Steps from the pantyhose section of Macy's Manhattan store sits a cool, halogen-lighted room containing two chain-link holding cells. People, some of them minors, are led to this room every day, where they are body-searched, photographed and then handcuffed to a long steel bench.

An interrogation occurs, and a verdict is made as to whether or not they tried to steal. Their Social Security numbers are punched into a national database, and they are turned over to the police or they are freed. Almost all of them sign confessions and are asked to pay private penalties -- five times the amount of whatever they stole.

This private jail, and the policing system that governs it, is replicated to varying degrees in other department stores across the nation with a twofold purpose: to stop shoplifting and to recoup some of the billions of dollars lost to theft every year.

Last year, more than 12,000 people moved through detention rooms in 105 of Macy's stores, including more than 1,900 at the Manhattan store, in Herald Square. Only 56 percent of those people were sent to the police. The company, though, says that over 95 percent of those detained confess to shoplifting and quite a few pay the in-store penalty before leaving. The Manhattan store lost $15 million to theft last year.