LPRC - CrimeScience Episode 46 – Pandemic Era Guardianship & Routine Activity Theory ft. Dr. Marcus Felson (Texas State University) Part 2

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

Dr. Marcus Felson, Professor at Texas State University, joins us for two episodes of LPRC CrimeScience. In this second part with Dr. Felson, we continue our discussion on guardianship with an emphasis on the current pandemic, research ideas, routine activity theory, and much more. The post CrimeScience Episode 46 – Pandemic Era Guardianship & Routine Activity Theory ft. Dr. Marcus Felson (Texas State University) Part 2 appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi everyone, welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we aim to explore the science of crime and the practical application of the science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners, as well as other professionals. Co-host Dr. Reid Hayes of the Loss Prevention Research Council and Tom Meehan of ControlTech discuss a wide range of topics with industry experts, thought leaders, solution providers, and many more. Today's episode is a continuation on a conversation with Dr. Marcus Felson of Texas State University on guardianship during the current pandemic and routine activity theory. We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Use Bosch Camera's onboard intelligent video analytics to quickly locate important recorded incidents or events. Bosch's forensic search saves you time and money by searching through hours or days of video within minutes to find and collect video evidence. Learn more about intelligent video analytics from Bosch in zones one through

four of LPRC's zones of influence by visiting Bosch online at boschsecurity.com. I wanted to run a couple other things by you, Marcus, while we're on this podcast. And one is we're looking at, and we talked about guardianship, of course, quite a bit now, but there are three levels that we're kind of paying attention to. One is that in those stores that are open versus closed, obviously the closed stores are very vulnerable right now, and many of the closed stores are not designed to ever be closed. They're 24-hour stores, so they're not secured as well as normal. They may not have even some of the simplest or certainly not adequate protective technologies. And there's nobody there. There's no people, guardians there, and no place managers or any other type of guardian. There are no

incidental guardians inside or in many cases, very few, if any, outside the building. And then finally, law enforcement has had to prioritize so heavily, especially as some of them have been affected. And then the same thing in the stores that are open. We're seeing sort of an erosion of guardianship at those three levels, the police guardians and their technology, the incidental guardians, the patrons, and so forth, and delivery people, and then finally law enforcement or others. Any thoughts around those observations we think we're seeing? Yes.

I will say there are some things to be on the lookout for. One is where are the entries? Are they front, side, back? And where do burglars enter? You may find that those stores which have multiple possible entries are the ones that get burgled mixed in with stores that are open, there's still some surveillance perhaps. Now it's mixed in with residential areas. It's a very mixed bag because often the offenders can go from the residential area and break in at night or day. And I'd be on the lookout for whether there's a shift

in daytime versus nighttime commercial burglary. And also I'd be on the lookout for wealthier areas where people have vacation homes and they go out there. The vacation home thing is a very interesting issue here because usually vacation homes are burgled out of season. And then maybe perhaps the main home is burgled in season while people are at their vacation or whatever way on vacation. This might be turned on its head because people are going counter season in response to the pandemic.

There are other issues. We are getting some signs that New York City is getting more commercial break-ins. And I can't remember whether I learned that from you or where I learned that, but I will say that I think there's a population density issue here, that if population density is great, then you basically only have mixed land use. So all of the stores and all of the industries and all the temporarily abandoned properties will have somebody living near there. So I would be on the lookout for that. And I have a few more things. One of the things is to be on the lookout for where, first of all, find out where your local teenagers hang out, particularly in public.

Sometimes it's hidden from view, but people may know about it. In Northern Europe, there are party barns and sheds where people live, and in semi-rural areas where young people go and they basically get drunk there. And so there may be places like that also in urban areas where they're abandoned. Those are used for that. In Europe, there aren't many abandoned properties because of cost of real estate. We don't have many abandoned properties either in our growing cities, but in our receding cities and deteriorating cities, we have lots of abandoned properties. And they tend to be often are converted to hangouts and criminal purposes. And so places near there then are vulnerable.

