anyone employed as

or in the loss prevention field in a retail enviroment.. my wife is a manager at her store.. she seems to have a knack for busting dirt bags shop lifting.. she gets 4 to 5 a week.. and that is just her. i am thinking that she may be good in that field specifically.. anyone in this field?

I've been in the security field for over three years (at the old age of 25.) Being around a lot of different people in the field we kind of feed on the knowledge and abilities of each other. The company I work for is mainly military and police.

The problem with the loss prevention field is that it does not pay well and there is a lot of report writing time and counting a shopping cart full of crap. Each and every thing must be accounted for in the report.

My job on the other hand, is controlling foot, car, and big truck traffic at a factory in the ghetto. We had a shooting the other day, but that's about as exciting as it gets here. When not controlling traffic, I am poswhoring.

Any specific questions you had?

Any form of corporate security work will pay poorly. Also, these departments are prone to be first in line for lay offs. If a department is not producing a profit, well....Make a profit for the company, different results.

In modern day security if HSA says they need security, they will end up paying more for security if thye DON'T do as they say. Especially if other agencies are checking in on it also. This would be the exception to what cwh said there.

There are a lot of companies dealing with things they don't want the public to know they are dealing with. So some money lost on security is no big deal. This happens more than most people think.

(Although I believe this is beyond the scope of LP.)

Sadly, the only thing that comes to mind is, when I worked for a Wal Mart TLE years ago, the LP guy was too busy talking to a couple underaged girls to notice some dude walking out the front door with a VERY LARGE screen TV. I had a good laugh about that for a small while.

When I worked at Big Box retail, ALL of the loss prevention guys wound up being busted for theft. All of them, they think they can control the surveillance tapes, and, not really. Seven years in retail, and either during that time or after, the temptation got to be too much, I guess. The turnover was fairly high, and the pay was low. So, while your wife can spot a shoplifter, it's not an indicator of a good career path..

If you think of Loss Prevention in a broader context, the contributions to the bottom line become a lot clearer. For example (and I have to say up front that I don't know if these stats still apply), back in the 80s a major food retailer I was involved with figured that 1% of every dollar people spent in their stores ended up as profit. Not bad money on billions in sales. Meanwhile, they allowed 10% for "shrinkage," which was everything from outright theft, to forklift accidents in the warehouse, to the reefer on the lettuce truck died, to Stuff Just Happens.

So "all" you had to do was reduce shrinkage by ten per cent, and presto: you just doubled the profits.

N Sperlo wrote: I've been in the security field for over three years (at the old age of 25.) Being around a lot of different people in the field we kind of feed on the knowledge and abilities of each other.

I've worked peripherally in crowd control. This sums up the biggest truth i've learned.

Everyone who is good at this type of thing feeds on everyone else's Situational Awareness in a positive way.

I would think she could do much better applying those talents to private investigation or actual law enforcement.

Loss prevention is typically a dumping ground for failed cops and wanna-bes.

You might want to direct her to the American Society for Industrial Security (link) for possible career or education options.

I will say also that one reason cops don't always do well in security is that a successful day as a cop has a lot of action, whereas a successful day in security involves nothing out of the ordinary at all, because the security procedures worked properly. I'm obviously not suggesting that no security officer has ever responded to a bomb threat, but the basic security mindset is very different from the cop mindset.