I-Team: GGC professor suggests self-checkout lanes to blame for his shoplifting bust

by Randy Travis
Aired December 21, 2022

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA. - A criminal justice professor busted for shoplifting suggested in a lawsuit other factors are to blame for his criminal troubles.

The FOX 5 I-Team first reported last year about the arrest of Dr. Bruce Carroll, who also happened to be the faculty chair for the Criminal Justice program at Georgia Gwinnett College.

Gwinnett County police charged Carroll with felony theft by shoplifting. He’s accused of stealing $629.02 worth of items over several visits to a Target near campus.

In his lawsuit filed against the Board of Regents in early December, Carroll said he was suspended without pay in April, even though he said he was put in a diversion program that would result in the charges being dropped.

He claimed he was suffering "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" due to a "traumatic life experience" around the time of his arrest and "does not remember all of the details."

But the lawsuit said "multiple criminal defense attorneys have publicly warned consumers not to use self-checkout lanes" and provided a story link to a TikTok from an attorney in Arkansas.

"As a criminal defense attorney I advise most people to steer clear of self-checkout," Carrie Jernigan told her 1 million followers. She said retailers are getting hit hard by organized gangs of shoplifters.

"These big box stores are not going to spend their time and resources in deciding whether you stole it on purpose or it was as mistake" Jernigan said. "They’ve lost all sympathy, and they’re taking a tell-it-to-the-judge approach."

No matter what your job really is, chances are you’ve also filled the unpaid role of store cashier.

Self-checkout lanes are everywhere, designed to move shoppers through faster while also making labor costs cheaper.

If Carroll’s theft case was accidental, it sure happened a lot. According to police, he pilfered 19 items — during eight separate visits to Target — all through the self-checkout lanes.

Overall Target reports shoplifting cases have increased 50 percent since last year, costing them $400 million.

"It’s a huge problem," said Dr. Doug Bowman, professor of marketing at Emory Goizueta Business School.

He said shoplifting has risen to epidemic levels thanks largely to the increase of self-checkout.

"For a lot of people it’s easier to steal from a machine than it is to steal from a human," he said.

Grocery store chain Wegmens even discontinued its pay-as-you go app — which allows a customer to scan items with their phone — because so many people were going instead of paying.

Even though he’s not worried about using self-checkout, Bowman agreed not all unpaid items are a crime.

"There’s a lot of honest mistakes," he said. "You and I are not trained to scan products, right?"

But even if the obvious answer is to hire more cashiers, Bowman believes retailers will opt to redesign self-checkout areas — adding more supervisors and cameras — to deter store crime.

"I don’t think you’re going to see them abandon them in the near future," he predicted.

Carroll’s attorney Julie Oinonen did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Board of Regents said they do not comment on litigation and would provide no answer as to Carroll’s job status.

In his lawsuit, Carroll is asking for back pay and compensatory damages for "the pain and emotional distress, humiliation, and loss of reputation imposed upon him" by his unpaid suspension.

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