Wal-Mart to shoplifters: Don’t test new system

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. offered simple advice Thursday to potential shoplifters hoping to avoid prosecution under a new company policy that limits when the cops should be called: “Don’t test it.”

A union-backed group critical of Wal-Mart unveiled this week a company policy that bypasses Sam Walton’s zero-tolerance stance against shoplifting. Thieves now will be prosecuted if they lift merchandise worth more than $25 — or if they don’t identify themselves or are violent.

“We’re concentrating our resources on organized theft rings and high-dollar losses,” Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said. “It simply is not efficient to prosecute most petty shoplifters at the expense of those high-dollar items.”

Still, Simley said, “Our stores are hard targets for theft and we intend to keep it that way. Don’t test it.”

WakeUpWalMart.com distributed copies of the new policy this week, saying Walton, the company’s founder, had it right when he said shoplifting is the greatest threat to a store’s profitability.

“Deterring crime at any level is good for the country,” said Chris Kofinis, a spokesman for the union-backed group. “Wal-Mart has decided to go on a cost-cutting exercise and getting rid of loss-prevention people whose job was to prevent and deter shoplifters.”

The Associated Press reported last month about Wal-Mart concentrating anti-crime efforts on organized theft rings as WakeUpWalMart.com complained the company was trying to save labor costs and reduce criticism from police departments about a high number of shoplifting calls.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sharon Weber said then that the company was adjusting where it placed loss-prevention specialists, with stores in high-crime areas gaining employees and stores elsewhere losing them.