It's a restorative justice program where the offenders make restitution to the ones they wronged rather than to the state. No need to involve law enforcement or the courts in this process then. Gosh, just think of the reality TV show you could make out of this. You can get people to agree to submit to anything just to get their 15 minutes of fame, can’t you? You could end each episode by having the inmates vote on who among them should be caned that week. Wouldn’t that build up suspense?

“The retailer has been using a "restorative justice" program in 1,500 of its stores, according to The Gainesville Sun. That's a program in which people deemed low-risk, first-time offenders are given the choice of paying to take an anti-shoplifting course rather than facing arrest and prosecution. “

“The 2016 national retail conducted by the National Retail Federation and Dr. Richard Hollinger of the University of Florida, shows that shrinkage (theft including shoplifting and employees stealing) cost retailers $45.2 billion in 2015. That's 1.38% of total sales and for the second year in a row shoplifting "has surpassed employee theft as the greatest cause of inventory shrink," according to the study.

“The NRSS found that the average loss per shoplifting incident was $377, a nearly $60 increase from 2014. The cost of employees stealing actually dropped from $1,546.83 to $1,233.77 year over year.”

“In the same Time article, Burt Flickinger, managing director at Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm, estimated that for every dollar in sales, Wal-Mart loses roughly $0.02 to shoplifters. He noted that rivals like Cocsto or WinCo, a regional supermarket chain, lose less than a penny for each dollar in sales.”

“Clearly that incentivizes Wal-Mart to change how it handles shoplifting. Adding more employees in general or in loss prevention might help catch more people, but the restorative justice program could actually lower repeat incidences of shoplifting without increasing costs for the chain. That's a big win for Wal-Mart, but it's also a model that might begin to make a dent in the $45.2 billion in shrinkage the industry experienced in 2015 should other retailers adopt it as well.”

Wal-Mart has a unique way to cut down on shoplifting