Lost Prevention?

[Harms Way]

Hey guys/girls,

I am a college student studying towards a degree in Criminology. I am looking for a part time job and was told to look into lost prevention.

What establishments would be best to look into for this type of employment? I was told Target, Macy's and Wal-Mart all have lost prevention units.

Anyway, I don't want to sound like a "Mall Ninja" - I am just looking for advise and general knowledge.

Thanks in advance!

[baerjn]

"loss" prevention. And if you are wanting to be a cop after you graduate i'd say it would probably help. Train your eyes for "shady" characters and what not trying to steal stuff. Good luck in the search!

[Harms Way]

whoops - sorry for the typo

which big name companies should I look into working for?

[Frenchy]

Originally Posted by Harms Way

whoops - sorry for the typo

which big name companies should I look into working for?

Most security companies deal in loss prevention, and most of the box stores (Wal-Mart, Target, etc) have their own people!
I'm a contractor for Unilever, and that's my primary!

[texasm203]

Just about any "anchor sotre" at a mall (Sears, JC Penney's, Mervyn's, Macy's, Saks Fifth Ave, Dillard's) the bigger the name, the better the pay, but also more likely to be "experienced required." Also, stores like "Abercrombie, Old Navy, Hollister, Armani Exchange, Express, and others. Go to a local mall, ask the security personnel if they can help you a little bit. Don't ask anything real shady like "What stores here have loss prevention?" but more like "Can you tell me if anybody here is hiring loss prevention personnel?"

[x_out86]

+1 for those who mentioned malls. I know alot of the bigger stores in the malls around here have there own loss prevention on top of the regular mall security.

I have had to respond to loss prevention at Kohls many times and they are very good at what they do. I dont know if you would have one in your area but give them a call, they always seem to be looking for people. I have also been told that Best Buy is always looking for quality candidates.

I would also agree that it would be a positive career move if you are looking to become and LEO in the future.

[TN-popo]

Originally Posted by texasm203

Just about any "anchor store" at a mall (Sears, JC Penney's, Mervyn's, Macy's, Saks Fifth Ave, Dillard's)

Excellent advice (the internet is your friend).
My college job was Loss Prevention at JCPenny's.

[retired]

Train your eyes for "shady" characters and what not trying to steal stuff.

Some of those "shady characters" will be store employees.

If you are obtaining that degree with the idea of entering le, you might want to reconsider unless you intend to enter a federal agency. I know you didn't ask a question about your degree, but when it has come up, most, myself included, recommend a degree in another field like Public Administration, English, Business, Psychology, etc. Criminology limits you I believe, at least at the local le level. The others will help you if you intend to promote.

There is a member here (can't recall who) who stated at the federal level this degree is actually desirable. Just my opinion.

Good luck in the job seeking.

[Harms Way]

Thanks for all of the replies guys/girls!


Retired - If you don't mind me asking, where did you retire from?

[CPES]

Originally Posted by retired

Some of those "shady characters" will be store employees.

If you are obtaining that degree with the idea of entering le, you might want to reconsider unless you intend to enter a federal agency. I know you didn't ask a question about your degree, but when it has come up, most, myself included, recommend a degree in another field like Public Administration, English, Business, Psychology, etc. Criminology limits you I believe, at least at the local le level. The others will help you if you intend to promote.

There is a member here (can't recall who) who stated at the federal level this degree is actually desirable. Just my opinion.

Good luck in the job seeking.

This is an excellent point - there are two major kinds of theft in the Loss Prevention world - External, which is theft by outside parties not emplyed by the compnay, and Internal, which is employees stealing from the company - don't let the employees fool you into thinking that they are all on your side. Many of them are, but alot of them aren't.

Within those realms there is also "complicity" (sometimes referred to as "setups"), where one person will stage an item at a certain location, and another person will actually pick it up and remove it from the store (this is popular with store employees working in different areas of a large store). There is also "price switching" and "theft by deception", where someone either switches the merchandise in a package out for a more expensive version, adds other products into one box, or takes the price tag/UPC off of a similar, less expensive item and puts it onto a more expensive item's box.

Sorry, that might have been too much info, but you'll get good training on all of that stuff - I worked LP for the Anderson's Corporation a couple years ago. Look into Sears and JC Penny's - they pay well and actually give you some lattitude on pursuits and whatnot. Alot of LP agencies are very "hands off" becasue they are afraid of lawsuits.

As for the degree, in my experience most local LE agencies want you to have a degree. They don't care what discipline it's in as long as you have it. Where you run into trouble is if you don't decide to make LE your permanent career. Then you might find difficulty getting into other areas of employment that require more specific degrees.

Good luck to you!

PS - If I'm not mistaken, Retired used to work for LASD...but I could be wrong.