LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 179

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

LPRC Summits are just around the corner! This week our hosts discuss some of the newest and latest trends, technology, and LPRC news! On this episode, our hosts discuss the addition of generative AI to your phone coming soon, cyber incidents and preparations, the LPRC's SaferPlaces Initiative keeps growing, what organized crime looks like, and a news story on a large theft incident. 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 from the LPRC here in Gainesville, Florida. I'm joined today by my counterparts and colleagues, Tony D'Onofrio and Tom Yin, and our producer, Diego Rodriguez. And we're going to talk a little bit about crime and loss in retail. Certainly no shortage of discussion about the topic in the media. We've seen national, international, local sources continuing the coverage. I know at LPRC,

we recently had a short article come out by Axios. I think the team assessment was very positive. It was very digestible and well done, helping people in a nutshell, And well done helping people in a nutshell, at a glance, kind of get a better handle on the facts and that every time somebody comes to their place to commit fraud, theft or violence. And so another much more extensive coverage that's just come out by Yahoo Finance. Looks to be a very good piece. There's a short version, and then there's a much longer version. And we worked pretty extensively with the producer and the correspondent, Madison, on that story, as did many, many others. Looks, again, to me, very well done, very well produced, very understandable. And it gives both perspectives when it talks about leveraging technologies

for earlier and better detection of crimes and to keep people safe, that there are all these privacy concerns that are allowed for quotes around the amount of privacy given up in exchange for convenience on online purchasing where essentially those of us that purchase online give up an incredible amount of personal information our home address our credit card number our phone number uh our we have our purchase history and things like that. So the idea in a public space that somebody who is known criminal might be detected or their weapons or crime tools, their vehicles coming in the parking lot and others. And by detection, meaning that an AI model might signal to the store manager or asset protection leader, this person or this vehicle, or it may be a weapon has just entered or some other crime tool.

You may want to take a look. That's and that type of research and development, and also with the good sound discussion on guardrails and how do we better safeguard personally identifiable information, PII. to haphazardly store that information or certainly to misuse that information. But rather, if a person is threatening or is taking some physical action or bringing a crime tool or weapon into a space with other people, that type of behavior, that type of capability, is something that would be nice to much earlier detect. And then to alert decision makers. So they might lock a door, might call for police assistance, or might decide this is a benign situation, which is going to be a large percentage of what happens. So good stuff, good coverage. Want to switch over and talk a little bit about that, though. The thread is what we're talking about here. And we believe our team that that's probably a good place to start, that crime in place is always significant. that the location what that location has inside of it let's say good merchandise of all types

that type of uh of place makes a difference and can be much more the viral as a crime target to be victimized to be harmed uh but at the same time what's co-located what other places uh what's the transportation routes and so on, the ingress, ingress timing, how quick and easy is it to get to and get out of and what's around that you can hide or that brought you there. So do you learn about this desirable target? All very important, but the people, it takes hot people, it takes motivated or likely criminal offenders, people that are willing in the moment or think about it a lot or actually are out searching for crime victims. There are a lot of those people.

It's the minority of the population. In fact, a small percentage of the population of us, but with hundreds of millions of humans now in the United States of America, for example, and billions around the world, even a tiny percentage of people that are motivated to harm others that's a lot of people millions and millions of people so uh we want to look at the threat who are these people why do they target this place not that why do they take certain things if they're thieves and other things why do they steal in certain ways and not others at certain times not other times these are all very important so we're working a lot now on that threat assessment in our dashboards we're not only looking at calls for service for the police

or for emergency medical services ems that might give us an indicator of places that are experiencing much more crime victimization than others, and at certain times, types of crimes. But we're looking at who are these people? Where do they reside in the community? Are there clusters of these people? Are these people that are offending, that are victimizing in commercial places like retail stores and parking lots, offices and distribution centers, are these people also victimizing other places? Are they victimizing family, friends, their neighbors, homes, vehicles? What else are they doing and trying to understand the threat? Who are they? How are they moving around? How are they getting from one place to another?

