Interviewing has not yet reached its purest expression in retail. This is because we have not yet navigated the external theft interview with the same intensity and focus we have applied towards internal theft interviews. Traditional interviews of organized retail crime subjects often follow a question and answer format and as a result will not produce a high success rate of a true admission. Questions such as “what is the street value of this merchandise?” and “who do you sell this too?” are by their nature closed-ended questions. Research has already shown that close-ended questions do not elicit explanatory admissions. This article delivers the theory that Organized Retail Crime subjects should be interviewed and not questioned. Within these pages is a true tactic that has delivered optimum admissions from ORC subjects. These pages contain the external tactics that were developed and used by the author over the last 3 years.
The unique qualities that existed within a subject apprehended for Organized Retail Crime resulted in specific tactics that were used during interview and interrogation in order to achieve a global admission. Although the techniques in interviewing did not change, the tools that exist within conventional interviewing became more select and exclusive. The tools that were impacted by the ORC tactics were the introductory statement, select rationalization, interpretation of submission, and specific accusation.
Non ORC apprehensions were also interviewed for prior theft admissions based on the subjects’ method of operation in executing the theft. Also provided are the 5 Behavioral questions specific to the external theft that were used to elicit additional behavior from the subject to determine if a single act shoplifter (non-ORC) should be interviewed for prior acts.
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