Employee Theft Characteristics

Characteristics of Employee Theft

• Few employees who steal from employers have a long-term commitment to their employers or are in dire financial straits at the time of the offense.
• Motives for employee theft include:
  • Explanations of offending differing between types of staff and their circumstances.
  • Debt, opportunities, and feelings of unfair treatment.
  • Revenge for perceived injustices, inadequate remuneration, self-enrichment, and assistance to others.
  • Awareness of other employees stealing, personal financial difficulty, remoteness of being caught, and belief that if caught, they will not be prosecuted or punished.

Explanation of Shop and Employee Theft

• Critics say that situational crime prevention causes displacement (moving the crimes to another location).
• Different forms of possible displacement include:
  • Temporal: committing the intended crime at a different time.
  • Spatial: committing the intended crime in a different place.
  • Target: switching the crime focus from one target to another.
  • Tactical: committing the intended crime using a different method.
  • Functional: committing a different type of crime from the type initially intended.

National Crime Prevention Strategy

• The National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) aims to influence the operations of various departments, including Safety, Justice, Correctional Services, Welfare, Defence, Intelligence, Health, and Education.
• The strategy includes joint decision making by directors-general and ministers of NCPS departments.
• The four crime prevention pillars or models are:
  • Integrated criminal justice model
  • Crime prevention by means of environmental design and control
  • Promotion of community values and education
  • Prevention of transnational crimes

Integrated Criminal Justice Model

• Objectives:
  • Promote the effectiveness of the criminal justice system
  • Focus on the needs of offenders and victims to improve the credibility of the criminal justice system
  • Make courts accessible to all, especially the relatively powerless
  • Promote good interdepartmental liaison, especially in the interests of preventing and controlling high-priority crimes
  • Develop an integrated management system to promote the successful investigation, prosecution, and punishment of high-priority crimes
• Recommended programmes:
  • Effective management and control of the criminal justice system
  • An inclusive crime information and intelligence service
  • An effective prosecution policy
  • Appropriate community service programmes
  • Diversion programmes for juveniles
  • The safe detention of juveniles
  • The coordination and rationalisation of laws
  • The support and empowerment of crime victims

Crime Prevention by Means of Environmental Design and Control

• Focus:
  • Restricting the opportunities to commit crimes, especially those with low detection and prosecution rates
  • Security for homes and shopping centers, upgrading existing areas and security for new structures
  • Encouraging overall environmental security through information and publicity campaigns
  • Urban development, transport systems, and residential areas
• Programmes:
  • Effective administration and communication programme
  • Identification system for marking articles to prevent fraud and theft
  • Programme for combating vehicle theft
  • Programme focusing on corruption and commercial crime

Promotion of Community Values and Education

• Basic premises:
  • Inform the community about how the criminal justice system functions
  • Promote community values and norms that reject crime and violence
  • Teach non-violent solutions to conflict in the community
  • Make members of the community aware of steps they can take to reduce the risk of victimisation
  • Implement school-based programmes that teach life skills, non-violent problem-solving techniques, how the criminal justice system functions, and respect for human rights
• Programmes:
  • Public education programmes
  • School programmes
  • Information disseminated via the media
  • Mediation programmes

Prevention of Transnational Crimes

• Objectives:
  • Control the smuggling of various commodities, such as drugs and diamonds, and control the trade in protected species
  • Control the influx of illegal immigrants
  • Prevent organised crime
  • Prevent money laundering
• Programmes:
  • Cooperation with neighbouring states and international organisations, such as Interpol
  • Cooperation with other departments and the public
  • Increased policing and intelligence control

Role of the Station Commissioner and Functions of Divisions within the SAPS

• The station commissioner is responsible for managing crime combating and crime detection functions within the station area, including:
  • Crime prevention
  • Support services
• Operational services respond reactively after a crime is reported or uncovered by the unit.
• Crime intelligence and crime detection services investigate crimes and provide additional assistance in the investigation of such cases.
• Support services, such as management, financial, and administrative services, human resource management, and logistical services, fulfill a support function to assist members of the operational and investigative units.