Are they using public transport, a vehicle, their own or another? Who are what vehicles are these vehicles? How are they moving around? So those are things are very important to understand about resolving crime, understanding crime in place, understanding crime in people. And so with the research that we're doing at the LPRC in the Gainesville Eastside Initiative, the Westside Initiative, the Port St. Lucie area, and that initiative upcoming now in Atlanta and Albuquerque, you're going to see with the dashboards how we're mapping and understanding people, mapping and understanding places and crime in that nexus, those connections, those interactions, those integrations. The next thing I'll talk a little bit about is the LPRC

team would like to extend a warm invitation to our retailer members in this case we now have 96 retail corporations uh and all the divisions of those 96 corporations they're the banners the other brands um to come and visit schedule a white boarding session we recently had ikea team uh kroger company public supermarkets uh harbor freight um cS was just in with their top team, plus operators coming in. We're seeing more retailers coming in with their APLP teams, but also with operators and other partners in business, solution partners, SPs. Wachter was just in last week to brainstorm the whiteboard. We've got Macy's and all types of other retailers that are lining up for visits with us. We just had

the Centers for Disease Control, NIOSH, come in and brainstorm with us on ways to better safeguard workers in these spaces, in these store environments where they're subjective to threats, to aggression and violence, to ongoing theft that wears on them to other safety hazards. So we're excited to partner with NIOSH, the Centers for Disease Control, CDC, as LPRC members. We've also got federal law enforcement agencies, ATF, coming in to do planning, looking at theft from stores and shops, ways to reduce violence on the street, violence in stores. They're very excited about it. Homeland Security Investigations, part of the Department of Homeland Security, we talked about. We had the FBI in the other day. They, too, are very excited and want to work with us in both reducing active shooters and other types of violence, as well as organized retail crime in the same way that HSI is excited about doing that.

Clearly, with county and state law enforcement agencies as well mentioned gainesville fire rescue so a whole host of agencies that do truly truly want to build enduring persistent highly effective very focused partnerships to commit to making individual places, clusters of places, and neighborhoods and communities safer and more secure, more stable. So we're excited about those things. I want to talk for a second about our upcoming events. We know that on April 7th and 3rd, we're going to have our Supply Chain Protection Summit. We've got a Supply Chain Protection Working Group each year round. It's on the best and brightest in protecting supply chains, transport, distribution, delivery. They'll be meeting at REI's distribution facilities in Lebanon, Tennessee, in the Nashville area, April 2nd through 3rd, go to the LPRC website.

If you're an LPRC member to register, limited seating like all these events. So act now. Also on April 23rd and 24th, the Violent Crime Summit is taking place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. New Mexico. It's going to be hosted by the largest, I guess, the largest shopping center complex, Coronado Center team, Brookfield Properties, partnering with law enforcement agencies there and multiple retailers that are getting down to business, rolling up their sleeves. Albuquerque, New Mexico is going to be our next field initiative, our ongoing field initiative to work on anti-theft, fraud, and violence collectively, collaboratively. How do we work together in translating the lessons that we're learning in the Gainesville and Port St. Lucie initiatives? So that's April 23rd and 24th for the Violent Crime Summit. Go again to lpresearch.org, lpresearch.org, find events to register for our LPRC members. LPRC impact, impact, the big one, the big one. Last year, we were just about at capacity over 500 participants we think capacity is 545 humans including our team so uh if you're coming to impact you want to get in there you want to interact uh do our active shooter deconstruct uh you want to go through a sophisticated orc

a complex case breakdown with us. If you want to work on product protection, see active criminal offenders, interact with them in a way that our research scientists do. You know, if you want to do some heavy duty networking through some really neat social events in the athletic facilities at the University of Florida, at our labs, outside in our four square block lab area with some special surprises there as well. If you want to get involved in an event, it's like no other. Research evidence-based sessions, events, body-worn cameras discussions, what's our latest research show, new latest findings from the five field research initiatives from the labs.

