explained that high retail crime rates in tandem with a low number of shoplifter convictions prompted the supermarket chain to go down this route.

"No matter what the police figures might say, shop theft is on the rise," said Parker, "and yet increasingly the police service does not react to relatively small amounts of theft. We saw civil recovery as another tool which we could use to deter shoplifters."

Parker, who claims that food retailers are being hit by shop theft as much as retailers in any other sector, added: "It seems that the deterrent of being arrested is no longer there."

Like the British Retail Consortium (BRC), he believes that you would be hard pushed to find a major retailer that is not at least conducting a trial of civil recovery.

Parker is also a great believer that civil recovery is most effective at deterring the opportunist rather than the professional thief. "By hitting them in the pocket, it becomes a great deterrent," stressed Parker, whose own company also makes use of the process to deter internal theft.

Civil recovery in perspective
In essence, the civil recovery process involves companies sending a series of (usually three) letters to a shop thief in an effort to make him or her pay compensation for their crime. If the thief then refuses to pay, the retailer will claim compensation through the civil courts.

Speaking about the process, David Parker added: "The aim is not to recoup all the money you have lost, because clearly you don't get it all back. You go through the motions as a preventative measure to deter thieves."

Safeway's claims for damages from shoplifters tend to be "for hundreds of pounds rather than thousands," suggested Parker. "If it's the case that a shoplifter is clearly incapable of paying compensation, we would then question whether or not it is worth pursuing civil recovery."

Commenting on the effort required to apply civil recovery in all of Safeway's supermarkets, Parker reflects that once the scheme has been set up by a given retailer it more or less runs itself (mainly because RLP does most of the work in pursuing civil damages). "It's a win-win situation," stressed Parker, "because somebody is doing the physical recovery for us."

Parker insists that it's too early to establish precisely what impact the procedure is having on Safeway's shop theft levels, but he claimed: "We don't seem to have had too many repeat offenders since we started using civil recovery."

A law [on civil recovery] would provide retailers with the right to receive a set amount of money from a shoplifter without having to prove every single little expense incurred because of the theft, such as staff time taken up in dealing with it and the c

Professor Joshua Bamfield, Director, Retail Loss Prevention

Tesco is another supermarket chain that has adopted the tactic. A spokesperson for the company told Security Management Today: "The main purpose of civil recovery is to deter thieves. The signs in our store windows do tend to have a deterrent effect."

Mike Schuck, retail crime and security director at the BRC and a long-time supporter of the National Civil Recovery Programme, agrees with Safeway's David Parker that civil recovery is most effective in deterring opportunistic thieves. "Civil recovery is not going to deter professional thieves or drug addicts," stated Schuck, "but it does deal with that huge swathe of thieves who don't really want to get caught or have to go to Court, and so are willing to acknowledge their offence and pay a penalty. It's also extremely useful for pursuing dishonest staff in addition to – or in the absence of – criminal penalties."

Schuck added: "Civil recovery is an extremely cost-effective means of regaining money lost, and sends out a clear message that thieving is not a risk-free business."

Indeed, the rise of civil recovery as a weapon in the armoury of retail security professionals against theft will be duly reflected in this year's BRC '9th Retail Crime Survey 2001'. In last year's survey ('Stock take', SMT, October 2001, pp28-30), civil recovery barely warranted a mention, but this time around there'll be an article on the subject penned by Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of RLP and the main driving force behind civil recovery in the UK. Keep an eye out for an exclusive report on the BRC survey in the July edition.

Gaining momentum in the UK
There is plenty of additional evidence to suggest that civil recovery is continuing to gain momentum on home shores. Professor Bamfield reveals that cut-price supermarket chains like Lidl and Netto, along with major High Street retailers including Homebase, Woolworths, Debenhams and Oasis have recently joined the National Civil Recovery Programme, which itself was extended last year to cover the whole of the UK.

Not all UK retailers using civil recovery do so through the National Civil Recovery Programme, however, and not all of them are big name retailers... One example is FJ Retail, which owns a number of Original Levi's, Phoenix Footwear and Bed and Bath Works outlets. For its part, FJ Retail pursues civil damages through StopLoss Ltd, a Sheffield-based loss prevention consultancy.

