CITYSAFE PODCAST
The CitySafe Podcast explores how retailers, loss prevention teams, and the people responsible for safety navigate theft, incidents, and risk in environments where what you know, and what you do about it, can carry real legal weight.
Co-hosted by Jim Cords, retired from the federal side, whose career spanned the FBI, DHS, and OIG, and Don Carr, who has owned and operated private security guard companies and architected security systems, the CitySafe Podcast focuses on the space between detection and response, where so much of retail security actually plays out.
The CitySafe Podcast reflects the personal views and opinions of its hosts and is a conversation, not professional advice. Rather than offering tactics or prescriptions, it examines how knowledge, duty, documentation, and the choice to act are understood differently across retail environments, and why the same approach does not protect every operator the same way. Listeners should consult their own qualified professionals on questions of legal liability, operational risk, security, and compliance specific to their circumstances and jurisdictions.
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CITYSAFE PODCAST
Ep. 36: The Missed Scan · Self-Checkout Theft, Skip-Scanning, and Wrongful Accusations
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Self-checkout theft accusations are colliding with a legal problem: a missed scan proves a missed scan, not intent. Don Carr and Jim Cords break down skip-scanning, wrongful detention claims, and why every honest failure at the kiosk looks identical on camera to the dishonest one. Why stops built on a machine's silence instead of observed behavior generate lawsuits, why the "career total" built from months of transactions rarely survives testing, and why the best intervention is fixing the transaction instead of the customer. A beep is not evidence; a total is not a case — conduct convicts, silence doesn't. Loss. Liability. Law.
This is the City Safe Podcast, a conversation at the intersection of community safety, technology, and leadership, co-hosted by Don Carr and Jim Kortz. Together, we examine the critical issues facing cities today and the smarter tools that can help reduce crime and protect our communities. From instant communication systems to emerging technology, we break down what works, what doesn't, and what's next for urban safety. Because in today's world, keeping people safe requires more than good intentions. It requires innovation, data, and decisive action. Listen to the City Safe Podcast, available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Music. Subscribe today and join the mission to make cities safer for everyone.
SPEAKER_00Jim, for a hundred years, retail theft had a shape. Concealment. Something goes in a pocket, in a bag, past the last register. And the hiding itself did most of the legal work because you don't hide a stake in your jacket pocket by accident. Right. And then self-checkout kind of erased that shape.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because now the merchandise is supposed to be in the customer's hands. It's supposed to go in their bag. The whole transaction happens in the open. Which means the only thing separating a paying shopper from a shoplifter is whether a scanner beeped. I'm Don Carr. I'm Jim Cords. Welcome to the City Safe Podcast. Self-checkout theft is today's topic. And the gap between a missed scan and a provable one.
SPEAKER_00So, Jim, let me push the way a store manager would because it's the one typically heard. The camera shows the item going into the bag without a scan. What more do I need?
SPEAKER_02And in a word, intent. And the camera shows an outcome, right? It doesn't show intent. So theft requires a guilty mind. And a missed scan really just proves a missed scan. A barcode didn't read it, an item stayed on the cart's bottom rack by accident, maybe. Produce code entered wrong. Every honest failure looks identical on video to the dishonest one. And when the innocent explanation and the guilty one produce the same picture, you don't have a case, you have a question.
SPEAKER_00Well said. So what turns that question into a case, Jim?
SPEAKER_02Behavior, right? A thing, the things a person does, not things a machine didn't do. Shielding the scanner with a hand or wringing one item while bagging two items, the stack and slide. Conduct you could describe to a jury and then watch them nod. If the whole story is it didn't beep and she left, the stop you make on a machine silence is exactly the kind that becomes a wrongful detention claim.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we had a whole episode about that. There's really a bigger version making headlines these days as well. The career total. Somebody's allegedly been missing scans for months. The store adds it up and then confronts them over the sum.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and the temptation for that is obvious because that big total feels like a felony. But it's a big number built out of transactions that each carry an innocent explanation. And when it gets tested, it tends not to hold the way the spreadsheet promised. If the theory needs the jury to already believe the person's a thief in order to see the theft, that's not a case. That's a grudge with some math attached.
SPEAKER_00A grudge with some math attached. All right. So store level Monday morning. What actually works at the bank of machines?
SPEAKER_02The intervention nobody trains for because it doesn't feel like loss prevention. Fix the transaction instead of the customer. Looks like one didn't scan, let's grab it. You know, merchandise comes back, the Ana shopper stays a shopper, and nobody's name goes in a file. You can't lose that extent exchange, but you can lose the other one badly.
SPEAKER_00And when there's real behavior, do you stop someone?
SPEAKER_02Well, that brings us to write-up discipline in full. So document the conduct you observed, not the beep, and document their exp their explanation, whatever it is. If that explanation was reasonable and the file shows it was never considered, then the file can now work to the other side.
SPEAKER_00Okay. One more, and stores hate it. The environment.
SPEAKER_02Sure. So machines that misread barcodes, a produce menu four screens deep, a cluttered bagging area, there's a system where honest mistakes are easy to do. And it's getting harder to build theft cases on top of a system that's designed to fail. A jury looks at your kiosk and remembers the last time it beeped at them.
SPEAKER_00Right. So let's run it through the frame. The loss.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's real. Skip scanning is a genuine uh shrink driver, and pretending otherwise doesn't help anyone.
SPEAKER_00Right. And then about the liability piece.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Every stop built on a beep instead of behavior. Wrongful detention, defamation in the vestibule, the aggregated case that collapses in public.
SPEAKER_00And then the law.
SPEAKER_02Intent. Always think intent, right? A beep isn't evidence. A total isn't a case. Conduct convince. Silence doesn't.
SPEAKER_00Well said, Jim. And next week we follow one of these stops into the mailbox. The letter some customers get afterward, demanding payment. Legal in most states, and turning into its own kind of exposure. I'm Don Carr. I'm Jim Kords. Stay well, stay aware. And stay city safe.
SPEAKER_01That wraps up this episode of the City Safe Podcast. Thanks for joining us in the conversation about smarter strategies for safer cities. If you found today's discussion valuable, share it with your network and help us spread awareness about the tools and technology making a real impact. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Music so you never miss an episode. Until next time, stay informed, stay connected, and stay city safe.