There's a whole lot more. SEPTED, Crime Prevention to Environmental Design, a hands-on kinetic exercise like no other. We've got some pretty neat stuff going on, but we don't have many seats. In the Grand Ballroom, we're limited to 545 people. So please go to LPResearch.org. If you're a retailer and you're a member of LPRC, if you're a solution partner, you get a ticket to that. And if you want to sponsor, come on and help us make this bigger and better than ever. So Impact Conference, Gainesville, Florida,

University of Florida's beautiful campus. That's October 7th through the 9th. Excuse me, go to website and register. That's all I've got for today. And what I want to do is turn it over to Tony and Tom for all their great insights. Tony, if you would, take it away. Thank you, Reed, for all those great updates. Let me focus this week on just one great article that appeared in CNBC looking at organized retail crime and where we are. As they stated, in a Tony suburban enclave in the San Diego foothills, police say an organized retail crime queen pin had built an empire. Tucked behind the stone wall of a 4,500 square foot Spanish-style mansion, Michelle Mack had stockpiled a small fortune in cosmetics that

had been stolen from Ulta and Sephora stores across the country, authorities said. Police don't suspect that MAC-53 took the items for herself. Instead, they say she pulled the strings from the shadows, employing a network of around a dozen women who stole the items for her so she could resell them on Amazon. With the airfare, car rental, and travel expenses paid by Mack, the suspects committed hundreds of thefts up and down the California coast and into Washington, Utah, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Illinois, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Ohio, investigators said. Mack selected which stores to target and what merchandise to take, and the women were sent to clear out the entire shelves of merchandise before making off with the stolen items stuffed

inside Louis Vuitton bags, investigators said. Investigators began referring to the theft as the California Girls and considered Mack the group's ringleader. She made millions reselling the stolen items on Amazon to unwilling customers of traction with her typical retail price, investigators said, before she was arrested in early December. Law enforcement officials said Mack alleged theft ring is just one of many that are plaguing U.S.

retailers and costing billions of dollars annually. Their rise has led to many companies who lock up merchandise, hire security guards, and lobby lawmakers for stricter regulations. These organized theft groups don't typically carry out the splashy smash-and-grab robberies seen in viral videos. Instead, they pilfer goods quickly, quietly, and efficiently. They often function with an elaborate, organized structure that in some ways mimics the corporation they're stealing from, police said. CNBC has spent about eight months embedding with various law enforcement agencies and investigating theft groups to understand what organized retail crime looks like from the ground up. In some cases, CNBC witnessed low-level shoplifting incidents involving people who appeared to be

homeless or mentally ill. In some incidents, CNBC saw takedowns of alleged organized theft groups that police said were reselling stolen merchandise at flea markets. Mass groups from alleged network professional thieves to a lucrative Amazon marketplace, what by far the most sophisticated one CNBC tracked alongside police. But federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the Homeland Department of Security's law enforcement branch, said some crime groups are even more elaborate and theft is just one facet of their enterprise. We're talking about operations that have fleet of trucks, 18 wheelers that have palletized loads of stolen goods, that have cleaned out crews,

that have taken goods to make them look brand new, said Adam Parks, an assistant special agent at HSI, which is the main federal agency organized investigating retail crime. Just like any business, they've invested their capital into business assets like shrink-wrapped machines and forklifts, Parks, who works at an exercise Baton Rouge, Louisiana office, told CNBC in an interview. That's what organized theft looks like, it's actually is indistinguishable

for other e-commerce distribution centers. These test groups in their myriad forms have become a torn on the side of retailers big and small, prompting retailers to cite crime as the reason for lower profit, the inability to hire and retain staff, and the degradation of the in-store experience. They have also united politically, divided Americans in their disdain of seeing everyday products locked up behind glass cases and witnessing brazen theft gone unchecked in stores. Whether organized retail crime is actually rising is up for debate. Retailers like Target, Foot Locker, Walgreens, and Ulta have said theft is a growing problem in recent years, but few have said how often it's happening and how much money they're losing from it, fueling accusations from some experts and analysts that they're blaming crime in order to mask operational missteps. The National Retail Federation estimates that retailers lose $40.5 billion to external theft, including organized retail crime in 2022. That represented about 36% of total inventory losses,

