Most shoplifters (商店扒手)agree that the January sales offer wonderful opportunities for the hard-working thief. With the shops so crowded and the staff so busy, it does not require any extraordinary talent to help you to take one or two little things and escape unnoticed. It is known, in the business, as "hoisting". But the hoisting game is not what it used to be. Even at the height of the sales, shoplifters today never know if they are being watched by one of those evil little balls that hang from the ceilings of so many department stores above the most desirable goods. As if that was not trouble enough for them, they can now be filmed at work and obliged to attend a showing of their performance in court. Selfridges was the first big London store to install closed-circuit videotape equipment to watch its sales floors. In October last year the store won its first court case for shoplifting using a evidence a videotape clearly showing a couple stealing dresses. It was an important test case which encouraged other stores to install similar equipment. When the balls, called sputniks, first make an appearance in shops, it was widely believed that their only function was to frighten shoplifters. Their somewhat ridiculous appearances, the curious holes and red lights going on and off, certainly make the theory believable. It did not take long, however, for serious shoplifters to start showing suitable respect. Soon after the equipment was in operation at Selfridges, store detective Brian Chadwick was sitting in the control room watching a woman secretly putting bottles of perfume into her bag. "As she turned to go," Chadwick recalled, "she suddenly looked up at the 'sputnik' and stopped. She could not possibly have seen that the camera was trained on her because it is completely hidden, but she must have had a feeling that I was looking at her." "For a moment she paused, but then she returned to counter and started putting everything back. When she had finished, she opened her bag towards the camera to show it was empty and hurried out of the store."