LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 167 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

LPRC Kickoff Registration is Filling Up Fast, this week our hosts discuss the continued growth of the LPRC! The hosts also go into a recap of the latest AP/LP news and industry conference takeaways. Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more!

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, from the University of Florida campus. And this is the latest in our weekly update series. I'm joined today by Tony D'Onofrio and Tom Neum and our producer Diego Rodriguez. And we want to talk a little bit about what's going on around the U.S. and the world. And starting with the world, of course, what's going on in Ukraine, what's going on in Israel are affecting supply chains, of course, and other disruptions around the world, in addition to the horror that the people on site are experiencing.

And, you know, I read a headline the other day, are we a war, excuse me, are we a world at war or is World War III coming? And so far, certainly we are a world at war. And, you know, I can know from my U.S. Army experience and, of course, paying attention to the media that at any given minute, any given time, somewhere or somewheres in the world, there is armed conflict, there is war, there are battles going on. So these two are particularly horrific and large and affect much, much larger areas of the world, it seems, than other conflicts do. And the fact that they are in two different areas and pinning down so many resources is pretty staggering and stunning. So just a little bit of those macro effects, more Tony D'Onofrio's area than mine, but I thought I'd talk about, you know, what

the concerns that we all have for the people there. And then of course, there are second, third, fourth order effects that extend everywhere. And here in Gainesville, even, that extend everywhere. And here in Gainesville, even we've got state highway patrol troopers, FHP stationed by Jewish worship or gathering areas. We've had Jewish fraternity and sororities defaced and signs put up in the football stadium, the swamp and things like that. They were taken down before anybody came. But, you know, it's these the entanglements and the things that are going on, the human dynamics are pretty incredible. And that's, of course, all of us are in crime prevention or dealing with day in and day

out is some type of amazing thing where one human decides to harm another, threaten another, all the above. So we'll move on from there and talk a little bit about the LPRC if I could. We have the LPRC kickoff event, typically 100 executives meeting up at Bloomingdale's and their flagship store in Manhattan the day after the National Retail Federation, the NRF Big Show, ends this year. Pretty much the same thing, only maybe a little bigger. Again, the LPRC impact this October, we were expecting between 300 and 400 participants and ended up with 533. So, we see some, it seems, pretty significant growth in participation in our events at the LPRC, our working groups. Lab visits are now just about bi-weekly, heading in toward weekly now with us

here meeting with retailers particularly, but also solution partners. So we anticipate that LPRC kickoff that will be January 17th, 2024, will be a little bit larger, whether it's 102 people or it's 122 or 152. We just don't know yet. We already have close to 90 participants registered. We've never had people registered at this early date period. So we're not sure what kind of leading indicator that is. But if you're interested, reach out because there will be some limits and then a waiting list. And this is what we've had to do with LPRC kickoff and some of our events, many of our events, if not most now. So it's an exciting situation.

It looks like, as of last night, that AT&T Business has secured a Hudson Yards facility, a beautiful, new, shiny, world-class facility in manhattan not too far from the javits center where the nrf uh big show the convention is based um that would be on january 17th um and it's 8 8 30 a.m somewhere in that time range uh at Hudson Yards, it looks like. We've got some wonderful benefactors, sponsors, if you will, partners in what we're doing in AT&T business. And it looks like two to four others want to make this happen so that it's a world-class event. accommodate a larger group, but allow us to do breakouts and the more interesting and important impactful things. Since we did get to that point at the, in the Bloomingdale's training room, where it was standing room only, we could get some things done, but it was, you know, we just, as many people in classroom style as you could cram in there per fire code, which was, I think,

in there per fire code, which was, I think, 100. So that's an exciting prospect. So stay tuned. Go to LPRC's lpresearch.org website. If you're not getting the Connect, the e-newsletter that goes out every midweek from LPRC to Connect, send us a note at operations at lpresearch.org and let us know to get on that registration and then potentially at some point waiting list. And we're curating some pretty interesting content. Partnership is the key theme, as will be for all of our LPRC events this year. What we're doing with Connect in the five zones, the double bow tie, we'll be going through what's going on, our concepts, what's going on in the five field initiatives. Again, think about the four square blocks around our labs. The Innovation Square is our first one. So we've got six interior labs, as many or most of you know, in the UF Innovate Hub building where our base is.

