As a wave of organized retail crime sweeps over California and other parts of the country, retailers are searching for ways to thwart would-be shoplifters, and the latest solution borrows from the playbook of a penitentiary.
The Grove, a popular open-air shopping complex in Los Angeles, has installed a coil-fence barrier that resembles barbed wire at the property’s entrances and exits, CNN reports. The “tangled tape” coil fencing, made from a custom aluminum-and-steel mesh, is installed after the mall closes each night and removed before it opens the next morning.
“The coil wire is a reasonably new technology in retail crime prevention,” Mike Lamb, the former Vice President of Asset Protection and Safety at Walmart, Home Depot and Kroger, told the outlet. “It looks like it’s designed to not cause injury, but [it] can tangle a person in it and slow down someone who is trying to get away quickly.”
Last week, 20 CEOs of leading retailers sent a letter to Congressional leadership asking for help in stemming the widely reported surge in crime.
The letter – sent by the Retail Industry Leaders Association – specifically asks lawmakers to pass the INFORM Consumers Act, which RILA says “will modernize our consumer protection laws to safeguard families and communities from the sale of illicit products.”
Read more at CNN.
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