PUNISHMENT BY EMBARRASSMENT… FLOUR-POURING ON SHOPLIFTERS TRENDING

Shop owners and employees have devised new ways of punishing shoplifters without involving the police, a trend that is slowly taking root in Bulawayo.

Shoplifting is the act of stealing from a shop while pretending to be a customer.

Instead of handing over to the police individuals apprehended for shoplifting, shop employees in the City of Kings dish out a form of punishment that is “embarrassing and demeaning”.

In a recent incident that took place in the city centre, three women caught shoplifting in a cosmetics outlet were poured with flour, had their pictures captured and shared on social media for the world to know that the culprits make a dishonest living through stealing merchandise from city shops.

As the saying goes, the Internet never forgets. Two weeks later, the three women are still the subject of crude jokes online after pictures of the alleged shoplifters covered in flour from head to toe started trending.

“The humiliation of walking in town to the taxi rank covered in flour is the ultimate punishment for shoplifters. We caught the three women stealing perfumes and rolled them in our shop, but instead of phoning the police, we decided to punish them by pouring flour all over their bodies,” said a shop employee in the city centre.

“To make sure that the world knows that they are thieves, we made sure pictures of the women covered in flour went viral.”

The reasoning behind not opening a criminal case against shoplifters, according to the shop employee, is that the suspects allegedly end up serving community service or paying a fine.

“It’s so embarrassing that the majority of people that we catch shoplifting in my shop are women, some as old as 50 years and older. It seems they make a living through shoplifting and move around shops in pairs and threes.

“One of them will distract shop attendants by asking a lot of questions about products that we sell while her colleagues steal anything they can get their hands on and stash the stuff under their dresses,” said Miriam Mpala, a shop owner in the central business district (CBD).

She said sometimes the shoplifters succeed in stealing from her shop and she only notices after reviewing closed circuit television (CCTV) footage.

“When they steal from a particular shop, they don’t come back for at least a fortnight, hoping employees or the shop owner will have forgotten their faces. We keep pictures of their faces retrieved from CCTV footage in order to identify them the next time they come into the shop, and we politely ask them to leave” she added.

Commenting on pictures of the three women caught shoplifting in a cosmetics shop, a Facebook user urged other shop owners to do the same instead of handing over the culprits to the police.

“I can imagine these women’s kids and grandkids seeing pictures of these thieves on social media. They deserve to be embarrassed like this,” said Mandla Mpilo.

Anele Moyo, however, reckons shop owners should hand over culprits to the police.

“What happens when the shoplifters become aggressive, and resist being humiliated like this and fight back? The next thing, shop employees will beat up the shoplifters and up end going to jail for assault, attempted murder or worse.”

Bulawayo provincial police spokesperson, Assistant Inspector Nomalanga Msebele, however, urged business owners to hand over shoplifters to the police as opposed to taking the law into their own hands.

“Shoplifting is a crime that must be reported to the police. Police do not condone taking the law into one’s hands,” said Ass Insp Msebele. *_-H-Metro_*