And there's another version. There's a kind of a good weather version, particularly in Sunbelt City in the U.S. And I believe will apply in some other countries where creek beds and other and wooded areas within a metropolis can hide illegal activity and people can converge there and hang out there and then places near there are vulnerable for crime so you have a variety of visions there the changing use of the transit system is very important. And with the transit system, you'll have areas that were formerly dense with passengers that are now sparse. And there may be less guardianship there.

be less guardianship there, but there'll be, so, and there's also, there may be a shift in timing. Some of the transit systems are only transporting people during restricted hours, and so, or even closing down. So, those issues are going to be relevant for attacks on business properties and elsewhere. That's interesting stuff. And Marcus, I mentioned to you before we're having these calls with clusters of retailers. We're throwing out some guiding or focus type questions, but mostly getting out of their way. And it's amazing what they're seeing and what they're sharing.

But one is reporting, one of the major retailers is reporting that they've had HVAC systems that have been hit for copper, which we've not seen for a while. I don't know if there's some pending or now increased demand for copper, which, as you know, tends to drive copper theft. I didn't know if you had any thoughts around that. Well, normally the price of copper drives the theft of copper. However, errors are abandoned and you can steal a whole lot of copper easily. Even if it's half the price, but you can steal twice as much,

you're still, it's still profitable and the risk is less. So there, this may explain that in part. And I would definitely think about that. The other thing is there may be some copper theft. Much of it is done by, well, let's think about a few things. First of all, copper theft can be dangerous if there are live systems, particularly live wires. And there are people who have been electrocuted with copper theft. But if the electricity is off or if the easy sources are there, then that may explain it.

It's not something I ought. And I'm not sure where they fence it, and that may be the bigger issue. I'm not sure it's the same offenders either. It may be there are a variety of offenders who have stolen copper. So I would pay a little attention to who, when there is an arrest, who gets arrested or who they think it is. You may look at the cameras and see if there is some shift in who they are. You may find some middle class people doing this now. And there is a, it raised an issue, by the way, of need, the issue of need. an issue, by the way, of need, the issue of need. There's a long time theory that poverty

causes crime, which is largely false in the modern society, but it can have some truth when there are some crimes of desperation, but most crimes in a middle-class society are not desperation. Most crimes, however, there are people who are deeply dependent on drugs, and you might say desperation is part of it. But people in general in a middle-class society are more likely to steal steaks than potatoes. You don't see many people stealing potatoes. than potatoes. You don't see many people stealing potatoes. Now, if it's hard to get food and people are truly desperate, sure, they can steal potatoes. And in a poor society, an example from

in a poor society, people will steal toilet paper. But a middle class society, they will not normally steal toilet paper. But if they can't get toilet paper, they may steal it. So a lot of things change in this kind of an unusual situation where people, the mix of what people steal may be different. and that's something to be on the lookout for. The only thing I'll mention before I go on, normally an academic is suspicious of, it's suspicious of impressionistic data and informal reports. And we want the formal data and the formal measurement and meet a lot of the criteria. But this is a time when informal reports are valuable and likely to be accurate. Now, they may not be accurate for everywhere, but they would likely provide a substantial and useful piece of puzzle. And the reason for that is the changes are so dramatic

that we're not talking about a 2% change and is it really 1%. We're talking about 20%, 30, 40, 50%, sometimes 100% transformation of a crime pattern. And an anecdotal report is much better. And I would explain this. And by the way, this is defensible statistically. If the standard deviation is zero, then the standard error is zero. If the standard deviation is very small, then the standard error is very small. So that means you need a very small N. You need very few cases. And if every detective in your city is saying we don't see X anymore,

I would take that as maybe not gospel-esque, but it is almost surely true. So take your anecdotal stuff, and as long as you try to pin somebody down and say, okay, where? They say burglary is down. Well, where? Is it commercial or residential? Is it in mixed land? If you ask the follow-up questions, you're going to get pretty good data by talking to them. Good feedback, Marcus. And you touched on during that, and that's great using the probing questions, on sort of poverty question. And a couple of things have come out to around the homeless issue. One is when we ask them about burglaries, open or not open stores, what type of neighborhoods are you in? What's open or closed proximate to that store and so on.

But you're hearing different things. In one case, they're seeing a cluster, and particularly in urban areas, of these smash and grab types of burglaries. But when they do the video review, it looks to be transient or homeless people that whether they're desperate or not is unknown, but they don't look like they're systematic burglars. Well, yeah.

