US based company allows shoplifters to avoid the police by charging them for an online course

THIS start-up company has made over $7.2 million by giving criminals an offer they couldn’t refuse. It sounds like complete lunacy.

IN THE game of Monopoly, there’s nothing better (apart from maybe winning free parking) than turning over that community chest card to see the words “get out of jail free.”

Now imagine that someone hands you that card after you’ve committed a criminal act in real life.

That is essentially what one company based in the United States is doing.

The Corrective Education Company (CEC) is a start-up, and works with businesses to offer shoplifters an alternative path to reform other than the boring old legal system.

Founded by a pair of Harvard graduates, it offers the chance for apprehended shoplifters to pay $411 ($US320) in order to avoid a phone call to the boys in blue.

That money goes towards the cost of attending an online course which is run by CEC that claims to reduce the likelihood of recidivism for the individual.

The obliging shop owners who refer the shoplifters get a cut of about $US40 per offender, and according to Slate around 20,000 offenders have so far coughed up for the program.

That works out to be $7.2 million that CEC has profited by blatantly circumventing the established judicial system.

Winona Ryder talks to her defence attorney Mark Geragos as the verdict is read in her shoplifting trial. The actress probably would have liked the option to simply pay for an online course.

The company boasts on its website that the entire thing is “completely offender funded.” According to Slate, US shopping outlets that cooperate in the scheme include, among others, Whole Foods, H&M and popular retail outlet, Bloomingdale’s — however they all refused the magazine’s offer to comment on their involvement.

Defenders of the scheme cite the benefits of allowing people to avoid a potentially crippling criminal record and of freeing up the court system from becoming clogged with petty criminals.

As the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the developed world, those that support alternative solutions such as that offered by CEC point to the perils of the private prison system operating in the US.

It is a topic that has received increased scrutiny lately, and is a system which has been accused of treating inmates as commodities by enacting laws that ensure a certain level of incarceration is maintained.

But don’t expect any Australian companies to emulate CEC.

News.com.au spoke to a number of criminal lawyers who expressed grave concern over the very shaky legality if an Australian company were to replicate such a business model.

However senior law lecturer at University Technology Sydney, Ian Dobinson who specialises in criminal law and punishment, said that the diversionary approach taken with some of Australia’s drug laws could conceivably be replicated in cases of shoplifting.

“I would think any company doing this would have to be legally approved and licensed,” he said.

As far as the retail outlets profiting from referring shoplifters, it is obviously a moral and legal quagmire.

“All this would have to be approved by some law or regulation. But assuming we could do this then we too could set up such a program,” he said.

A five finger discount could end in a nine hour online course if this company gets its way.

Naturally, the CEO of the US based company, Darrell Hunstman is a big proponent of the business model and doesn’t see a problem in its logic.

“It’s a win from every angle,” he told Slate. “It’s a win for the offender. It’s a win for the retailer. It’s a win for the criminal justice system. It’s a win for the community. Who loses in this?”