LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 175

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

LPRC INTEGRATE filming happened, this week our hosts discuss the amazing things the LPRC is doing! On this episode, our hosts discuss how retailers and restaurants are automating in 2024, the great wins by the LPRC team, the six questions to ask at the midpoint of your career, and the economic projections for 2024. 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. This is the latest in our weekly update series, and I'm joined by Tony D'Onofrio and our co-host, as well as our producer, Diego Rodriguez. And we're going to kind of go around and talk a little bit, as per usual, about what's going on in the world. And I'll start off and talk a little bit about, as we finish up integrate preparation here,

the activist salient scenario that we're doing here in 2024 for LPRC Integrate, we're trying to incorporate at different levels. It's almost like a recipe where you're going to have a level of flavors. And we were watching a cooking show the other day, and you can see how they're trying to have this saturation of different flavors, profiles, and all this sort of thing. We're really doing the same thing here in that we're trying to understand from an offender standpoint, how do they navigate the world? What are they thinking? What are they perceiving? How do they interpret and respond to stimuli or to them things that are stimuli other people uh their job situation their uh moods um you know their their circumstances and position and and all these things uh that's what

we want to try and understand from the offender standpoint whether they're there or coming there to your place to steal from you to defraud you uh to violently victimize you or someone there um and so we're trying to saturate that in there uh we're also trying to understand other contexts around that the people that are there the place that's there the assets that are there and so forth but one thing that we think is very important is in asset protection, loss prevention, security, law enforcement, in the military, the intention is so critical. The intention is to safeguard the vulnerable, safeguard people, protect them from insider and outsider threats. People that in the moment or over time decide for a reason or a variety of reasons, they want to harm somebody. They want to hurt them. They want to take their possessions. They want to frighten them. They want to defraud them or worse. And so that's what's going on. But in this case,

whether we're talking about military or law enforcement or loss prevention or asset protection, we're talking about taking the high ground. That is the purpose, is to safeguard the vulnerable, to increase guardianship, to reduce victimization by reducing the amount of people and the frequency that those people try and harm somebody else, right? We're trying to deter them or take action to compel them to not do something or not do it a certain way or do it some other time or place and so on. But there are guardrails, right? And part of this too is that we operate in an environment where what we do and how we do it is going to be judged.

We're seeing in the media right now in 2023 and now in 24, the media having this, not the media, let's just say some reporters or stories or their editors that are making claims that retail organizations or the people in those organizations are exaggerating or even making up the fact that there's a problem or that problems like theft, fraud and violence are actually increasing in frequency and in place. They're expanding, extending beyond core cities and things like that, that they're going out in the hinterlands. This is all somehow fabricated or exaggerated based on a couple of things here and there on official data, not based on what the retailers are recording and in some cases reporting, particularly to a research team like the LPRC and the University of Florida. So we want to be careful on what we do

and how we do it because we're on the high ground. We're trying to guard people, increase that guardianship, protect them, reduce the problems and the outcomes of those problems harm so the point is uh i think some of the guard rails that i've seen uh particularly that the military might establish um we've seen this in the united states army uh we see uh i've seen some debriefs of idf attorneys the israeli defense force for example as others where they're're trying to understand how do we do things the right way. And I think in our field, trying to reduce crime events, crime attempts, and victimization and harm that we're talking about, what's our intention in making sure that we understand it? It's very clear that what we're trying to do is only target offenders, not everybody. Only those people that have expressed an intent to harm somebody else

and or demonstrated that their intention is to victimize, defraud, steal from, hit, shoot, or whatever it might be. So we only target offenders. And there's supporters, those that are providing weapons, information that are converting stolen goods to cash and things like that. So only offenders, including their supporters, which are by to hide, to drive in, to shoot with, and things like that, crime tools, and so on. So, the first part of having our guardrails is let's make sure that we have very clear intention, and our intention is only to deter, to disrupt, to detain, to document criminal offenders. And those offenders are

identified to us because of what they are saying and what they are doing, not who they are, what they look like, that what they're doing and what they're saying is incredibly important here. And that's our distinction, right? So first guardrail, intention. It's clear we target only offenders and their offenders because of what they're saying and doing. The second part is other precautions that we are using intelligence, information. This is why it's so vital that we have early detection, better definition that we are sharing. We are connecting with each other within our stores, between stores, between retailers, between retailers and law enforcement or other partners out there that we're taking precautions. And that one way is through intelligence. We are, in fact, detecting and defining, identifying criminal offenders, right, that we're leveraging that intelligence, that information.

