LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 174

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

LPRC INTEGRATE is just around the corner, this week our hosts discuss the amazing things the LPRC is doing! On this episode, our hosts discuss AI's use in fraudulent calls, the continued successes from LPRC Kickoff, a new report from the Department of Justice discussing the crime rates, and how AI is affecting consumers today. The hosts also go into the AI race between different countries in the world. 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 Podcast. Today, the latest episode in our weekly update series. I'm joined by co-hosts Tony D'Onofrio and Tom Meehan and our producer Diego Rodriguez. And my portion today will be relatively quick. We are actually conducting our dry run for Integrate, LPRC Integrate. In this case, this year in 2024 will be an active assailant event, unprecedented to my knowledge. And what we'll do today is through the city and down the areas,

move past campus and move into our engagement lab here in the UF Innovate Hub. And there we'll tragically go kinetic in that space, that simulated store engagement lab area with long gun and a handgun. And our, one of our individuals will be able to put out a warning. But in the meantime, then the first responders will do what they do. Again, Gainesville Police Department, the University of Florida Police Department, the Alachua County Sheriff's Office, and the Gainesville Fire Rescue people will go into action. They'll get a simulated 911 call. The first police officer or deputy sheriff closest to that area. In fact, all of them would respond to the building to try and neutralize the threat to stop the killing and the bleeding and the dying. And so from there, it's going to be the event will be as realistic as possible.

Everything will be recorded from multiple angles, security cameras, body worn cameras, from multiple angles, security cameras, body-worn cameras, from external cameras, from the film team, and we'll learn a great deal about how this type of tragedy unfolds and what can and can't be done about it, and the opportunities, of course, to leverage process, to leverage sensors and technology and tools. So I think there's going to be quite a bit of learning going on, and today we'll walk through that. Yesterday and early the week before, our team, led by a research scientist, Caleb Boyer in this case, have worked with two of four threat assessment teams. Yesterday we worked with the FBI FBI and the FBI went through the personas, the recently former employees of the location to go through their process. We'll be reviewing that process as well later. But today is a dry run for the kinetic portion.

is a dry run for the kinetic portion. Just going to talk just for a minute about some of the feedback from the LPRC kickoff in New York city that came right on the heels as, as we do annually on the NRF big show, a lot of fantastic feedback. We had just about 200 individuals. Again, we had 30 or 40 that RSVP, they just weren't going to be able to make it because of canceled flights. So it was standing room only, beautiful venue. But what was kicked off there was critical. A couple of research efforts have been spawned from that event.

It's brought together. Quite a few people made new contacts there. And we've heard about some of the relationships that were started. That's part of the goal of what we're trying to do. NYPD and FBI, we created some new relationships there that are going to lead to some fruitful R&D as well. So I want to thank everybody. I want to thank AT&T, all our valuable sponsors for making that event happen and for all the practitioners, whether it be retail, LP, AP, law enforcement, and of course, all our fantastic solution partners. Of course, we're practitioners in law enforcement, in law, today, the dry run. The following week, next week, we'll do the actual filming of the event. We've been working on the exercises for integrate, working on the session, including strategy at, for Ignite, and the content for the Board of Advisors,

for ignite and the content for the board of advisors and the content for the lprc innovate programs advisory board that panel so just really looking forward to this event in gainesville florida 28th 29th of february we've been working hard on the port st lucie initiative, making sure that the dashboards both from Esri are mapping platform, dashboard is up to speed and readily useful and usable. The same with the LVT, in this case, mobile protective unit. We've got, again, the three units deployed there, making that as user user friendly as possible and understanding placement positioning some of the dosing concepts on the east side initiative we've been in the field a lot we're working with two organizations two of our sps as far as long-range day-night cameras um so more to come on that um we've been doing some train walks in there to get deeper and better understanding, particularly in an area that's serving as a pretty large

homeless encampment, that that encampment does affect the behavior in that area and the people in the encampment, their behavior is affected by others in the places in that area. So more to come on the East Side Initiative. We're talking a lot about, again, and everything as we've talked about is affect, detect, connect, affecting the offenders that are coming our way that are inside or outside our threats, affecting their choices so that they don't harm or that we mitigate that harm, threats affecting their choices so that they don't harm or that we mitigate that harm and then how to best detect their capabilities their intentions who they are that is that part of that awareness piece that's our detect the effect being the control part again we've talked about we want to be aware so awareness is critical and we need to establish better control when we can.

Ourselves or through strong partnerships within our organization, between organizations, including law enforcement. So with no further ado, what I'm going to do is hand it over to my esteemed colleagues, Tony D'Onofrio and Tom Meehan. Tony, if you could take it away, I appreciate it. Thank you, Reid, for all those great updates. Let me start this week with a new report from the Council of Criminal Justice on crime trends in selected cities across the United States. This study updates and supplements previous U.S. crime trends reports by the Council on Criminal Justice with data through December 2023.

