Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, December 18, 1993                   TAG: 9312180182
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

HE'S TRYING TO LEARN THE TRICKS OF SHOPLIFTERS' TRADE

In the Salem Wal-Mart, a man grabbed a large bag of dog food, put it in his shopping cart and rolled to another aisle.

Thinking no one was looking, he opened the dog food bag and poured its contents into a trash can. He then made his way through the store, slipping various items into the bag.

Before moving to the cash register, he found a stapler, loaded it with staples and resealed the bag.

At the check-out counter, he offered to pick up the bag himself and run it across the scanner, because it was so heavy.

Mission accomplished . . . almost.

What the thief didn't know was that a loss-prevention officer employed by another store had followed him to Wal-Mart and was watching him the entire time. Steve Maffe, who was working for the Kmart loss-prevention department, had noticed the man in his store earlier. Maffe notified Wal-Mart managers as the man was leaving the store. The man was charged and convicted of shoplifting.

Maffe recalls the encounter because of the man's response.

"He didn't try to run or give me a hard time or anything," Maffe said. "He was just surprised that I caught him. He told me he'd done it several times before and got away with it."

Maffe, a retired police officer, knows the story well.

Theft costs the national retail industry - and consumers, in the form of higher prices - between $5 billion and $10 billion annually.

But Maffe's trying to reverse that trend.

He has orchestrated the first meetings among loss-prevention professionals, prosecutors and police to be held in the Roanoke Valley. The good guys now are trading information, such as the names - and sometimes pictures - of repeat offenders, the numbers on stolen credit cards and ways to improve their job.

Maffe, who now works in Roanoke as loss-prevention manager for a clothing chain, said he got the idea after finding out how organized and crafty shoplifters are.

"It's a sophisticated market," Maffe said. "And we've got to be just as sophisticated as they are."

Sophisticated to Maffe means being totally prepared. After all, a small crack in the system looks like a gaping hole to lawbreakers.

Case in point: If racks in a store are located too close to entrances, merchandise can easily be stolen during a "snatch and run" - someone comes into the store, grabs as many items as possible off the racks and sprints\ out.

Maffe admits his job is frustrating, but it makes victories all the more satisfying.

"You have to have the cooperation of everyone in the store, from the salespeople to management," Maffe said. "But loss prevention can work."

Salem Commonwealth's Attorney Fred King, who attended one of the first two meetings held by Maffe, agrees a cooperative effort can't hurt.

"The trading of information is a good idea," King said. "If you know who your people are, then you're a step ahead."

King said shoplifting and other theft-related crimes - such as bad checks and stolen credit cards - make up 70 percent to 80 percent of his monthly caseload, excluding traffic offenses.

"It's a major problem," King said. Theft cases are "like a ton of pebbles. Together, they represent a larger problem than just one major case."

With so many cases - and the lesser public impact of theft compared to more severe crimes - loss-prevention officers fight a battle with repeat offenders, who many times receive nothing more in court than what is perceived as a slap on the wrist.

Police also face a dilemma. Should an officer be pulled off the street for an hour to process a shoplifter who was caught with $15 in merchandise?

"It's really a waste of a police officer's time to bring them out for something like that, and [shoplifters] know it," said Maffe, who was a police officer in Phoenix, Ariz., and in Somerset County, N.J. "That's why we have to work together to develop a system where we, as loss-prevention professionals, can take care of certain situations ourselves."

For the time being, Maffe is compiling information from the meetings on a computer. He hopes to secure federal grant money to hire someone to staff a loss-prevention command center - with fax machines and an automatic phone-dialing system - to serve the Roanoke area and possibly the New River Valley.

Roanoke County Police Chief John Cease has offered his department's services in the form of possible classes on various crime-related topics.

Cease said he believes shoplifting is a major problem and is compounded by the fact that many times the crime goes unreported.

"These meetings can help us focus our resources, there's no doubt about that," Cease said.

Chris Boitnott, inventory manager for Holdren's Inc., has attended one of Maffe's meetings and said they are a move in the right direction.

"I'm definitely willing to listen," he said. "I'm tired of sitting back and feeling like a victim. It's the information age, and we should try to make use of what we can."

The next loss-prevention meeting will be held in January.