First-time shoplifters will no longer be prosecuted in two of Toronto’s busiest police divisions as part of a pilot project called “Shop Theft”. It will allow a stall theft prevention officer to release an accused after the details of the incident are called into a division instead of waiting sometimes hours for police to answer those calls.
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“There is some fairly good research out there. It has been studied that simple apprehension by store security for most people is enough to deter them from doing it in the future particularly with women because it is self-humiliating. The problem here is the long-term effect of not charging people. So if the word gets out, you know, kids learn you can get away with it, you get one get-out-of-jail-free card, the cops are not coming down and then they set into a practice of doing this and they do it a number of times before they are apprehended and so that is the problem.”