Strip Mall Undercover
A recording on the listed phone number said that applicants must be 18 years of age and “in very good physical condition, as handcuffing is part of the job.” I jotted down the address, in a part of the Valley where street numbers stretch into five digits. I had to borrow my brother’s moped to make it to the interview, but the ad—“UNDERCOVER STORE DETECTIVE TRAINEES NEED NO EXP OK WILL TRAIN HI-PAY”—rich with caps and exclamation points, said that once you began, you could work close to home.
The Store Detective Association is housed in a 1970s bunker on Sepulveda Boulevard with a hazardous waste bin tacked to the door that leads upstairs. Their offices sit along a dreary hallway they share with a decrepit family doctor and Immigration Legal Services. I knocked and went inside.
The receptionist had the look of a veteran actress in the adult film industry—blond and buxom, with multi-colored makeup and a healthy indoor tan. “First time? Just sign in here and fill out that top form,” she said, gesturing to a row of clipboards on the opposite wall.
I drew a slash under the field marked “U.S. CITIZEN/ALIEN #,”and asked which were the “TWO SHOPPING MALLS CLOSEST TO YOUR HOME.”
“You ready?” she asked when I was through, then ushered me towards a back office for the interview. Before going in, I exchanged gruff “hi”s with the occupant of the neighboring office, a mammoth man with a goatee and a long ponytail combed back over his bald spot. He had deep-set brown eyes and forearms the size of my thighs: another agent for the Association.
Broad-shouldered and square-jawed, José nevertheless looked tiny in comparison. His office was decorated with 8x10 color prints of shoplifters and loss prevention agents in action: a suspicious white teen slipping a sweatband inside his hoodie; the same teen being led away in handcuffs; a young woman frozen in the act of being found out as she pulled a pair of socks from the rack; a loss prevention agent (one presumes) holding a night stick high above the back of an agent of loss. On the desk was an authentic-looking badge in an open leather sleeve, marked “Loss Prevention Agent.”
We went over some logistics—full time or part-time, which zip codes I could work in—before José explained the ins and outs of the profession, peppering his intro with relevant stats—“in retail, 80% of loss is from the employees themselves.”
“You will be working directly for the stores,” he told me. “Benefits kick in after 90 days. We work with some of the biggest retail stores in the country—JC Penney, Best Buy, Target, TJ Maxx. Some of the time you’ll be following different surveillance cameras on-screen, as you see in the picture, but about 80% of the time you’ll be working on the floor in plain clothes…You usually work with four or five other agents together, as a team. Now, you will be making arrests…”
José went over protocol step-by-step, then paused. ”Now, we do have some liability issues, especially out here in California.” Inexperienced loss prevention agents, he conceded, “tend to make false arrests…and it costs the companies a lot in lawsuits.”
Wherefore a seminar training on loss prevention in two modules, mandatory for employment. José slid a handout about the training across the table, highlighting “5 ELEMENTS OF ARREST” in yellow under the heading “Module 1.” Module 2 covered “Testifying in court” and “BURNING SUSPECTS.”
“Now, there is a small investment in order to be certified,” José said in a low voice, leaning forward. The training costs $300, payable to the Store Detective Association. I was enticed, but the overhead seemed high; even if you passed the training exam, they couldn’t guarantee employment. It was beginning to seem like a scam—if they offer seminars every week even when retail is down, how could new agents even hope to get work?
It could be that loss prevention is a recession-proof industry. These days, as employees and shoppers find themselves on a tighter budget, “the stores may be taking a bigger hit: there is always someone out there who thinks they can beat the system. I was in the field for more than ten years,” José said, “and there was always work.”
