LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 164 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Integrate 2024 planning has begun, this week our hosts discuss the second annual Integrate event! Also this week, our team looks at the escalating situation in Israel, and how LPRC FusionNet is monitoring domestic disturbances. The hosts also go into a recap of the latest AP/LP news and conference speaking sessions. Listen in to learn more! Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more! The post CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 164 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners as well as other professionals. Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Crime Science, the podcast from the LPRC. And I'm joined today by Tony D'Onofrio and Tom Meehan and our producer, Diego Rodriguez. And we're just going to talk a little bit about what's going on with crime, loss, retail, and other global events. And I'll start with other global events, of course. Many of you know that at the LPRC, we stood up what we call FusionNet on the Discord platform for our members to stay in touch, to feed Intel and updates digitally,

as well as on voice channels. And we did that during the pandemic, starting out with just sharing ways and ideas and things that they needed to about what they were seeing and how things were changing, but especially during the looting and rioting that we saw in 2021 and so on um and continue to do so and so during the of course philly uh looting incidents uh discord was up people sharing intel uh photos videos and other ideas and then now with the um the hamas um uh horror uh in israel the same thing due to the concerns around possible violence or threats or intimidation or just even just disruption at stores and store environments or with store employees or associates. So a lot of good intel and a lot of good involvement, engagement. We're very appreciative. If you're an LPRC member, reach out to us at operations at lpresearch.org and learn about FusionNet.

I'm just back from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, IACP, a big convention in San Diego, a wonderful opportunity and experience. And I was there, Axon asked me to come out to meet with their leadership and others to learn more about the suite of technologies and where they might fit into some of our initiatives, the Gainesville Eastside, Westside, as well as Atlanta and Albuquerque. And so we made great progress there. Also to talk with some other solution partners. And so we made great progress there. Also to talk with some other solution partners. And of course, a lot of chiefs of police there. They hosted a breakfast with 125 chiefs and then had another event with hundreds of chiefs. And so I got the opportunity to meet with some of them, including our own LPRC board advisor, member of chief Rich Del Toro of Port St. board advisor, member of chief Rich Del Toro of Port St. Lucy police department. So just a great time and a great opportunity to really think about connecting to safeguard and to get things moving in places like Atlanta and

Albuquerque. We've got a whole lot of planning and effort underway and already completed with a whole lot more to go in those two places, just like with what we're doing in Gainesville. But it always, always helps to have partners and people with connections. And the CEO of Axon, Taser, you know, Rick Smith, one of the, probably one of the brightest, most creative people in any industry, but certainly how he's helping law enforcement create more public safety. And so some of his ideas and support, but also some of his contacts will be very, very useful for what

we're up to. And then now I'm heading out to San Antonio for Chain Store Age magazine, that publisher. They have specs and X specs conference out there in Texas and going out there to talk about crime prevention to environmental design. What are things and this is a this is a gathering of store planners and the architects, designers, people like that, the real estate people that are in charge of finding locations, building the stores, rebuilding the stores and so on. So that's kind of what this is a great opportunity and event there to get involved and help them better understand how to look at parking lots overhead. Think about the ecosystem, not just to get customers and employees in and out quickly and to give them the best access, but how to do the opposite for the bad guy. So the red actor that's there to commit fraud or violence to victimize that place. And then so I'm excited to get out there and work with that really neat group.

And meanwhile, we're planning for our February event Ignite. While we're planning for our February event, Ignite, that will include again this year the Integrate tabletop exercise. This time we're working very closely with University of Florida Police Department, including their emergency services people, to put together a very, very, very, very realistic active shooter event. And so that deep planning is going on, led by Dr. Corey Lowe, our senior research scientist here. And we've also got a whole lot going on with our AFFECT, Dr. Justin Smith on our team, a research scientist, is heading that initiative as far as AFFECT, the offender decisions, and all the things across the five zones, across the double bow tie. While Sam Young, Dr. Young, another research scientist, is heading up our CONACT, both strategic and tactical share. And then Kayla Boyer, a research scientist here, is heading up the initiative as far as what we're doing with DTEC,

