Rights Violation or a Complete Jerk?

[Archon_Wing]

In the end the policy just leads to bad business. These reciept checks are a "soft" loss policy which these stores use because they don't want to spend the money to hire or create any more in-depth loss prevention. This creates a bad situation where these employees get a big head over power which they don't actually have and the end result is that instances like this get blown wildly out of preportion. The guy wasn't even detained because he was suspected of shoplifting, he was detained because he refused to comply with their search. "Respect my AUTHORI-TAH!" indeed.

If these stores decide to continue to use these reciept checks the employees should be fully trained in how to handle non-compliance. There should be no gray area of what actions they should take. If the store decides that it is best to wait and alert a manager than they need to accept the fact that detention of the suspect is probably out of the question. If you detain everyone who leaves the store without showing a proper reciept, however, you probably won't end up looking very good to your customers. The best course for business is probably to just monitor what the individual is leaving with and then check the store's copy of the reciept. This would keep as little of the effects as possible off your legit/paying customers while still maintaining the "soft" psychological deterant.

Other ways to deter shoplifting which doesn't involve putting undue pressure on your customers would be issues like store layout/design. A well designed store can end up deterring more shoplifters than anything.

This is all very true. Give an idiot a weapon, and.... *points to signature*
Policies need to be concrete. You can't expect employees to do everything according to what you anticipate. Imagine writing a computer program; that's how it should be.
And this applies to both the police and security employees. Indeed, we can see the problem overlap.

IMO, this is more of an issue of " people suck" then "zomg my rights"