We also another part of this, in addition to intel, is validation. We're validating what we've heard or seen, if at all possible. all possible sometimes if there's a person running out somebody with a firearm or a crowbar or pulling open garbage bags and filling them up uh the validation can be pretty simple but not something short of that that's what we're validating we have multi-source multi-source uh type multi-modal modes being you know, camera systems, online postings. Those are different modes. Word on the street. Somebody calls a hotline or sends in a text or email or a DM or some other category of digital communication.

intel and we want to validate wherever possible and however possible that that information that we have an offender that we have a potential crime or that we have a crime that's occurred that somebody is converting stolen goods to cash or whatever right of bank right of the event right so intel validation timing is important too right we we time our actions we may not take action against somebody because we think they're going to say something or do something unless we have good intel that they've already started. They're progressing. They're acquiring. They're communicating. They're coordinating with others. They have already committed one crime and now they're going kinetic for the next crime. Not that somebody is in their living room or sitting on a park bench. We have no idea.

We just think they're this or that. So intel, validation, timing, you know, those kind of and then notifications. So that's what's important. We have good intentions to protect. We only target offenders. We only destroy or detain or obtain, then this is what you see like with law enforcement, seizing property, assets, cash, stolen goods, the vehicles or warehouses or aircraft or whatever it might be, the assets or the particulars of the crime, those conveyances and others. And then proportionality.

So intention, precautions. Now we're talking about proportionality, that we only respond in kind. We've heard people talk about, well, when somebody steals something, you should blow them up or something like that, right? What we're talking about is that there is a proportionality to it. It's difficult in all of these cases. None of this is easy, but the idea is we're trying to reduce crime and we're trying to do it the right way. We're trying to do it the right way by being highly precise, very accurate, and very effective, but we're also trying to do it the right way by establishing guidelines, guardrails to maintain a strong intention to only try and affect real offenders, dangerous people, things like that. That we're taking good precautions by using good information, intelligence, that we're trying to have multi-source information for validation.

that we're trying to have multi-source information for validation. Yep, I think this is actually the right person, that they are doing this thing this way, that this other person is involved, and so on, and that our actions and responses are relatively proportional to what's going on. So just a few things to think about. You know, it's not here to lecture, but to talk as we think about how we're working on preventing crime, preventing victimization, reducing harm. So anyway, with no further ado, I'm going to go over to Tony D'Onofrio. And in the meantime, I look forward to seeing everybody in Gainesville that signed up and coming in for our Ignite Board of Advisors meeting,

our LPRC Innovate Advisory Panel, and to participate in, and we will be participating, to be very participatory. It's going to be amazing. In our Ignite session this year, again, the active assailant, active shooter exercises on threat assessment and management on movement to contact by the shooter in this case from point A to the target location and how to track and trace and understand it that better and then of course on handling a horrific kinetic situation and then trying to respond and recover so looking forward to all that. Tony, take it away. Thank you, Reid, for all those great updates. Let me start this week with a new report from Deloitte on the state of the U.S. economy and the most important retail technology trends that they see this year. First, here is the

economic outlook for the United States in 2024, as reported by the law. The U.S. economy seems to have avoided a recession, even as inflation has dropped. This is good news, especially at a time when geopolitical tensions are rising, growth in key U.S. economic partners is slowing, and there's uncertainty over budget funding. Consumers have benefited from rising wages due to a strong labor market and declining inflation. They have also drawn from their pandemic-era savings to fund more purchases. This dip in personal savings, however, will weigh on consumer spending in 2024 and 2025. In addition, consumers face headwinds from high rents, rising home prices, and repayments of student loan debt. Two key trends will shape the future of the business environment, tighter labor

markets, and higher long-term interest rates. First, slow labor force growth and continued high demand require companies to offer higher wages to lower-skilled workers and be more imaginative about hiring. Second, long-term interest rates are unlikely to return to the lows of the late 2010s. The slowing of China's savings growth, a need for large investments, public and private, to address climate change and efforts to build supply chain resiliency will likely keep capital demands strong. The large baseline forecast for the U.S. economy anticipates continued growth in consumer spending at a rate below GDP growth due to falling inflation, low unemployment, and increased productivity growth.