Those labs, the parking lot, the engagement, the activation, the simulation, the ideation, and the SOC or Security Operations Center. Those six labs are surrounded by the four square blocks that the building's situated on. That's our test area. Again, 10 now platform sensor and deterrent tool platforms now with a few more on the way. And so that is place one, right? Drone activity, things that we're working on, curbside pickup and crowds, curbside pickup, and crowds active assailant. So that's the second one, of course, is Port St. Lucie, three Walmarts, three LVT platforms in the parking lot of one of the three Walmarts, studying what's going on in those parking lots and stores before deployment compared to after. So we've collected 36 months of reported activity from Walmart team that have occurred that they know about in the parking

lot and in store and lost levels. The same thing, 36 months, excuse me, of activity from Port St. Lucie Police Department calls calls for service on those properties, as well as arrests made on those properties. And then finally, with their fire rescue working now, we have not yet got the data, we'll be putting in calls for service on those properties from EMS Emergency Medical Services. So that's what's going on there. Zooming up the state to Gainesville east side, again, eight retailers. We've had multiple planning calls. We've deployed some things. We've got some leveraging existing sensors, camera infrastructure, getting an idea

of what's going on as a baseline, as well as what we talked about in Port St. Lucie from Gainesville Police Department, Gainesville Fire Rescue, and from those eight participating retailers, what have you experienced, what's been reported and recorded in and around those eight locations 36 months prior, and then as with Port St. Lucie, a regimen to collect either in real time up to weekly, and in some areas we know later it will be monthly, but collecting incident information there. this week, tomorrow to be exact. Part of them, this will be the SWAT team and others, emergency components, as we plan out what I'll talk about later, but also coming up as a meeting with their crime analysis and their crime prevention teams to plan out now putting the Alachua County Sheriff's Office data into the platform since we've now got University of Florida Gainesville Police Department that will have their data too. Those would be the three main agencies here on top of Gainesville Fire Rescue and then later Alachua County Fire Rescue. So moving along, we've created dynamic

maps, obviously dashboards for Port St. Lucie and Gainesville for the east side and west side that will be coming up, Atlanta and Albuquerque. So all of those areas have highly dynamic data sets, cap index scoring, just everything that we can come up with from bus stops to bus routes, abandoned buildings, any meaningful layer that we know about as criminologists or that we learn about from others. We're putting those data into these dynamic maps for everybody's use to be able to zoom in and out. We've got a lot of drone imagery of the eight stores and around them here in the Eastside Gainesville Initiative day-night aerial footage. We're going to be expanding that to areas and pathways. We believe that offenders move up and down power lines and through neighborhoods and other ingress, egress routes on foot, bicycle, or, of course, vehicles, mass transit, to just understand the ecosystem, the ecology of the place, and so on. with Rutgers University in their SIMC unit on risk terrain modeling.

We've done that for Gainesville proper, both east and west side initiatives. So a lot happening, a lot more coming up. We have a planning map with icons that we're working with the retailers to get, all right, what are they going to test with us as far as effect, affecting offender decisions, getting better at deterring and disrupting and documenting them the next one of course what are they going to work on us work with us on as far as detect detecting offender individuals and crews online and physical spaces as they move toward and after going to these places to commit crime so on the connect, the strategic dashboards, that part of sharing and connecting is already ongoing. Working with AxonEvidence.com and others will be collecting incident information in that format, arrests and so on, as it moves its way from a retailer to a law enforcement agency to the prosecutor. In our case, the state of Florida has state attorneys similar to a DA or a solicitor or a county attorney in other jurisdictions or state attorneys as well. So big, big moves happening.