It examines monthly rates at which 12 offenses are reported to law enforcement in 38 American cities. And these 38 American cities, and these 38 American cities are not necessarily representative of all cities in the United States. to study city providing homicide data was 10% lower, representing 515 fewer homicides in 2023 than in 2022. Looking at other violent crimes, there were 3% fewer reported aggravated assaults in 2023 than in 2022, and 7% fewer gun assaults in 11 reporting cities. Reported carjacking incidents fell 5% in 10 reporting cities, but robberies and domestic violence incidents each rose 2%. Among property crimes, reports of residential burglaries were down 3%, crimes, reports of residential burglaries were down 3%, non-residential burglaries were down 7%,

and larcenies were down 4%, all decreased in 2023 compared to 2022. The number of drug offenses increased by 4% over the same period. Motor vehicle theft, a crime that has been on the rise since the summer of 2020, continued its upward trajectory through 2023. And this one is a big one. There were 29% more reported motor vehicle thefts in 2023 than in 2022. Most violent offenses remain elevated in 2023 compared to 2019, the year prior to the outbreak of COVID and the widespread social unrest of 2020. There were 18% more homicides in the study cities in 2023 than in 2019, and carjacking has spiked by 93% during that period. by 93% during that period. Poverty crime trends have been mixed. There have been fewer residential burglaries and larcenies and more non-residential burglaries in 2023 than in 2019. Motor vehicle theft more than doubled during the timeframe with drug crimes falling by 27%.

Overall, crime rates are largely returning to pre-COVID levels as a nation distance itself from the height of the pandemic but there are notable exceptions while decreases in homicides in the study cities in many other cities are promising the progress is uneven and other sources of crime information, including household surveys of violent victimization, indicate higher rates and more pronounced shifts than reports to law enforcement agencies. The variance in trends now requires leaders to shift attention from broad explanation to local factors. attention from broad explanation to local factors. It is essential to identify what's driving crime in local communities and what law enforcement

and community interventions, as well as other efforts and forces, may be having an impact. Interesting that even in cities, homicides have returned to pre-2020 level. It is still incredibly high, with some 20,000 plus lives lost to intentional violence last year. Other trends such as motor vehicle theft and carjacking also merit significant attention. Motor vehicle theft, for instance, is considered a keystone crime because stolen vehicles are often used in the commission of a robbery, drive-by shooting, and other violent incidents. For these reasons, and to achieve long-term reductions, local, state, and federal governments, along with communities and industry, must invest in evidence-based crime prevention efforts, just the thing that loss prevention is doing

every single day for retailers when it comes to crime. I want to also highlight some of the thoughts that were in the report on shoplifting and what the research found. So shoplifting is a theft by someone other than an employee or the victim for an item displayed for sale. Data from 25 cities that reported shoplifting abruptly declined during the onset of the pandemic and continued to drop to 2020. The shoplifting rate was 2% lower in 2023 compared to 2019. The rate jumped by 22% from 2022 to 2023. That's a big jump, 22%, representing 14,743 additional incidents in the study cities. Compared to the same period in 2022, reported shoplifting increases by 18% in the first half of 2023 and by 26% in the second

half of the year. Because this data relies on incidents reported by the police and because reporting practices vary across the retail industry, they almost certainly undercount total shoplifting by significant quantities. And I would fully agree with that. Switching topics, let me go to chain storage, which reported how artificial intelligence or AI continues to resonate with consumers. As they reported, according to a new survey by Intelius of a thousand shoppers A third, or 33% of those surveys, consumers already use generative AI tools

such as ChatGPT in their day-to-day lives. The number increases to an amazing 60% for millennials and 49% for Gen Z. A sizable number, 41% of U.S. shoppers are aware of retailers using AI in their buying journeys. Nearly half, or 44%, said AI helps retailers and brands create more personalized shopping experiences, rising to 68% again for millennials and 59% for Gen Z. According to Consumer, the top five areas where AI can deliver the most value are

pricing and promotions, loyalty and real-time personalized rewards, product discovery when searching online, product validation, product recommendation, and all personalized by artificial intelligence. Despite increased adoption of AI by both consumers and retailers, 44% of consumers' polls said they are distraught by brands and retailers using AI in their shopping experiences. Two-thirds, or 66%, are concerned about this data used after an AI interaction during the shopping journey, and 65% said they are concerned that retailers and brands had to put in place sufficient compliance data and procedures when using AI. Still, a majority, 57%, set it in mind retailers using AI in their shopping journey as long as they were transparent about it, rising again to 66% for millennials. Nearly half, 46%, felt that as long as they had a good experience with a retailer or a brand, they didn't mind that it involved AI or not.

And finally this week, just a quick summary, really great infographic in terms of which countries are winning the artificial intelligence race. So this is actually from the daily infographic and these are the top countries with the most activity going on between 2013 and 2022 as measured by startups and investments. And number one is USA, number two is China, number three is UK, number four is Israel, number five is Canada, number six is France, number seven is India, Number eight is Japan. Number nine is Germany. And number 10 is Singapore. USA dominates by three and a half times the number of startups versus China. Number two, $249 billion was invested in USA startups between 2013 and 22. In China, that amount was $95 billion. So China and U.S. are leading the charge in terms of where AI goes next. So lots of interesting news this week in terms of what's going on to U.S. crime, how consumers view AI, and who's leading the AI charge. And with that, let me turn it over to Tom.