earlier and better detection and definition of threats. And so part of what I was doing at IACP was making contacts with some additional solution partners that have some pretty exciting technology that would help us do just that, detect individuals and crews. And in both cases, we're going to be putting together some retrospective case studies, pretty interesting. Some major events that all of us have read about and know about from the media. Stay tuned on that. But we're going to leverage some of these exciting technologies and go back and do case studies. Leveraging that because a lot of the things that we need have been archived. So the data sources. So what I'll do, though, with no further ado ado let me turn this over to Tony and off Rio who's traveling the globe as per normal and doing some exciting things with centromatic and and then we'll go to Tom

so Tony take it away if you would you very much read for those great updates and it's good to see all the different things that you're involved in it's good to see the industry embraces the work that the Loss Prevention Research Council is doing and getting a lot more active in it. I'm actually going to talk about my European tour and some of the things that I was doing in Europe over the last several weeks. And this is actually my second trip to Europe in the last month or so. And I actually wrote an article on this topic in terms of what I saw in retail. It's called Let's Get Fidgeto and Get the Future Retail Party On.

And it's really a summary of what I saw in visiting these futuristic stores in Europe. And what became clear from those visits is that the linkage between physical stores and online e-commerce is growing stronger and much more innovative. Progressive retailers are moving on from omni-channel to what they call now digital. And differentiating between the two, the omni-channel consumer is one who shops using both online and offline channels. Digital is the deliberate focused operational strategy to combine digital and physical experiences across channels. created at the intersection of physical stores and e-commerce at a strategy it heavily embraces technology to deliver a differentiated memorable consumer experiences it's a natural evolution of the growing digitization trends around

us heavily embracing smartphones as windows into the shopping journey as I said in the article these trends provide provide examples, and then you can see them actually. Go to the article. It's on my webpage, or also will be on LinkedIn later this week. It provides visual example in terms of what's going on. But looking at it from a consumer and what they're looking for, consumers are becoming much more discerning in terms of their shopping. 32% will leave a brand after a bad experience. 71% expect personalized experiences. 76% get frustrated with personalized interactions. Don't happen.

consumer experiences was the number one requirement in the last RIS News retail store experience study. And in that study, what they were talking about is that the top three were number one, personalizing the customer experience, number two, inventory visibility, and number three, empowering store associates. And I truly believe those are the top three priorities that make retail successful right now. And I actually talk about these whenever I do my global keynote on the future of retail, which I call the disruptive future of retail. And there's lots of other research that actually reinforces what I just said. PWC, for example, just issued some new research that looked at what consumers are looking for as they go into stores. And they're actually looking for this blend of physical to digital.

But number one, they want knowledgeable and helpful sales associates. But what's interesting is all the other stuff below it. They want to use self-service. They want to use shop on the retailer's web app in-store and still browse online at the same time. They want to click and collect services. They want the ability to scan and go on their phones. They wanted store entertainment. They want the ability to try immersive digital experiences and they want the ability to book retail appointments. All that stuff is digital. It's really at the crossroads between physical stores and also online experiences. What's also interesting, retailers, because of their loyalty programs and because of the amount of value that they deliver,

it's actually one of the most trusted industries. And you will actually see some data in the article that compares it to media and social media. So really consumers trust the retail company as long as they get the value from that experience. So it's important in terms of providing that value if they're going to give up some of their privacy and engage with you more from a digital point of view. The combination of physical stores and online options have been underway for some time in my view and in fact the pandemic accelerated them.

way for some time in my view and in fact the pandemic accelerated them. Some examples that really can be classified as digital are buying online and pick up in store, in-store associates accessing a customer profile that includes their online purchases and wish lists to recommend products, buying online and having it shipped to your home, looking at makeup in a store and then virtually trying it on the argumented reality, visiting a store, trying a shirt and buying it later online and customers using self-checkout as stationary point of sale or on their smartphone. And there are some additional examples that I saw in Europe, which are really, really interesting. The first one was actually the ability to just throw a whole bunch of garments

inside a basket at checkout, and then the RFID actually automatically rings them up, and all you've got to do is pay. And I saw that in multiple stores, including Zara, which is part of Inditex and Uniqlo, but I know also Decathlon has a similar type of an approach where you can ring up all the items automatically using RFID. One of my other favorite ones I saw in a couple stores in Europe where they had QR codes all over the walls and throughout the store. And basically, when you scan that QR code, you instantly switch from the physical store to the online store. And you can basically use it as the extended aisle and keep shopping both in store and outside the store.