Where are we putting platforms? Where are we putting signage? Where are we putting cameras? All these things are happening. We're also working at the neighborhood and community level. All these things are happening. We're also working at the neighborhood and community level. So building those bridges with BOLD, which is a program for young African-American men that have been arrested multiple times. It's expanding, but working with the African-American Gainesville PD officers that work with that program, working with the Chamber of Commerce and other community leaders, houses of worship, putting together a completely dynamic ecosystem to better understand and then start to affect things and learn together over a minimum of three years. The Atlanta deep planning, we've now got another retailer on board that we're putting some parking lot, zone four, we call it, sensors and interior store,

zone three sensors, so that we can have those at multiple locations and then with multiple retailers to sense in a very large community like Atlanta area up through Cobb County, how serial offenders move, who are they, where are they hitting, how are they moving place to place, what places are they affecting, where are they located themselves, the offenders, compared to where they're striking, and get that dynamic. So that's our serial offender study area, Atlanta, that area of Atlanta. Albuquerque heavy-duty planning there, dynamic map, as I mentioned, all the layers going in. We do now have APD, Albuquerque PD, participating and getting ready to contribute

data. There's publicly available data we've already got and mapped. They've certainly got a whole lot more. They now seem to be highly interested in the project. There'll be a lot more things going on that you're going to hear about, again, with community engagement, looking at mass transit dynamics around that Coronado Center and rating it outward and inward. So we'll be looking at co-located retailers in that massive mall environment, the enclosed center environment, as well as an independent or roadside and, of course, open centers around that area of Albuquerque. So, just a long-winded explanation about some of the projects. These are the projects and more that we'll be discussing

in addition to the active assailant, active shooter tabletop. This thing is really coming together. shooter tabletop. This thing is really coming together. Many will recall that the Integrate tabletop we conducted in February on campus here at the University of Florida, 31 retailers, 46 executives, eight law enforcement agencies came in and conducted that. Well, this year, it's going to be, instead of focused this past event, excuse me event on a very violent robbery event where the two offenders went to one location and then left, struck that area and then left to go to another. And how we would detect, affect and connect along those journeys and see if we could prevent a second victim. So this year will be an actual active shooter. There are profiles that have been developed. We're developing with a forensic psychologist. We're going to have two threat assessment teams going through those. We're going to have activate and have the real

individual that's actually assimilated, but that will be going around town, see if LPR has picked them up. We're going to be doing a whole lot of things to stretch and break and understand across Alachua County, Gainesville and University of Florida campus. So that all those agencies can get better and better, farther and farther left of the event, left of Bang, as well as get better at during the event at Bang. And then, of course, post-event right at Bang. We'll be leveraging the brand new University of Florida Police Department's public safety building and UF's emergency operations team that have conducted many tabletops. And again, this EOC is activated constantly for six to seven home football games, for demonstrations or controversial speakers, for tornadoes and hurricanes and any and everything else that seems to be significant, including some of these demonstrations that have come up as a result of the Hamas attack on Israel.

So this is going to be a pretty exciting one off or excuse me, probably hopefully one of a-a-kind to date unprecedented event. We'll be leveraging three different University of Florida buildings. We're going to have this area where we'll have big screens and we'll have groups of retailers in working along the tabletop in addition to what the agencies are doing and have full visibility to what they're doing and seeing before, during, and after how they're handling it. And everybody then debriefing and getting together. So again, unprecedented. We don't know. I mean, again, last year we had 31 retail corporations represented in addition to eight law enforcement agencies. We'll see this

year. It could be between 10 and 75. We're not sure yet. So it's a massive undertaking. And the team on top of working 60 projects a year now, research projects, working on these events like kickoff, like this integrate tabletop, which will be part of the winter planning meeting, Ignite in February. It'll be 28th for the Ignite Board of Advisors and Innovate Advisory Panel meeting. The 29th will be this Integrate Active Shooter tabletop massive exercise. It actually extends beyond a tabletop to what is called Wargame, right, because there are kinetic components and things. So stay tuned again to the Connect e-newsletter, lpresearch.org. Of course, what we're putting out on Twitter, Facebook, and, of course, all the time on LinkedIn.

