LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 196

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

This week our host discusses the latest in LPRC news, research, visitors, and events! In this episode, our host discusses the LPRC going to ISC East, an update on LPRC's SaferPlaces Initiatives, the LPRC Resources available to our members, the continued growth of the LPRC labs, and so much more. 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. This is an update series and I'm going to be talking just for a few minutes here as I'm hitting the road to New York City for a conference and a lot of good discussion, debate, and research and development planning around computer vision, camera vision in particular, bio feature matching, whether it be

human, their gait, their hands, their face, their other characteristics that would be of interest, and then combining that type of bio detection type of compute with some others like aural and other physical visual things as well as sense and so on. So all of these things are important. They're important to integrate together to create higher confidence for the decider, the human, the human in the loop, the decision maker that's trying to make people in places safer, in this case, by leveraging sensors to earlier

and more definitively detect potential threats and then use their best judgment as to whether this might in fact be a real threat to peace and quiet, to life safety, to it might benefit reduction of fear of crime victimizations by people that are working there or potentially shopping there and so on. So very vital, very important. And each week we've been having strategy sessions in person or on Teams calls with some of the leading tech companies in the world.

Companies like Axis, Axon with FLOX safety, with Motorola Solutions and Mojave. the one that we're working with is the one that the Kansas acts on with Motorola solutions and many, many, many more. As I mentioned, we're working with 151 solution partners, an embarrassment of amazing riches. So, but what we've been looking at is a 2025-2026 roadmap.

What are we looking at to make people that place the assets and merchandise within a place more secure? How do we do that on site? How do we do that in the parking area, that shopping center area as we move outward, that block or block segment, that neighborhood, that community. And so all that ecosystem that encompasses an understanding with each other, with our partners in law enforcement, prosecution, fire rescue, code enforcement, and of course

our fellow retailers and shopping center security people and so on. So that's really what partnerships are about. It's about mutual awareness, integrated awareness in mutual planning and mutual action, including preventive or protective action, but also forensic or post-event action, whether we're talking about an active shooter, some sort of mass attack where a whole group of individuals come in and a mob, that type of format,

or ongoing day in and day out events, or relatively rare, but highly dangerous events as well, like armed robberies. So how do we do that? What do we do? What's that look like? What is that integrated approach? What are those partnerships really look like? Not just temporary alliances, engagements, meetings.

Those are all very, very important. But what we're trying to do is look beyond that and understand what could it look like? What are the things we need to integrate to understand the community input from store employees, from visitors, shoppers, delivery people, from nearby or next door businesses people, their visitors, the people on the block, the community utility people, the mail people, the garbage pickup people from our law enforcement partners and everybody else.

How do we get that community engagement? What tech can enable better, quicker, more accurate, more comprehensive reporting? Those are important. So that comprehensive and earlier information is what we really need. And that's one part of what we're trying to build into the system, leveraging existing

and enhanced or improved technologies. Our team is working to create a better engagement, more accuracy, faster detection of a signal out of all the noise, the visual and sound. We're working with law enforcement, how do you increase emergency call management so that our retailers, when they suspect or know that there are going to be a victim or are a victim of a crime or one of their customers, for example, that they know exactly how to get a hold of people and what to say when they get a hold of those people.

So that's going to be so important and a critical part of what we're trying to do here. Another very important part is going to be trying to integrate these things, this information together. So what could be voice, what can be computer-aided and AI enhanced. Another part of this is the real-time intelligence operations. How can law enforcement, how can loss prevention asset

protection, excuse me, law enforcement asset protection and loss prevention professionals provide information to each other in a quicker, more efficient, more accurate way, and generate that mutual trust that the information is out there. The information will not be misused or abused accidentally or intentionally. So that's all part of the work that's going on. Real-time intelligence operations are so critical. I think the response and reporting when law enforcement does show up,

that they're getting the information they need, they know where they need to go. The same thing with EMS and other fire rescue teams. For example, I think the records and evidence part of this is excellent. You look at R, you look at Think LP, you look at evidence.com, or Motorola's evidence as part of AWARE. These things are all very critical. The same thing with the synthesis of evidence, not just good preservation, good accurate imagery. It's complete.

It gets the right detective or investigator. It gets the right intake prosecutor and so on and so on, but the analysis and investigation part are critical. And then offender management, we're looking at how do we know when high-rate, high-impact offenders are incarcerated? How do we know when those people that create so much harm in the community are no longer incarcerated? They've been released or otherwise. So these are just some of the components we're working on here at the LPOMC and at the University of Florida Safer Places Lab. Again, great visits with Gainesville Police Department, new Intel analysts with a lot of law enforcement

and military experience overseas and on the border and so forth. We're excited to work with him and the same thing work with the crime analysis, excuse me, the crime analyst from the Alachua County Sheriff's Office, Engageville Police Department. So stay tuned on that. We'll review later too. What we're doing is an exercise for the University of Florida PD, UFPD, as a bike theft program. So we are mapping all the locations of the bike racks where the incidents occurred,

where bikes might've been recovered, looking for patterns and opportunities, what type of protective level is there, what type of theft methods were used, tools that were used, things like that. We'll also be trialing different protective devices and combinations and so on. So we're using the SARA model, right? The criminology recommended problem solving, very simple. We use it all the time at the LPRC. We highly recommend.

SARA, S-A-R-A, scan is the first S. And then we're going to be analyzing the data, like we just talked about now, who, when, what, and so on. And then we're going to, from that analysis, come up with a precise protective package to handle that problem set. Then we're going to, the next day, it's going to be assessed. How well did it work? What were the outcomes? But how well did we execute? What were the issues we had in formulating and executing our protective plan? And how well did we or partners and others perform?

Looking always for adjustments and opportunities. So with no further ado, I'm going to sign off and get ready to board my airplane. So please 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.