1. Overview

This study aims to investigate the scale and details of crime damage made at unmanned stores that are spreading fast across the country. Furthermore, it would like to make contributions to the establishment of a sound and proper unmanned store culture by suggesting a system of responsive measures against crimes targeting unmanned stores. 

For this purpose, this study analyzed the characteristics of unmanned stores that became the victim of such crime and of the offenders recognized by the judicial authority, respectively, by examining the police crime statistics and the courts’ written judgment, and examined the details of damage endured by the store owners through a questionnaire based-survey. In addition, by conducting an in-depth interview of the store owners, the police officers, the concerned personnel from the private security companies, and concerned personnel from the relevant franchise companies, it analyzed the details of crime damage and the state of responsive measures.

2. The State of Unmanned Store Crimes on the Police Statistics and the Court’s Written Judgment 

The following are the characteristics of unmanned store crimes captured by the police statistics. From September 2020 to January 2022, on average, about 96 cases of unmanned store crime were recognized by the police in each month in the city of Seoul, of which larceny was the majority accounting for 83.9%, followed by the violation the Specialized Credit Finance Business Act (unlawful use of lost or stolen credit card) accounting for 6.7%. The most vulnerable types of stores as the victim of this crime are, first, ice cream and snack store, and then self-service coffee shop, coin laundry, and doll picking machine store, in this order. The damage amount are mostly small sum, not more than 100,000 Won (78.2%), while large sum damage, over 1,000,000 Won, were only less than 1%. More than half of the offenders were teenagers (57.3%), followed by the people in their 20s (16.6%). 

Compared to the serial crime targeting unmanned stores in Busan, it appears that while one-time misdemeanors, which is the majority type of unmanned store crimes, are usually committed by the teenagers, more serious serial crimes are committed by the young adults in their 20s. In the case of serial crime, complicity is more than solo offenders. The examination of the court’s written judgment revealed that the types of unmanned stores targeted by such crime included unmanned convenience store (34.4%), unmanned ice cream discount store (25.6%), coin laundry(24.4%), unmanned video game/doll drawing/game room (5.6%), and self-service coffee shop (2.0%), in this order. The overall damage types were, first, larceny and then destruction in both adult and minor offender groups. Whereas the rate of destruction was higher among the minor offenders (36.0%) than the adult offenders (23.3%), the crimes of fraud or business obstruction committed by adult offenders were not found at all among the minors. The comparison of the unmanned store crime on the written judgment of the courts with the general larceny in the crime statistics revealed that the number of accomplice at the time of crime were similar in both. The only difference appeared was the time of crime. In the case of general larceny, the crime occurred mostly from lunch hours to early evening, while unmanned store crimes occurred mostly at late night and early in the morning.

3. Survey of the Store Owners and In-Depth Interview of the Concerned Parties The survey questionnaire given to the unmanned store owners was intended to identify the characteristics of the business, neighborhood environments and the fear of the crime damage, crime preventive activities, the experience of the crime damage, and the ways of response to the crime. For more complicated details which were difficult to be explained by the questionnaire, a group discussion meeting was held as a means to complement the survey. The survey collected 200 samples from two types of business entities, that is, sales type businesses which generally treat retail goods and space rental businesses which focus on the provision of particular services, and compared the characteristics of damages by the type of business operation. The following are the details of damages due to unmanned store crime identified by the survey. The most frequent type of crime experienced by unmanned store owners were larceny (61.0%) > fraud (47.0%) > destruction (18.0%) > disturbance and violence (13.0%). By the type of damage, the store owners who experienced the stealing of sales goods (51.5%) were more than those who experienced the stealing of store supplies (22.5%). In the meantime, the rate of sales goods stealing endured by the sales type businesses was extremely high as 89.1%, while the rate endured by the space rental businesses was relatively low as 13.1%. The damages by destruction included, from the most to the least type, the destruction of store supplies and facilities 11.0%, kiosk machine 7.0%, and security system 2.0%. The damages by the business type showed a significant difference as the destruction on kiosk machine was 11.9% in the sales type business and 2.0% in the rental type business, but the destruction of store supplies and facilities was similar in both types of the business. In case of the fraud damages, from the most to the least, damaged by the use of a lost or stolen credit card was 23.5%, switching the goods prices during barcode scanning was 21.0%, eating without paying was 14.0%, and exchange or refund by unlawful method was 10.5%. As for the damages endured by the business type, the sales type business experienced, from the most to the least, damages by the use of a lost or stolen credit card (38.6%), price tag switch during barcode scanning (39.6%), and eating without paying (24.8%), which was significantly higher than those suffered by the rental space business.

While the overall rate of damage experience was high, the damages of repeat crime endured by unmanned stores appeared to be considerably high. The most types of repeat crime were larceny 19.0 cases > fraud 15.6 cases > business obstruction 11.1 cases > destruction 2.5 cases. By the type of business, the sales type businesses suffered more the repeat crime of stealing of sales goods (21.2 cases), compared to the space rental type businesses (8.2 cases), while the space rental type businesses suffered more the repeat crime of stealing store supplies (8.2 cases) than the sales type businesses (4.8). As for the crime of destruction, the sales type businesses suffered slightly more of kiosk machine destruction (1.3 cases) than the rental type businesses (1.0 case), while the rental type businesses suffered more of the destruction of store supplies and facilities (3.9 cases) than the sales type businesses (1.1 cases). As for the crime of fraud, the sales type businesses suffered more of repeat crime, especially price switch during barcode scanning (15.9 cases) than the rental type businesses (5.5 cases). Repeat crime of eating without paying was also suffered more by the sales type businesses (18.7 cases) than the rental type businesses (10.0 cases). Lastly, repeat crime of disturbance and violence occurred more in the rental type businesses (13.5 cases) than the sales type businesses (6.6 cases).