All these stores that I saw actually had interactive screens throughout the store where you can actually either go up and ask questions. Or, again, you can buy from the interactive screen by going to the website so if you don't see something in the store either a store associate can take you to the screen and find it online for you or you can find it yourself i also saw the the future of fitting rooms uh zara for example offers an rfidabled check-in area where you put your garment next to a wall. It basically counts them for you so you know how many items are going into the fitting room. And then assigns you a personalized fitting room. So it tells you, go to fitting room number four.

That one is open right now. And then in another store, I saw actually the next phase of that, which is having smart mirrors inside the fitting room. next phase of that, which is having smart mirrors inside the fitting room and actually having that smart mirror recommend, based on what you brought in, other products to go along with it or for you to call an associate to get a different size. So really, the fitting room is interactive. And finally, one of my favorite examples, one retailer had a fitting room that was designed for TikTok. It actually has some really wild colors and some wild text all over the wall. And the idea here is you find something that you like, you go in there and you shoot a TikTok video, and then you post it and you hope you get some viral

content in terms of what you're getting there. There was also examples of making it much easier to return products that you bought online using QR codes. One retailer had the ability to recycle clothes through some interactive things. So old used clothes that you bought from them, you had to actually bring them back. But the other really great experience finally was actually going to the Nike London town, London Nike town.

It's a huge store on Oxford Street in London. And it reminded me of some of the things that Nike is doing in the digital space, including a shoe bar where customers can customize their Nike shoes, cameras and sensors that surround a basketball court, and treadmill that offer feedback on performance. In-store trainers that use data to provide advice and assistance to analyze results to make product recommendations. In the Nike app, shoppers can access early product drops and solicit styling advice from experts. And then the brand Nike Training Club app puts the brand's gear to work with personalized home workouts and helps sneakerheads

locate rare and highly sought-after pairs, plus sign up for personalized notifications on new drops. So it's interesting how this again, this digital, which is again, the combination of physical stores with online and making it seamless and actually making it fun for the two to bridge each other. So by 2026, according to eMarketer, 76% of total retail stores will still be in physical stores. So they're going to remain a critical element for the industry, which is good news for the people that have stores, but they need to have more of these digital to physical experiences, which are going to differentiate the fastest growing retailers.

So I think it's time we start thinking more about digital and get the retail party on to a brighter future of retail. So that's a little bit from my European tour. With that, let me turn it over to Tom. Well, thank you, Tony, and thank you, Reid. A lot to report this week. I wanted to start off with, if you're listening, and I know this is a repetitive statement, and you're not involved in the Loss Prevention Research Council's FusionNet, you should be. With the unfortunate events that are happening in Israel, we've been very, very active on the FusionNet. For the listeners that don't recall, the FusionNet is something where our members can share active intelligence data. This is a kind of social platform to help folks prepare

for weather disruption, civil disruption, protests, and other global or national events that could impact. It's kind of a way to share current intel and validate. As we know, a lot of times when there's events occurring, information is happening in real time and there's a necessity to help kind of, for lack of better words, plan and understand what is real and what is not. So we have a lot of data there. I'll kind of recap a little bit in the invasion or attack on Israel. There's been a tremendous amount of protests throughout the globe, both for and against Israel. So pro-Palestine Israel, as well as a heightened terror alert for the United States and really abroad as well. I just actually just landed back home from the Middle East just a couple hours ago.

and very, very similar in Dubai to what's being talked about here in the United States is there's a lot of unknowns and a lot of misinformation being spread. So the fusion net is a place where everybody can get together. Right now, I think just a couple key factors or things to be aware of is one, that the FBI has issued a warning. to be aware of is one that the FBI has issued a warning. While there are no specific credible threats, there is a heightened warning to stay vigilant for potential domestic terror. Also, the U.S. State Department has heightened its travel alert for folks that are traveling abroad. And basically, it's a worldwide caution alert so you can get more information about that but this is not specific it to a country they did do worldwide

