Village of Pleasant Prairie

Located in the Village of Pleasant Prairie is a large regional designer outlet center. In 1994, it became clear that this particular property was being heavily targeted by professional thieves from the Milwaukee and Chicago areas. As this problem continued to grow, so too did the strain on the department's resources. As officers dealt with the shoplifting epidemic on a daily basis, it became clear that there were two major problems, which, overcome, would reduce the frequency of retail theft incidents. The first was a lack of communication between the police and the businesses. The second was a lack of knowledge on the part of the employees of the businesses with respect to the basics of the law pertaining to the various retail crimes and what the department would require of them as complainants and witnesses. To solve the first problem, the department developed the Partnership Fax Network. This is simply a group of businesses on a broadcast fax list. When necessary, the department sends faxes to these businesses, providing them with crime bulletins and a quarterly newsletter. This has been a very successful program because it keeps businesses well informed at virtually no cost. The second problem has been addressed by virtue of quarterly training seminars that the department sponsors for employees of local businesses. Seminars that have been held include: Retail Theft; Recognizing Counterfeit Currency; Check, Credit Card and Document Fraud; and several others. Since the inception of this program, the department has seen the number of retail theft incidents decline dramatically. Further, the effectiveness of the police response has risen if effectiveness is to be defined as number of arrests related to number of known incidents.