FJ Retail's owner, Freddie Jacobs, stresses that although his company has successfully claimed for civil damages from shoplifters, actually making a thief pay compensation can be hard work.

"You might win an award," sighed Jacobs, "but you don't always receive the payment. Chasing that payment means more costs. For a £50 compensation award, you tend to question whether or not it's worth the aggravation."

In spite of this, Jacobs maintains that civil recovery is still a procedure that's well worth pursuing. "It acts as a deterrent," said Jacobs. "Criminals will begin to learn that the retailer is no longer an easy target."

That said, Jacobs is keen to see the Judiciary take a far more stringent line with persistent offenders. He feels that tougher sentencing would deter shop theft to a much greater degree than any type of security system he might want to install. "Repeat offenders are just getting a slap on the wrist and a small fine. That situation has to change," added Jacobs.

With a number of businesses like FJ Retail pursuing civil damages outside of the National Civil Recovery Programme, it's near impossible to estimate how much money UK retailers have recouped thanks to civil recovery. However, on its own the National Civil Recovery Programme is said to have brought back nearly £700,000 from thieves.

Civil recovery is not going to deter professional thieves or drug addicts, but it does deal with that huge swathe of thieves who don’t really want to get caught or have to go to Court. It’s an extremely cost-effective means of recovering money lost, and s

Mike Schuck, Director of retail crime, British Retail Consortium

Like Safeway's David Parker and the BRC's Mike Schuck, Professor Joshua Bamfield emphasises that the deterrent value of civil recovery is as valuable as the actual money being recovered by retailers.

Bamfield commented: "The signs in the windows do seem to have an impact on repeat offenders. During some of our research one particular retailer told us that even when thieves don't pay up, they aren't seen again. Nobody expects civil recovery to end all of their many and varied problems with crime, but it's certainly another crime prevention tool that they can use to their advantage."

Laying down the law
In spite of the fact that civil recovery procedures have shown their worth as a deterrent to potential thieves, it would be much easier to pursue if the Government was to introduce a specific civil recovery law.

"A law [on civil recovery] would provide retailers with the right to receive a set amount of money from a shoplifter without having to prove every single little expense incurred because of the theft, such as staff time taken up and the cost of using CCTV," said Bamfield.

Littlewoods' victory in a landmark civil recovery case against a staff thief two years ago highlighted the lengths retailers sometimes have to go to in order to win civil damages claims. The company's civil recovery award of more than £8,000 (at that time easily the biggest award made to a UK retailer) took into account (in some areas to the nearest penny) the money stolen, the cost of investigation and detection, the installation of covert CCTV, interest accrued and legal fees.

Although he's calling for a specific and defined civil recovery law, Professor Bamfield feels that the introduction of any such law is still a few years away. Encouragingly, though, last year saw the Government publicly announce – for the first time ever – its support for businesses' use of the technique.

In an attempt to further encourage the introduction of a specific civil recovery law, RLP is currently working alongside one of the UK's 43 police forces with a view to producing a set protocol that will eventually be adopted by all on a nationwide basis. Professor Bamfield is hopeful that the protocol will make it harder for solicitors defending shop thieves in civil recovery cases to argue against retailers' pursuit of civil compensation.

Taking notes from the US
RLP is looking to follow the example of the US, where civil recovery has been used by retailers for years. Professor Bamfield told SMT: "In the US, there's a basic agreement in place that retailers can recover a fixed sum from thieves plus a multiple of the items stolen."

At present, the average civil recovery claim Stateside is about $250 per theft.

Safeway's David Parker would welcome the introduction of a similar law in the UK. "A civil recovery law is needed if the process is to become more effective as a crime-fighting tool," urged Parker. The BRC also supports the idea of introducing a specific law for civil recovery in Britain.

At present, the other major aim of the National Civil Recovery Programme is to make greater use of the wealth of intelligence being obtained about persistent shoplifters by the programme's members. A handful of major retailers will shortly begin trialling a 'shoplifter database' which will enable retailers to share information on known offenders.

Although still in its infancy in terms of development, Professor Bamfield stressed that it is "very much a civil recovery database".