there are regions where they're saying that pardon me there's more to be done but basically the caution is due to growing tensions and violence around the world that there is an actual travel alert for everybody to be aware of. regions. I think that the worldwide alert is something that, while unfortunate, was not necessarily something that wasn't expected with something that's going on. I'll read the alert. It's due to increased tensions in various locations around the world. The potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations, or violent actions against U.S. citizens are increasing of interest. The Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution. U.S. citizens should stay alert in locations frequented by tourists, enroll in the smart travel program, and that way you'd receive alerts and follow the Department of State

on both Facebook and Twitter. These are things, if you are a frequent traveler, I mean, I know that a lot of folks here are, that I'd recommend anyway. I think that it's good to be aware of what's occurring, especially if you're an international traveler. There's quite a bit that occurs in somewhat real time. But this heightened alert is really just as much about vigilance and staying smart, pardon me, as anything else. But I think one of the things I would say is if you are someone that is a frequent traveler, be aware of what's going on in the areas you are. Pay special attention to what's occurring around you and, if at all possible, stay out of areas where there are protests. I can tell you that just coming back

from the Middle East, I did not see a big, big change. I was at a trade show with over 100,000 people at it. And while folks were definitely 100% talking about it, there wasn't at all an increased security threat. And in some of the regions of the Middle East, there are heightened alerts all the time. I actually spoke to someone that said that this was a fairly normal event in their area and that they were prepared for it. So again, reminder for everybody to please join the FusionNet if you're a member. There are and have been protests daily throughout the world and throughout major U.S. cities. Some have unfortunately become violent. Most have been

peaceful, but I would definitely encourage everybody to join and stay connected. Wanted to switch gears a little bit to the time of year that, you know, the holiday season is fast approaching. So there has been an increase already in phishing scams related to package deliveries. Be very aware of that. I think one of the trends that we're starting to see, which we know, I know we've talked about here, this trend is heightening more, and we've talked about it several times on the podcast, is alerts via email or text. That is opposed to asking you for information or asking you to call. This is a psychological ploy. They're not asking you for anything in that text message.

Call this number to validate or verify, And then there's a human interaction occurring. Rule of thumb is to double, triple check anything. If you're not expecting anything, not missing anything, be aware of it. Other thing is look at your links, look at the phone numbers, look at the text messages. These are scams that are all about timing and usually are massed in the sense that they're sent out in large, large groups to hope, casting that large net to hope to get some sort of response. Additionally, I think we may have mentioned this once before, there is an ATM scam that seems to be increasing, which is when the card port that you'd put your card in your card reader is glued shut so that you use contactless payment. And then there is a person in the area that employs a social engineering tactic to try to distract you and hope that you'll leave the ATM unattended before the session is closed and remove money.

There, unfortunately, in the last couple months have been victims that have lost several thousand dollars. One victim basically was susceptible to this. And in their account, the person took as much as they could before it stopped. they could before it stopped. While this is very dependent on banks, because one of the tactics that these folks rely on is that the ATM does not require a PIN or interaction after one transaction is complete. I know I went to my bank and took a look at it, and as soon as any transaction is complete, it requires you to put your PIN and number in again. So I think there's some banks that have some fail safes put in place here, but the idea here is glue forces you to use the tap or the contactless feature. And then in turn, someone tries to distract you to get away from it while the

session is still active. Thought process here is before you would not walk away because your card was in place. Now that your card's not in place, you could get distracted and leave. There are even tactics being deployed where folks are walking up behind the person with what looks to be bank attire and saying, this ATM is out of service, putting a sign on it while it's still active and going ahead and trying to withdraw monies. This is happening at a high enough rate that it's starting to circulate, so I thought it would be pertinent to talk about that here. As usual, we'll talk kind of about the normal circumstances that occur with cybersecurity. There have been multiple rashes of large ransomware attacks. What we continue to say is to stay vigilant and stay aware of what's occurring. When in doubt, don't click on that link. If you're not expecting an

attachment from someone, don't go ahead and open it. Do not execute any programs. These are all basics, but while it may seem repetitive, we continue to see a huge trend of this. So with that, everybody stay safe, and I'm going to turn it back over. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Reed, for all those great updates. Keep listening, listeners. We enjoy giving you this great update. More importantly, get engaged with the Loss Prevention Research Council. It's where we're going to define how retail goes next. And as my friend Mike Lamb put it at LPRC Impact, get our stores back. See you next time. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research

Council. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast

are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Loss Prevention Research Council.