I am writing from the UK, in this country we have Walmart who trade as Asda. We also have very similar laws to the USA with exceptions, but then that is also true of the different states within the USA. Therefore much of what I have to say, and what others have said may not be entirely pertinent to every subtlety expressed.
However much of the following is pertinent, to both the law and civil rights. I will also address the point made by some people in the discussion that some states allow a legal stop on the activation of an alarm at the exit of, for example, a Walmart.
In the UK the largest UK supermarket, and the fourth largest in the world has written to the court, (a claim, which I won) a defence statement which states that when an alarm is activated at the exit of a store, it is always the assumption that the cashier did not remove the security tag. In this country we also, like you I suspect, have recently introduced checkouts where the customer serves themselves and then pays for the goods. The defence statement went on to state, or the assumption is that the customer has gone through a self-serve checkout and has not asked the store staff to remove the tag.
So there we have it, straight from the horse's mouth, that it can never be the assumption that an alarm activation is because of theft.
I also entered into a discussion with a security guard, when I refused to give up my receipt. I audio-recorded it, and he said that by that method they very rarely catch a thief. The two correspond. Furthermore I was a retail manager with two of the UK's largest supermarkets, and I know from experience that thieves are not catch by receipt checking in response to an alarm activation.
All of this is obvious. Obvious because if I was to steal, I would not steal the goods with tags on, I would go for the 95% of goods that do not have such tags on them. For example I might go for some fine steak. I have also noticed that some items that are tagged are not done so consistently. In other words, a tag might be placed on one high value item, but the staff have not yet bothered to tag the same product that sits next to it. Which would I steal. if I was a thief?
I this country, Tesco, but not Asda, link the tagged items to the checkouts. So for example, when a bottle of liquor is scanned the till jams, the age of the purchaser is checked before the purchase is allowed to continue. This can be done with other items such as ones that are tagged. So something expensive goes through the till, and the till stops to alert the cashier that this item should have a tag on it. The cashier then removes the tag and this then should stop false activations. But is does not, partly because of the introduction of these self-serve checkouts but partly because the stores get sloppy. For example, they might tag extra items, without adding them to the checkout list. The cashier does not look for the tag, and so it makes it's way to the exit, so that the guard can stop the innocent customer.
It is to the advantage of the store, they believe, they over-ride the system in this way, because of two reasons. The first is, the guard's/greeter's job, just standing at the exit must be boring, and it gives them a sense that they are being pro-active in stamping out crime, and secondly it allows these supermarkets to demonstrate the 'power' of their anti-theft deterrence system to all those potential customers who a watching the events unfold. The system forces a compliance for the customer, partly because, showing your receipt is easy to do, but the finding of a tag in a large shopping basket could take several minutes, and if the is done my the store 10 or more times each day, then that will in the case of Tesco in the UK amount to 42 years of false imprisonment on their customers each year, just to demonstrate the effectiveness of their anti-theft system.
As I said showing your receipt only tags a few minutes, and so why bother fighting it, why not just co-operate. That is what the large supermarkets take advantage of. Especially in the UK, the fine imposed on the supermarkets is not worth the effort of taking them to court. Our supreme court, The House of Lords has set guidelines as regards the level of compensation one is likely to receive in such cases. It amounts to roughly 500.00 ($1, 000) for every hour that someone imprisons a person. In court people lie and cheat, and getting evidence of false imprisonment can be difficult. You might need a lawyer or a barrister (in the UK) to take on the might of these massive corporations. Will you win, is it worth the hassle or aggravation of months of uncertainty. Will you have to pay the lawyers in advance, before you receive you compensation, and will you compensation cover your costs and will the court award you them. There are many unknowns, yet the alternative is to just show your receipt; that is why the supermarkets get away with it. Very few assert their rights in the UK.
What do these supermarkets do with these tags after they have stopped you and detained you for a period of time? I expect that they take the tag from you, ask for your receipt and allow you to be on your way. But hang on a minute, that tag that they have just taken from you, and they take from customers many thousands and perhaps millions of times each year is actually your tag. Yes, you went to the till, you said or implied that you wanted to by the product you handed over to the cashier, and she/he scanned it into the checkout, and you paid for it. That tag is now your tag. It is as much your property as the product, and the packaging. Yet the supermarkets are now pretending that they have a right to take the tag back after selling it to you. If we were to be dramatic for one minute they are stealing to property of you, their customers.
The lack of catching thieves from the alarm activations is one of the many reasons why it is a system of deterrence, but as a thief catching system it is hopeless. It is an advert to stop potential thieves, but the operators infringe citizen's rights to advertise the system.
Some people who have written in this blog state that it is alright for the supermarket staff to search you. But you should not or would not accept that from other people. And let's not forget the searching is really ineffective. Hundreds or more get stopped and searched to catch one thief. If the supermarkets are losing so much stock, that in itself proves that the method they are employing is not economically sound. It is worse than a random search. And if it is worse than random, it cannot be that the searcher has probable cause, or as we say in this country, reasonable suspicion. If some states have allowed an alarm activation to equate to probable cause then that it bad law. I suspect that the large supermarkets had been successful at lobbying the lawmakers of such states, but that does not make it good law. Indeed to get around this law, there is a Californian case back in 1981, which a lady sued for negligence, because the store admitted that there were 20 false activations each day. That cannot give rise to probable cause. But if there are laws which allow supermarkets to pump up the number of false activations, then that is bad law.
I'm going to have some tea; I shall look back on this blog another time.
Keith
Cardiff
United Kingdom
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