36% of total inventory losses, slightly lower than the 37% in 2021. Even if that has not been merely for reduced retailers' profits, may have warned that crime can threaten the safety of workers and shoppers. The financial impact is real by way more important than the human impact, the impact it has on our associates, the impact it has on our associate, the impact it has on our guests, said Alta CEO Dave Kimball, told CNBC in a rare sit-down interview. It also impacts the community in which we live. He said, if people don't feel safe going into a shop in certain areas of a community, it really has an impact and can change neighborhoods and change communities over time. The government response to the issue has grown in turn.

Both local and federal agencies have stepped up law enforcement and laws targeting organized retail crime, and lawmakers are proposing and passing more measures that stiffen penalties for theft offenses. HSI initiated 59 cases against organized theft groups in fiscal 2021, resulting in 55 indictments and 61 arrests. The agency said by the end of fiscal 2023, the case had more than tripled to 199, indictments spiked more than fivefold to 284, while arrests soared to 386, more than six times the number in 2021. California Highway Patrol, which runs one of the most active retail crime test forces in the country, reports it made 170% more arrests for organized retail crime offenses in 2023 than in the date of 2022. So retail crime is real in my view. We got to stop talking about that. It's not real. I see it every day, not just

the viral video or just that viral, but it's real. Retailers are facing it. And here at the Loss Prevention Research Council, we're all working together to do something about it. So if you're not a member, join. If you are a member, let's work together to find the right solution to attack this problem and make the stores the great retail experiences that it needs to be and with that let me turn it over to tom well good morning everyone thank you tony thank you reid and uh i think it's a typical that we're all traveling out and about so this will be a brief update on what's going on around the world of risk, AI, and just general events. I wanted to start with a couple AI stories.

This one was all over the place, but I read it out in Business Insider and talks about ChatGPT and OpenAI's next version of GPT-5 is expected to be released in the summer. And the model is in safety testing now before it's being released. What they're releasing and they're saying is material better. We'll see a significant increase in the speed, the agility of it, and that it will be more geared towards enterprise or business customers. With this AI or generative AI race, as end users or consumers of the technology, we're seeing and we're going to continue to see great advances. If you're someone that uses an Android phone, you'll see that in the newer Galaxy series phones, there's integration throughout the phone with generative AI, where you have the ability in phone to summarize text

strings, to summarize emails, to summarize websites, to get information and fully integrated, meaning you don't have to go to another app. It's there. It works. And that kind of leads into the next announcement, which was Apple is in talks with combining Google's Gemini with the iPhone. So a paid interaction. And basically, they were also in talks with OpenAI. So when we think about our smartphones and not needing to download another app and really being able to natively do all of the things that generative AI has to offer in the phone. At first, it may not sound like it's going to have a significant impact, but when you really peel it back,

the impact is phenomenal for end users and day-to-day life. I would tell you that on the Galaxy phones, the new versions of the Samsung Androids, going to a website and trying to decipher why someone sent it to you, being able to hit one button, summarize it, and then identify whether you want to read it saves a lot of times. Also, if you're a frequent text messenger and group text messages, there's nothing better than being able to take 40 or 50 messages and being able to find out, is there an action item for you? to take 40 or 50 messages and being able to find out, is there an action item for you?

What's going on with it? Not to mention that all of these devices are slotted to have audio summarization and transcribing. So if you go to a lot of conferences and do a lot of meetings, the ability to record that, summarize it and then even take action items out of it is a game changer from a productivity standpoint. Google made an announcement around Fitbit that they're going to incorporate a large lingo model in Gemini into your Fitbit app to understand some health concerns and identify different trends and ways to go about it. So really, really a lot of AI news. ways to go about it. So really, really a lot of, a lot of AI news, uh, switching gears away from me.

