TJX Retailers Allowing Some Workers To Wear Body Cams

TJX Retailers, which owns TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods along with five other franchises, has started allowing some of their in-store personnel to wear body cams as a way to discourage theft.

“Body cameras are just one of the many ways that we work to support a safe store environment,” a spokesperson told Boston 25 News. “This includes a variety of policies, trainings, and procedures. We hope that these body cameras will help us de-escalate incidents, deter crime, and demonstrate to our associates and customers that we take safety in our stores seriously.”

The spokesperson said only employees who have “gone through thorough training” regarding the use of the cameras will be allowed to wear them.

“It seems like overkill,” former Sierra employee Maxin Roznerita told Boston 25. “I don’t think it would do too much from my experience. A lot of time when we would see theft, it would be with our own eyes, and we’d approach them.”

Although TJX Retailers says the footage would only be released to police in certain instances, such as part of an investigation or subpoena, some police departments bypassed these requirements through city ordinances like one the City of Houston passed in 2022, where it was allowed to take video footage and levy fines from certain businesses if the footage is not provided. 

As Chron.com reported, the ACLU of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project protested this policy and sent a letter to then-Houston Police Chief Troy Finner and Mayor Sylvester Turner.

“Warrants help to ensure that police action is supported by probable cause. Without such a requirement, the ordinance emboldens the police to demand that business owners turn over days or weeks of surveillance footage as part of fishing expeditions to discover trivial infractions committed by business owners, employees, customers, or passersby.”

The letter continued, “Black Houstonians—already disproportionately stopped, arrested, and shot by the police—are likely to be even more heavily policed and criminalized as a result of this ordinance.”

The public, meanwhile, seems split on the idea of body cameras, as indicated by a report from WXYZ in Detroit, which asked several people on the street their opinions on the body cameras in TJX stores. Scott Sheddy, from Westland, Michigan, told the outlet, “I’m not a thief so it doesn’t bother me; when you walk into any store, there’s cameras present whether or not they’re on a body or they’re in the air. I think if somebody wants to steal, they’re going to steal regardless if somebody wears a body camera or not or whether there’s a wall-mounted camera.”

Yolanda Caudle, from Southfield, Michigan, told the outlet that she doesn’t believe the body cameras are necessary as “cameras in the store should be sufficient enough to stop any type of crime or any type of shoplifting at the store.”

Some employees do not feel like the body cameras are actually being deployed with any intent. One TJ Maxx worker in Florida told CNN that the cameras are just something the company can point to. The employee said that security workers “just stand there with the tactical vest labeled ‘security,’ and the camera mounted on the vest.”

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