The analysis of the vulnerability factors to the crime revealed that in the crime of larceny, the business category, physical area of the business, operation period, and the number of customers were the main factors that affect the vulnerability to the crime. Moreover, where there were elementary, middle and high schools around the subject stores, the rate of experiencing larceny was increased, significantly. Furthermore, where there was higher security level around the stores, the damages by larceny became rather greater, whereas where physical disorder was pervasive around the subject stores, the larceny damage was decreased. This could be interpreted that the lower the level of security or physical order surrounding the unmanned store which affect the stores directly, the more protective measures the business owners would take to make up for such weakness. As for the crime preventive measures, of various physical security devices, only the entrance control system appeared to reduce the risk of larceny damage.

In the case of destruction crime, the area of business space and the operation period of the business appeared to affect the degree of damages. Throughout the characteristics of many local communities, only the physical disorder appeared to be a meaningful vulnerability factor of destruction; however, as in the larceny cases, the rate of experiencing the crime was lower in the groups situated in relatively higher physical disorder. As for the crime preventive device, the stores that installed a private security system and internal CCTVs suffered considerably less destruction damage than the stores without such measures. 

In the case of fraud, the area of the stores, operation period, and the number of customers appeared to be the main factors to affect the vulnerability to crime. As in the larceny cases, the analysis results indicated that the more the number of customers, the greater the damage of fraud crime became. Moreover, where there were schools around the subject stores, or the subject stores were located in residential neighborhood, significantly more damages by fraud were found. In the case of disturbance and violence crime, any meaningful vulnerability factor was found in the business characteristics. Nevertheless, the higher the social order or the less schools around the subject stores existed, the more the crime occurred in the stores.

4. The Current State of Unmanned Store-related Responsive System and Improvement Method This study conducted a research targeting the police officers and private security personnel, in order to identify the preventive and responsive measures against unmanned store crimes, as well as other related issues. The following are the brief introduction of the improvement method for the current responsive system. First, the way to handle petty crime cases should be improved. Given that the majority of unmanned store crime damages are small value, the crimes are misdemeanor. Therefore, of the unmanned store crimes, those that have less damages and no disputes about the facts, as well as those of which the damage has been recovered, should be treated as a misdemeanor case by applying appropriate procedures, accordingly. Through this, we could avoid unnecessary waste of investigation resources, prevent labeling too many people as ex-convicts, and encourage damage compensation more quickly. 

Considering that most of the unmanned store crimes are committed by youth, it is also necessary to improve the effectiveness of juvenile crime response measures. To prevent this type of crime more effectively, the operation of the guidance review committee and guidance programs should be improved.

With respect to the punishment of unmanned store-related crimes, clear criteria to determine the intrusion to the store structure should be presented. The examination of the court’s precedents concerning unmanned store crimes has revealed that in only a small portion of cases, the court acknowledged the intrusion to store structure. According to the analysis of written judgment, in the unmanned store crimes, the act of store intrusion or the store intrusion at night was established in 26.7% and was not established in the rest of 73.3%. As much as the application of the crime of intrusion to a subject building structure affects the sentencing in the unmanned store crime cases, it is necessary to objectify the criteria, based on a legal principle, for deciding whether an act of entering an unmanned store which allows free access without a specific entry-control system would constitute a crime of intrusion to the subject structure.

As for the improvement method for preventive system, it is necessary to introduce a situational crime prevention strategy. In detail, we need to identify the context in which the crime opportunity is created in unmanned stores, which is the new environments vulnerable to this crime, and to apply 25 techniques of situational crime prevention which focus on the control of crime opportunity. The techniques include the installation of AI-based CCTV for the ‘increase of effort’, introduction of identification verification system, elimination of ‘blind spots’ which increase the risk of crime inside the stores, reinforcement of natural monitoring, introduction of membership system, unification of credit card and digital payment for ‘reduction of the compensation’, provision of video materials teaching how to use the unmanned store for ‘reduction of the stimulation’, enhancement of customer service to resolve customer complaints, posting of the code of conduct and warnings for ‘elimination of the excuses’, and reinforcement of crime prevention education for youth.

Moreover, a data collection system that can identify the exact state of the crime should be made. For this, the local autonomous governments should prepare an institutional method to check the current state of the business entities, in their jurisdiction, categorized as self-employment. In addition, the police should add ‘unmanned store’ to the Police Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics, as well as to the entry field of 112 report.

As for the private security companies, they should establish and maintain an organically cooperative relationship with the police. The both parties should find various ways to cooperate with each other so that the private security companies should be able to compliment the police’s power of public order, while the police should be able to use the technology and human resources of the private companies. 

As for the business owners of unmanned stores, they should understand that they themselves are the principle agent in crime prevention activities and play a more active role in that regard. To do so, it is necessary for them to establish a close cooperative relationship with the local business owners and to strengthen the joint monitoring system with them, more actively.