I thought this was kind of funny as Facebook has bought back the poke for everybody that remembers Facebook. Uh, the word poke would be the equivalent of ping. When you were trying to get someone's attention, you will poke them. Um, this is, uh, coming back into place. They announced on, um, last Tuesday that poking feature isn't dead, but they're actually improving that feature, which will allow you to poke and how to find people and get their attention. Why I thought this was interesting is in the tech world, a lot of things that die come back. There's these cycles and iterations of what occurs. So we're going to continue to see, I would say, what I would refer to as shelved technology being rebirthed and reutilized. So something to keep an eye out for, sure.

Another just AI news that's probably more centric to the loss prevention audience is that there are several police departments one the Utah in India Police Department has actually announced that they're using AI enabled tools to investigate crime and do investigations now I would assume that this is probably occurring all over and you know AI is an overly broad term to some but they actually were specific of that they're using even generative AI to help consolidate reports and move to a faster resolution of crime so this this actually made international news on I would say not mainstream media but on the media where some of the folks probably listening to the podcast do around centered around crime and law enforcement. And it opened the question there was it opened

the question of privacy concerns and what occurs when you enable a department to do an investigation that would once before take weeks and seconds. So I think we're going to continue to see this trend. I think that it's something that is positive for all of us. And I would argue that if you're in the LP space and you're using some of the software technologies out there that are available for us, whether it be exception based reporting, crime analytics, or case management, you are 1000% going to see a much much greater emphasis on integration of artificial intelligence. I know that when I was talking to some of the folks at Solink they were showing me you know generative AI being implemented in with human language processing so this is definitely going to if it isn't already affect what we do. And at least in the early stages, it looks very positive for all of us.

The United States government again warns on hackers attacking or carrying out attacking, this time specific to water systems. I think these warnings come often, but the last time it occurred, we had a warning, we did a podcast on it Tuesday. Thursday was the day that I think AT&T service went down, which was not a hacker. But at that same date, two major insurance carriers and health care providers were hacked and came out and released it. This is a very challenging thing where we're seeing a very heightened level of attacks on water systems and infrastructure and utilities. So definitely something to keep an eye on.

There's a lot of information out there of where it's suspected to come from. But at the end of the day, this is happening. So by no means am I a doomsday or conspiracy theory person, but it's always a good plan to have a case of water in the house in case something occurs. Even if it was a hacking event, there are weather events and other things that do impact it. And as I always say when I talk about the potential for cyber risk or a cyber incident that is more of a global impact, what I would say is always be prepared. And prepared is different for everybody, whatever that means for you, but be ready for it.

different for everybody, whatever that means for you, but be ready for it. I would say that in this report, there were several U.S. government agencies that stated foreign hackers are carrying out disruptive cyber attacks against water and sewage systems throughout the country. And so the National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan of the Environmental Protection Agency, Jake Sullivan of the Environmental Protection Agency actually warned that in some cases these attacks are debilitating and shot down water in major municipalities. Why I keep bringing these things up is because these are not just news stories anymore. They're actually confirmed attempts to attack infrastructure. So for each and every one of us, it's extremely important to be prepared, especially in a lot of our positions where you are in a position where you are managing risk and you are going to be that person that gets that call.

So this is what I always say is dust off your risk manual. You know, we thought that nothing could occur that was worse than what occurred with COVID. But one of the things I would say is constantly assess risk, constantly look at what would you do? What are the things you have to do if you had an event where you had a major metropolitan city where there was disruption in water or even sewage? How would that impact your stores? How would that impact your day-to-day life? Do you have a plan? Whatever that plan would be, do you have it? Do you have the way they respond? And does your organization have a preparedness around an event that's a cyber incident that doesn't directly impact them?

And with that, I will turn it back over to Reid. All right. Well, thanks so much, Tom. That's some good stuff. I really appreciate your input. so much, Tom. That's some good stuff. I really appreciate your input. Tony, same with you. Diego, I want to appreciate all your hard editing. He does this at night and he does a super job. Thank you, Diego, for your production and putting it out there and getting it out there on all the podcast platforms. I want to thank you all. Stay in touch. Stay safe. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council. Stay in touch. Stay safe. 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.