NCJ Number
111414
Journal
Security Management Volume: 32 Issue: 5 Dated: (May 1988) Pages: 79-81,83-84
Date Published
1988
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article focuses on the causes and prevention of employee theft.
Abstract
American businesses in 1988 will lose more than $200 billion to thefts committed by employees. In 1964, the Stanton Corporation, an honesty testing firm in Charlotte, N.C., administered a questionnaire to 25,000 prospective employees. Twelve percent indicated that they had stolen from a previous employer. Twenty-one years later, 32 percent of the more than 100,000 applicants said they had stolen from a previous employer. A common guideline in security is that 40 percent of the work force is inherently honest, 30 percent looking for ways to steal, and 30 percent capable of stealing given the right set of circumstances. A study by Reid Psychological Systems in Chicago, Ill., found that two-thirds of inside theft was by employers who had been on the job 2 years or less, and one-third was by employees who had worked on the job 6 months or less. Employees aged 16 to 22 were found to have committed 67 percent of all thefts. Furthermore, high job satisfaction results in low levels of theft, while low job satisfaction is correlated with higher levels of theft. Three characteristics, all of which must be present in an individual before a theft is committed, are motivation, opportunity, and rationalization. Methods of preventing employee theft are (1) preemployment screening (verifying employment history and background), (2) education and awareness, and (3) internal controls (separation of accounting duties and inventory controls).