Well, thank you, Tony, and thank you, Reid, and good morning to everybody. Lots to talk about here today. I am actually traveling. I think a couple of us are traveling and moving around quite a bit, so hopefully the background is acceptable. But I wanted to start kind of with some AI news, and we're talking about AI every single week. As I said, I think we will continue to talk a bit about AI. In the news on the last podcast, we talked about some deep fakes related to the former President Trump.

This week, there's more deepfake news. There was a similar incident with the current President Joe Biden's voice being used and manipulated to call voters in several states. The deepfake audio is very, very difficult to identify, and the more advanced types of deep fake audio is nearly impossible to identify even with voice authentication. So this is obviously a concern for the future, especially in 2024 with all the political polarization and debates. So it's definitely something where if you see something on the internet or receive what I would deem as a robocall, that sounds like a prerecorded message. Take it for the grain of salt. It's scary to think that we have to say that these days.

Over the weekend, Twitter banned searches for Taylor Swift. And normally I wouldn't be talking about Taylor Swift, but this goes to deepfakes as well, where there were several images that were deepfake images depicting Taylor Swift in nude and in sexual acts. So Twitter, or X, formerly known as Twitter, banned the search term. In Twitter, X's terms of service is the distribution of pornographic or nude photos without the permission or consent is considered a violation of their terms of services, so they went ahead and banned the search term.

One of the challenges here is if you're a person, a public official, or in the case of a musician, you don't really want your name banned, right? You want the ability for people to search you and find you. So this is one of the many challenges with AI. And I think we'll continue to see this deepfake phenomenon occur as the deepfakes become better. Right now, video deepfakes are probably the easiest to identify but audio and photos are very very very challenging and sometimes not possible so definitely a space that we'll all have to be aware of in our in in our day-to-day lives the first brain implant from Neuralink

was successfully completed there's not a lot of information here on the patient, how the patient's doing, but this is, Neuralink is one of Elon Musk's companies, and one of the things about this that's so interesting is that these brain implants can, in fact, be able to help folks with disabilities. It's a very, very open space, but right now there isn't a ton of information except for that it placed the first brain implant computer interface into a patient over the weekend. They aren't disclosing the information of the patient just yet. I'm sure more will come with that. But this is really, really cutting-edge technology that we see as a future

for folks with disabilities, paraplegics. So there's a lot of really great benefits here. This is not the bionic man changing the perception of what you see or implanting a computer, although Elon Musk, who is the founder of Neuralink, talks about the potential there. This is a significant step when we think about medical procedures and the advancement of medical brain implants. So more to come on that. I think the information is just becoming available. So a 17-year-old male in California was arrested after a several-month hunt from

the FBI for swatting. He's expected to be the largest perpetrator of swatting in the United States, and he was openly talking about this on Telegram channels, bragging about it. The charges come out of the federal district court. They are federal charges. He is being charged as an adult. Because he's 17 years old, they're not releasing personal information about him, but he's expected to be responsible for over 100 swatting

instances. For the listeners at home, swatting instances is where someone places a fake 911 call using a VPN to mask and calls in the police. Last year, there were several significant swatting incidents, one where a police officer accidentally shot someone, another one where there was an active shooter called into a school where a police officer drove his patrol car through the doors to get into the school. This particular individual was being charged with multiple terrorist-related charges

as well as race and hate crimes, a pretty significant amount of crimes. And in a Telegram chat, this individual said that he would never be caught and how ridiculous it was to be able to spend, as he put, a few dollars a month to mask his identity and be able to cause havoc. Swatting is not a new phenomenon. It's often seen during live gaming where someone calls in and someone is taped while a SWAT team goes in. Obviously, the police, when

they have a call like an active shooter, a kidnapping or a bomb threat, have a large response. So this is not just about the cost of response, but it's also about the safety pieces that go along with it. So it's a very significant risk for all that are involved. So definitely something to keep an eye on to see where this case goes. As of the time of this recording, the individual was still in California. And then last, but certainly not least, on a geopolitical front, we continue to see activity throughout the world in the Middle East and Ukraine. There were three U.S. servicemen killed from a drone attack in Jordan.

This is pretty much breaking news. The U.S. government is taking a very calculated approach to see how or if they will respond. With that, we will watch this space very closely. As we've discussed many times, the geopolitical risk impact on supply chain is real, especially throughout the Red Sea. So definitely, definitely a lot going on here in the space around geopolitics. We continue to see protests, at least weekly if not daily, around pro-Palestine or pro-Israel protests. Some are violent, large gatherings throughout the United States and really globally.

So continue to stay tuned to the podcast here. And also, if you're not already involved in the FusionNet, I would strongly suggest you get involved. This is an election year and there's a lot of things that can occur from a civil servant standpoint. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Lee. Amazing. And I appreciate it from both you guys, Tony and Tom. Fantastic information. Always learn a lot. I know that. I want to thank you, Diego, for your production. And I want to thank each and every one of you all

for tuning in. Stay safe and stay in touch. 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.