BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IN recent months, shoplifting has been on the increase and one of the business places that has been targeted on a regular basis is Lucky Cosmetics, located at the Amory Building at the Circus in Basseterre.
The last incident at Lucky Cosmetics occurred on Sunday (Nov. 27) and had involved two footballers from Cuba who were in St. Kitts to compete in the CFU Finals of the Under-23 Olympic Qualifiers.
They had stolen two eight-piece EasyCut haircutting machines valued at EC$300 and were arrested after a review of the recording of the security camera.
According to the store’s supervisor, “The manager of the football team came to us this morning (Nov. 28) in the company of another man and paid for the machines. He promised us that on return to their country, the two men would be disciplined and may even be banned from representing the country.”
The Christmas and Carnival season is here and many storeowners have indicated that they have up the ante in security, including their awareness of shoplifters.
From this backdrop and in an effort to garner information on shoplifting in Basseterre, SKNVibes contacted Corporal Carl Greaux who stated that this offence is classified as “one of the many different types of property crimes”.
“Shoplifting is the illegal removal of merchandise from stores by persons posing as customers, and most shoplifters do not take large amounts of merchandise. The average taken is between $1 and $100. This is an official figure based on reports of shoplifting, which is larceny, reported to the police,” Greaux said.
He however declared that not all shoplifting incidents are reported to the law enforcement agency.
This media house was also told that the total cost of shoplifting is enormous to businesses in Basseterre and it goes beyond the amount of stolen items, due to the fact that business owners have to purchase and maintain crime prevention and detection systems.
Shoplifters come from all income levels and, according to Greaux, most of them escape detection and many of those apprehended are not prosecuted because the storeowners are not willing to prosecute after making them pay twice or more for the stolen item or items.
SKNVibes also spoke to a number of individuals in downtown Basseterre about shoplifting and while one in 20 admitted they had shoplifted recently, one in seven said it was done because they could not afford many of the basic necessities in life.
Most of these respondents were young persons.
Greaux indicated that reports made to the police show that the majority of shoplifters were not associated with a criminal sub-culture. He also indicated that most of them were women and over 90 percent were never previously convicted of any offence.
“I think that they had not thought about the possibility of being arrested although they had given consideration to the chance of being caught. And when they are caught, many adult shoplifters give the excuses and rationalisations characteristic of juveniles caught in a delinquent act,” he added.
He stressed that on most occasions, the items taken are generally for the shoplifters’ personal use rather than for resale.
This media house’s investigation also revealed a variance in the quantity and nature of stolen items, and that most of them are inexpensive; items that shoplifters could afford to purchase.
In addition, as indicated by Greaux, “The act of apprehension is sufficient to deter most of them from further illegal activity of this kind.”
