Stop Shoplifting
Mission
Your Better Business Bureau’s mission is to promote and foster integrity and trust in the marketplace. The Center for Business and Consumer Ethics, Inc. (CBCE), your BBB’s charitable arm, provides support for community education initiatives based on these principles. Ethics is a two-way street, a two party transaction. When a person shoplifts from a business, that person is committing not only a crime, but also an unethical practice against a business.
Program
Your BBB provides a program to the court systems in our service area for the purpose of educating those arrested and charged with theft on the costs involved with crime to themselves, their families, the business, economy and the community. It is a court referred program in which the offender must participate as a part of the sentence/restitution.
Goal
The program’s goal is to further your BBB’s mission in promoting ethical relationships. The Stop Shoplifting School is intended to reduce the occurrence of repeat offenders of theft through information, education and self-evaluation.
Class
The program is presented by three instructors chosen by your Better Business Bureau. The instructors include a prosecutor, a law enforcement professional and a mental health professional. The three topics covered help the clients understand the consequences of their actions, understand the cost to the community as a result of their actions and understand why they committed the crime. The class is three hours and is held on Saturday mornings.
Clients
Greene County Juvenile Court and Montgomery County Juvenile Court. GCJC and MCJC have committed to your BBB the referral of all juvenile first time theft offenders to the class.
Fee
Each youth pays the Center for Business and Consumer Ethics, Inc. a fee of $50 to attend the Stop Shoplifting School.
Impact
Since its inception in 2003, Stop Shoplifting School reaches over 250 youth per year and nearly 80% of the youth that attend do not return to the juvenile court system for criminal offences.