So that's a lot, a whole lot more going on. We've got meetings, fun meetings today and every day putting together these projects. So I'm off to the races. I want to turn it over to Tony D'Onofrio and then Tom. And I appreciate you all listening. So, Tony, if you could take it away. Thank you, Reid. Let me start this week with the latest data on retail violence from the D&D mid-year fatalities report just published this week for the first six months of this year retail fatalities are down two percent to 342 people killed in their industry comparing the data to 2016 when this report was started however retail fatalities are up 74 percent in the same periodidents of violence are flat to 302 when compared to 2022, but again

are up 71 percent since 2016. 18 percent of those killed were suspects, which were 36 percent, which were up 36 percent on last year. 59 percent were customers, which were up 6% on last year. Store associate debts were nearly at 20%, and that is down 29% from last year. Law enforcement, loss prevention, and security personnel debts were at 3.5%, down 37% for the first six months this year. 39% of the fatalities were in parking lots, 57% were inside a store or a mall, 4% were off-premises.

By gender of those killed, 88% were males and 12% were females. The top three retail formals for retail fatality for the first six months this year were convenience stores at 35%, restaurants at 14%, and malls at 10%. Wednesday had the highest fatalities, followed by Tuesday and tied Thursday and Monday. followed by Tuesday and tied Thursday and Monday. The top three states with the most retail fatalities were Texas, California, and Georgia. The top three cities with the most retail deaths for the first six months were Houston, Columbus, and tied for third New York City and Philadelphia. Violence is indeed a problem and all of us need to work together, including here at the LPRC, to mitigate. Let me switch topics and go across the pond

to the UK, where they just also are seeing a lot more increased violence. And this is an article that just appeared again this week in the BBC and is titled, We Go to Work to Serve Customers, Not to Be Abused. As the article states, UK retailers have been dealing with a big rise in shoplifting, driven in part by the cost of living crisis, which has coincided with an increase in threats against death. Firms such as Tesco and Aldi have begun to roll out body-worn cameras across their stores, but some retail bosses say the police need to take the problem more seriously. The Retail Trust, which spoke to more than 1,600 shop workers from 200 companies such

as Tesco, H&M, and the Co-op, it found almost half feel unsafe at work, while a quarter did not report incidents of abuse, partly because of poor response from police in the past. The police recently committed to attend more to crime scenes and use facial recognition to target offenders. Jane, a checkout supervisor from Mould in North Wales, told the BBC Breakfast that she felt retail abuse was more common now than it's ever been. She described a massive increase during COVID lockdowns where staff had to reduce changes to the way customers were shopping,

like one-way system and social distancing measures. She said one shopper has stood nose-to-nose with her and threatened her verbally, which was particularly threatening at the height of the pandemic. Since then, the increased cost of living has meant shoppers might be more frustrated when they get to the tails or cash register, particularly if they are asked for a photo ID when buying restricted items, she said. Shopping isn't as fun as it used to be. Everything has gone up in price for whatever reason, and customers don't like it, and the staff

generally get the brunt of it. In an open letter organized by the Institute of Customer Service, more than 50 businesses, including John Lewis and the Post Office, as well as several members of the British Parliament, urged the government to ensure assaults on shop workers were better recorded. This would include recording such crimes separately in police statistics, they said. Separately, the co-op said on Monday that it recorded over 300,000 incidents so far this year of shoplifting, abuse, violence, and anti-social behaviors in its chains of stores or shops. It marks a 40 percent increase compared with the same period in 2022. In the majority of the 3,000 more serious cases,

