Practical Instruction for Detectives: A Complete Course in Secret Service Study

by Emmerson Wain Manning

DETECTIVE WORK IN DEPARTMENT STORES

There are, in my opinion, no business concerns that suffer a greater loss, nor are occasioned more worry than are the department stores of our large cities. Annually they lose thousands of dollars worth of merchandise mainly through the operations of store thieves known as shoplifters, and through the dishonesty of employes. In any of our large up-to-date department stores the services of no less than a dozen trained detectives, both male and female, are required to properly guard such stores against thefts. Inasmuch as department stores offer one of the broadest fields for private detectives, I shall set forth some of the many ways by which such stores are robbed and defrauded daily; also one of the best known methods for detectives to cope with the offenders.

As previously stated, in department stores, both male and female detectives are employed. Although I have known instances where experienced female store detectives have been of valuable assistance to department stores, male detectives, as a rule, can give the best protection. The store detective must be a person of good, sound judgment, be able to think and act quickly, and must always be alert and wide awake during business hours at the store where he or she may be engaged. It is essential that store detectives dress well, but not conspicuously, and while in the store, if the detective be a man, he should wear his hat and coat at all times.

If it be in the winter time the detective should wear a light overcoat, and on rainy days should carry an umbrella. It is a very good plan for the detective to carry a package under his arm, the purpose of all these things being to give out the impression that the detective is a customer instead of what he really is. The detective should keep moving about in the store, pretend to make purchases, and if possible change his hat and coat several times a day.

In order to emphasize the necessity of these things, we will look at shoplifting for a few moments from the shoplifter’s point of view. Usually when a shoplifter decides upon some particular store to operate in, he or she may first visit the store a dozen times if necessary in order to pick out the store detective. After becoming satisfied on this point the shoplifter figures on how best to avoid the persons he or she have picked out as being detectives, then will begin to operate.

The professional shoplifter, if she be a woman, usually wears, during cold weather, a long coat and wide skirt in which are capacious pockets for concealing and carrying off stolen merchandise. The shoplifter rarely will bother with cheap merchandise, but will confine her thefts to valuable laces, silks, furs, jewelry, etc., which she secretes in the pockets of her skirt or coat. During the summer season when it would be out of place to wear a coat, the shoplifter takes advantage of the rainy days and enters stores with her umbrella, in which she secretes and carries off such articles as she may find an opportunity to take from the counters unobserved by the clerks or floorwalkers.

Very often a professional shoplifter will take with her to a store a confederate, especially if she has reason to believe that her operations have aroused the suspicions of any of the store’s detectives. The confederate will proceed directly to the ladies’ toilet or rest room. After the shoplifter has taken one or more articles she joins her confederate, and unobserved passes the articles to the confederate. Then in case she has been watched or is arrested upon leaving the store, no goods will be found on her person.

I have known careless store detectives to arrest shoplifters whom they observed stealing goods in the store, but who did not have the goods on their persons when they were arrested. When an arrest of this kind is made it is usually the beginning of serious trouble for the management of the store. The detective will have played into the hands of the shoplifter; she will promptly take advantage of the circumstances and bring suit against the management for false arrest. Ordinarily department stores do not relish such undesirable notoriety; damage suits are expensive, so usually they settle such cases. If the shoplifter, after having been observed taking some article, enters the rest or toilet room before leaving the store, it will be best for the detective not to take any chances in causing her arrest for the reason just mentioned.

The detective, as a rule, should not make an arrest under any circumstances until after the shoplifter has left the store. I have known cases where shoplifters and store thieves were arrested inside of stores with stolen goods on their persons, but who, immediately after being arrested, set up the claim that they had no intention of stealing the goods, but that they were just taking the goods to the light to examine them. Later when their cases came up in court they would be represented by shrewd attorneys who took advantage of the law itself by maintaining that inasmuch as the goods had not been taken from the premises of the store, no theft was committed.

I would state that as a rule if the detective is watchful he will have no difficulty in picking out the shoplifters. Persons so bent usually keep looking about them furtively to note if anyone is watching them. Quite often they are nervous and flit quickly from one counter to another. If the detective be in doubt he usually can, with half an hour’s careful watching, determine to his own satisfaction the real purpose of any person’s visit to the store.