Remember, most burglars aren't systematic burglars. Most of the peak age of burglars? Well, yeah. Remember, most burglars aren't systematic burglars. Most of the peak age of burglary is about 17. Now, there are burglars who are more systematic, but even they aren't. I mean, burglary is not really a rocket science crime. Most crime isn't. And sometimes two guys are breaking in houses and they have a little bit of a motosaprandi, but you're not talking. So, you know, think small. Think disorganized. Think easy. Think simple. So, okay, a guy smashes and grabs something and goes. The homeless, I do want to say something about the homeless issue. The homeless have a lower threshold of what they'll steal.

There are people who couldn't be bothered to steal food or to steal a few, to steal dollars in change out of your car. Are certainly stealing things, but they wouldn't bother with that. A homeless person is more likely to bother with that. And maybe to bother with something from the store that's relatively smaller. And so you do find some variations. Think of floor and ceiling effects.

There are people who will have a higher floor of what they'll steal, and people have a lower floor. And then the ceiling effects, there are some ceiling effects where people will steal a bit, but there are people who will steal the paperclips from the office and a stapler but won't steal the typewriter. But there are people who would never bother with the state staples, but would steal the stapler. So you,

you get some foreign ceiling effects and that may show more in the pandemic because of the changing situation. There's a lot of theft of medical supplies and what's related to it and hoarding, that sort of thing. But some of the hoarding isn't necessarily illegal, but the theft is. And so you get some variations like that that you can be on the lookout for. I would pay attention to whether youths are hanging out differently or at all. Are they sneaking away from home?

What are the age patterns? What are the places? And there's another homeless thing I forgot to tell you. the places. And there's another homeless thing I forgot to tell you. I picked up an anecdotal bit from Seattle that the homeless there are expanding into areas where they'll hang out because there's nobody there. Nobody owns the area anymore because there's nobody working there. And so the geography of homeless may change, and hence the geography of where any problems they cause, including theft. The geography of teenagers may change, where you may find they're stealing things locally, but they aren't ranging very widely.

So all of this is worth analysis. Now, it's going to be harder for us to get some of that geography fast because that takes some mapping and so on, but there is a fast way to do it without mapping. But it is de facto mapping. It's kind of a statistical mapping. Namely, if you have for the block groups or police districts or some other numbers, code numbers for those districts, you can have a before and after and see whether there's a shift in which areas have the reported problems. And then if you know your local city, you'll probably figure out right away what it is. By the way, I recommend not before and after, but more like three groups, maybe even four,

Not before and after, but more like three groups, maybe even four, where it's kind of before the impact of the pandemic and the lockdowns during its transition period when people are moving towards changing their, you stores, if you're a company, you may find that the stores being broken into are different before and after. And there may be a pattern according to how proximate they are or the warehouses, how proximate they are to the residential area. That's good. Another dynamic to run by you, Marcus, is, and we've got two or three more here. What is sort of the natural surveillance that we used to get from customers or don't now? But many of the stores rapidly switched to what they call BOPUS, right? Buy online, pick up in store, or return in store. And so you've moved, you now go to a skeleton crew, you move that crew to the front of the store, and they will go and fetch things or forward move them up and stage them. And so what they're saying now is while they have fewer cars and things in the parking lot,

that their parking lot incidents have dropped almost zero because the few employees they do have are right there looking out, and there's a lot of activity in the front of that store, in that pickup zone. Well, that's actually quite interesting, and it may lead to something. That's actually quite interesting, and it may lead to something. I would expect a reduction in attacks on the cars, usually thefts from cars. Now, that depends on how big the store and how big the lot and so forth. You may have more employee theft of certain things. employee theft of certain things. And, you know, and so I think that that may be an issue.

There's less, it's harder to shoplift when there's less crowding. And there's, the checkout is kind of simpler. So I think you're going to, you probably see some changes there. And I don't know how good the loss prevention stats are. And if they have statistics on the items that are, you know, for loss of items, then shrinkage statistics, they may be able to ascertain changes. One thing about shrinkage is shrinkage, of course, can be spoilage and breaking of things. Some stores, and Reid, you'll know the answer to this, some stores will, some companies will be able to distinguish spoilage from theft in their statistics, and other companies

will not. But the spoilage issues completely change with the pandemic because which items, you know, how fast they're getting them out and that sort of thing. And I don't know that area. So I would be cautious to try to reevaluate your shrinkage stats to see whether there really is what kind of theft or shoplifting they're measuring. And also, the issue of distinguishing employee theft from shoplifting may be relevant. And you may have stores where shoplifting becomes impossible. So any shrinkage that's not spoilage is going to be employee theft. A great point in that.

