Macy's has agreed to stop targeting racial and ethnic minorities in its efforts to combat shoplifting in its 29 New York stores.
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office began probing Macy's security practices in July 2003, after black and Latino customers complained they were targeted for particular scrutiny. The customers contended they were followed, questioned and searched based solely on their race or ethnicity.
Spitzer said the probe indicated that the vast majority of persons detained on suspicion of shoplifting were black or Latino, and that their representation in the pool of detainees couldn't be explained either by customer demographics or local crime rates.
The very high percentage of blacks and Latinos among detainees at Macy's - over 75% at most of the stores examined - is significantly higher than the percentage of blacks and Latinos shopping in those Macy's stores.
"Store patrons should be allowed to shop unencumbered and free from harassment," Spitzer said. "This case demonstrates our resolve in fighting racial discrimination."
Spitzer's office also found unlawful policies and practices with respect to the handcuffing of detainees at Macy's stores. Although the official policy of Macy's is to handcuff detainees only after an individual determination of dangerousness is made, virtually every detainee suspected of shoplifting was handcuffed in a number of New York City stores, regardless of the person's age, size or behavior.
Further, at one upstate store in which security personnel had the discretion to handcuff individual detainees, Latinos were five times more likely and Blacks were nearly three times more likely to be handcuffed than white detainees.
Although Macy's has long had a formal written policy banning racial and ethnic profiling, Spitzer's investigation found that Macy's has not adequately monitored the conduct of its security employees so as to prevent and remedy discrimination.
Under terms of the agreement, Macy's will pay the state $600,000 in damages, costs, and attorneys' fees, and will take a number of steps to avoid future discrimination by security employees.
The agreement requires Macy's to:
• Appoint an internal Security Monitor to train, monitor, and investigate complaints about security employees;
• Train security employees and sales associates more extensively on how to avoid discrimination in efforts to detect and prevent shoplifting;
• Hire an outside entity to perform anonymous audits to assess whether security employees treat shoppers differently based on race and/or ethnicity;
• Adopt new record-keeping requirements to enable better tracking of security employees' interaction with customers;
• Permit handcuffing of detainees based only upon individualized assessments of dangerousness;
• Change detention policies and practices to ensure that detentions are reasonable in length and nature;
• Centralize and improve the investigation of complaints about the conduct of security employees; and
• Conduct annual assessments at various Macy's stores to determine if there are any racial disparities in security practices and, if so, take appropriate corrective action.
Macy's has already taken steps to implement the agreement. The position of Security Monitor has been created and will be filled shortly; new procedures are in place for recording contact between customers and security employees; and new policies regulating handcuffing detainees have been adopted.