it's said the police had failed to attend when requested. Paul Gerard, director of public affairs at the co-op, told the BBC Today program that rather than individuals stealing a loaf of bread or a pint of milk to feed themselves, their shame were not seeing prolific offenders, or as we will call them in the United States, organized retail crime. He said workers were seeing individuals and organized gangs coming in to take out the entire meat section, the entire spirit section, the entire household cleaning section and those kinds of individuals will stop at nothing. A number of retailers have announced they will be investing in additional security or

body-worn cameras for staff to combat violent behavior little for example announced last week that staff across is 960 uk stores will wear body cameras although they will not be required for all workers its boss said the individual safety measure will cost over uh two million million and that retail crime is something that is impacting the whole industry. According to the latest figures from the British Retail Consortium, incidents and violence and abuse have almost doubled on pre-pandemic level to 867 incidents every single day in 2021 and 2022. A spokesman for the Home Office said it is completely unacceptable to threaten or assault shop workers who have recently put aggravated sentences for assaults on shop workers into law showing that the crimes would not be tolerated.

They said that the policing minister was clear the police should take a zero-tolerance approach to crime, especially where violence is used, adding that the recent retail crime action plan will see police attending more crime scenes and patrolling bad affected areas. That's it for this week. As you can see, the trends of violence and abuse are not just in the United States. In the United States, we have more violence that leads to death because of, as I explained earlier in the fatalities report but even in the uk they have some substantial challenges so we all again need to work together to address them and with that let me turn it over to tom well thank you tony and thank you reed a lot of uh interesting news in technology this week

meta rolled out they're paid some part meta formerly known as facebook Meta rolled out their paid, some part Meta formerly known as Facebook, rolled out their paid version in the EU. This was driven by a legal decision where the EU fined Meta a billion dollars for using EU citizens' data to track them and share that data in the United States. So this is a paid tier. It's $10 a month right now. It appears it would be $10 a month for Meta and Facebook separately, because Meta's Facebook and Instagram separately. It's in the early stages, and there's no actual site of this coming to the U.S. until laws require it. What does it mean?

Well, it means that there's kind of a change in the garb of social media. I would argue somewhat successfully launch a paid tier for verified users. While I don't think it was a huge, you know, a huge number of people did it. There were a lot of people did it without resistance. I personally have been saying for years that we as American citizens gave up our privacy for convenience many years ago. And one of the examples is social media. for convenience many years ago. And one of the examples is social media. Now I'm a heavy LinkedIn user, a heavy Twitter X user. I do still have a Facebook account that I use to share with friends and family photos of the children. But the reality is from the beginning, I've understood what I'm giving up to do that. And for me, I enjoy the interaction and for work, obviously use it. So I have a full grasp of what occurs.

One of the challenges is these terms and services of these agreements are very difficult. These terms and services and agreements are very difficult for layman folks to read. Additionally, they're really long. So you, in some cases, could never actually consume it all efficiently. So you have this dilemma, if you will, of I'm not 100% sure what's happening with my data when it's happening. So you have folks making decisions based on either incomplete or an inaccurate understanding. So this is a space that I would watch very closely because it could set the tide for what occurs here in the United States and other countries. So why do I think it's important

to us? Because I think a lot of us use social media for business purposes and for personal purposes. So think about if LinkedIn, Twitter, and all of these services that have been free for, in some cases, 10 plus years become paid services, what would you do? Would you use them? Would you not use them? I personally probably would not pay for Facebook. I don't use it enough to see the value in paying, but I would, in fact, use it, probably pay for a LinkedIn subscription. So I think that those are things to really look at. And in fact, I do pay for a premium LinkedIn subscription. So I think it's just a space to watch.

In AI news, something very interesting. I often wonder if these are type of reports are kind of to draw attention. I don't think in this case it will. Open AI and ChatGPT, Sam Altman, the CEO mentioned