The aftermath of the pandemic led to a shift in consumer spending patterns, with the dollar value of durable goods increasing 43% versus 24% rise in spending on services since Q4 2019. This is unlikely to continue with the forecast suggesting a slower growth trajectory for durables spending relative to consumption and income over the next five years. Interesting in the same research are the technologies that Deloitte feels are important in 2024 for the retail industry.

Two of these technologies target customer experiences. The first is AI smart carts. These technologies include computer vision and personalized shopping features, and the benefits provided are instance checkout, real-time analysis of cart and shelves. The second is interactive AI smart displays. This features displays that recognize customer facial expressions to tailor content. The benefits include personalized customer interaction based on mood detection. Four other technologies stand out for improving operations and management. The first is intelligent tags. These provide continuous item level insights with real-time tracking of product location, availability, and performance. The second is optimized pricing and

store design. This features systems that analyze and store data on in-store behavior and external factors such as the weather. The third is AI-powered analytics. These include systems that analyze crucial data to highlight important KPIs. Through this data, tasks can be streamlined and prioritized, ensuring product availability, reduce online returns, lower wait time, and improve cleanliness. And the fourth, which should be very interesting to a large part of this audience, is shrink management. These systems analyze customer behavior and emotions for security insights to deter theft and improve store security so interesting in terms of the technologies that deloitte feels are very important and where the economy is headed switching topics let me go to chain storage and explain how retailers are look to grow and leverage technology in 2024 as they

state growth to stop on mine for retailers with 61% saying that they're eager to expand in the coming year, though they are split as to whether to prioritize brick and mortar at 52% or online offerings at 48%. This report surveyed thousands of business owners and consumers in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. More than four in ten retailers surveyed said they plan to stay competitive this year by improving customer relationships to faster and easier communication channels. 39% said they plan on providing more payment options such as buy now, pay later and 38% said they plan to offer more in-store events and shopping experiences, strengthen loyalty through our rewards programs and reach customers through marketing programs. Over half or 56% of retailers said they will be

taking a closer look at marketing tactics for Gen Z in 2024 as the younger generation purchasing power continues to increase. This marks an increase from just 43% of retailers who focused on marketing to Gen Z in 2022. Technology will play a key role in both retail and restaurants in 2024 with 100% of retailers and restaurant owners surveyed, stating that automation and technology have improved their businesses. Nearly half of 45% of retailers are seeing greater employee retention

and increased profits as a result of their automation investments, while 67% of restaurants owners said their automation tools had directly benefited customers either through customer experience or communications consumers or customers said they support uh business continuing to explore ways to automate with 76 percent of restaurant customers and 67% of retail customers preferring that business use automation over live staff in at least one area, especially for tax, making reservations or checking product inventory. So it's interesting how we're living and we want to see more automation in our stores.

And I'm going to end on something totally different. I'm going to go to Harvard Business Review, and they had a very interesting article that asked six questions you need to ask if you're at the midpoint of your career and you're trying to figure out what to do next. And I'm only, this week for brevity, only going to tell you the questions. this week for brevity only going to tell you the questions and the six questions are number one what will I regret not having done or learned 10 years from now number two how do I tap into my purpose to determine if I am in a meaningful career number three what mastery or gift have I developed that I can offer to the world number four what do I do what do my days look like so what do my days look like that's number four

number five what trade-offs am I willing to make or more importantly no longer willing to make and number six what is getting better about my life these are actually excellent questions and I asked these myself actually many times and in What is getting better about my life? point in my career, probably too late, and created a personal brand. And I would encourage all of you to ask DCA's question and start much earlier on your much improved journey of happiness. And with that, let me turn it over. All right. Amazing. Thanks so much. Really good stuff. Thank you, Tony, as always. And it's amazing to work with two presidents of two major loss prevention organizations like Control Tech and Sensormatic. And I want to thank Diego Rodriguez, our producer. I want to thank each and every one of you all. And please keep in touch, operations at lpresearch.org.

Stay safe, stay in touch. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council. Stay in touch. 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.