In one case, the retailers were discussing their supply chain. They have special loss prevention or asset protection people for the supply chain, typically the distribution centers and trucks and so forth, that they have special cages in the distribution centers, the DCs, or fulfillment centers, and of course in the stores, particularly for electronics, things that are craved, right? But now with cleaning products, and even toilet paper, as we've seen, they've now, wait, are we supposed to now put cleaning products in there?

They've seen employee pilferage. Many of the retailers are adapting and adjusting to take care of the employees. Look, you can have some of these sanitary or hygiene items. We're going to gift them to you. So they're trying to adjust their employee handling or their procedures with them too and their benefit packages just so you know to adjust and adapt to that dynamic. One other thing I was going to bring up, one last thing is, and this was really interesting, that some of the

retailers on these calls have stores in the United States and in Canada, and in some cases, a lot of stores in both countries. Seriousness, at least, is what they believe right now as far as if somebody aggressively coughs at or on an employee or another customer to get a better place in line or they don't like what's going on or coughing on items, doing things intentionally. quickly identified or seemed to be defined as even an act of terror and that the state, federal, local authorities would take it very seriously and have made arrests in Canada. In which country? In the United States. In the U.S.? Yes, but they've not seen a similar response in Canada and they believe they have escalated events there. So, again, this is anecdotal coming from the retailers from what they're seeing.

Well, that's interesting. I mean, look, we've got a comparison with two cases and there are lots of things differing between the countries, but I think it may have to do with higher rates right now in the U.S. of COVID and also more mismanagement at the federal level. But my suspicion, well, why don't I say what I think is next? I would pay a great deal of attention to public disorder crimes, some of them not even crimes, just public disorder, whether they're defined as crime or not, and the composition of public disorder. And I don't remember whether I went into this in the last segment

a couple days ago, but I'm getting, this is a third type of public disorder I'm aware of, there are three or four, one on iStartup. One of them is that police are giving people instructions and confronting people on this, like, go home, what are you doing here, and so forth. And so that produces a confrontation in some cases. And if people resist verbally or otherwise, it can be reported as disorderly conduct, resisting police,

disobeying police order, whatever it is. And that will differ how it's coded and how precisely it's coded. Sometimes there will be a narrative that will explain what the arrest was or what the report was, and there are indications of major increases in that. The second type is while people are at home and in the residential area, a certain number of their within-house conflicts and conflicts between neighbors can spill out in the streets and become a public order issue. So police then, instead of going perhaps to the entertainment district for a public order issue, they may end up in a residential area dealing with it. And this may happen if people are drinking too much and so forth.

And the third you've mentioned is people actually doing aggressive things, using the COVID to scare other people, whether it's in the store or anywhere else. And there may be other types of public disorder issues that are emerging. Sometimes people coughing, not overtly trying or intentionally, but in disregard of other people and somebody complaining. So these kinds of things are going to be there. And many other public disorder crimes will go way down, such as a whole bunch of them that occur in the entertainment district and others that occur near schools.

So great feedback today. And trust me, all very much appreciated here. and others that occur near schools. So great feedback today. And trust me, all very much appreciated here. We've got more of these cluster calls coming up. And as I mentioned before, Marcus, we're striving to enable the retailers to systematically collect the data. They do make apprehensions normally. They do code a lot about the events as well as the items that were stolen and targeted.

Now, that's all over the place right now. There's a lot of people furloughed, employees in this case. Some of the normally formal reporting that takes place, I suspect this may happen elsewhere too in law enforcement, but it's not being coded as carefully. So it's going to hinder us a lot in the effort to collect good data for them. But we're doing our best. We've developed a couple instruments that we're asking them to help participate in now and then post COVID. So we will be back in touch with all that. So I want to thank you on behalf of our team and, and all these in 68 retail chains that are fighting the good fight to help us get together out there. So Marcus, be safe to you and your family and Mary, and please anytime you've got something of interest in it our way, and we will do the same. Can I urge you to ask your network if they see any sign of change in where the teens are hanging out or if they're hanging out?

Absolutely. So we want to know where the offenders or potential offenders are. No, the teenagers. Okay. Where your vendors, do they see teenagers hanging out at the edge of their store still or any change in that or new hangouts? Okay. Because that's going to affect the theft patterns and burglaries and so on. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you. Be safe.

And we will be back in touch. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more Crime Science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. Thank you.