LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 250 Ft. Jacob Judd, PhD (LPRC)

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Join host Beau Nutter on this episode of the CrimeScience Podcast as he speaks with the LPRC’s newest Research Scientist, Jacob Judd, PhD. Together, they explore Judd’s background, research experience, and his latest study, which focused on New York’s Retail Worker Safety Law. Judd offers a practical analysis of the law’s impact on retailers and shares valuable insights on how retailers can adapt to these new requirements.

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. Hello everyone and welcome to this edition of the crime science podcast here at the LPRC. I am your host today, Bo Nutter. I am a research scientist here at LPRC. And today we are joined by our newest research scientist, Jacob Judd. Thank you for being here today, Jacob.

So for people who haven't met you yet, could you introduce yourself and share a little bit about your research, both before here and at LPRC? Yeah, sure. So just starting out, I was born and raised in the Midwest. I'm from Iowa. I went and studied at Western Illinois University after that. I did my bachelor's and my master's there in law enforcement and justice administration.

So it was very criminal justice-based, but I did minor in security administration as well, so I got some experience with that. I then worked for the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, just developing new trainings for current ball enforcement, things of that nature, and just updating their practices. So after that, while I was at Western, I played football. I played collegiate Division I football there. I played center. After that, I did play professionally for two years. And then I decided to go back to school and get my PhD. So I tried to apply to the best criminology programs that I could find because I was really interested in the research side of things. And I got into Florida State University, which is often rated one of the better criminology programs out there.

And so I went down to Tallahassee from the Midwest. And I was there for the past six years studying there and I am just finishing my doctorate now. In terms of my research that I've been doing since I've been at Florida State, a lot of it has been centered around this idea that individual correlates and social environments really shape behavior. And so something that I've found really interesting is not only can we predict certain behaviors and especially with my research, which is violent behaviors, but what are some practical

interventions that we can give to help subvert that or change individuals over time, things of that nature? And so a lot of my research is about practicality. And I think that's important because in the field of criminology, we've kind of gotten away from that, in my opinion. It seems like everyone wants to produce some research, but there's no practical implications that come from that. And FSU specifically has made it their priority to get into what's called translational research.

And so they put a big priority in how to merge the research side with the practicality. And so I've been a part of some really cool projects that involve that. Most recently, I was working on a gun violence-based initiative in Leon County, which is in Tallahassee. And so we just use some evidence-based research. to try to reduce gun violence in Tallahassee for the past year, constantly updating and working with police, different community members, to reduce gun violence. And so I think that my research is really centered around this idea of how to best merge research and practical interventions. And some of the main things that I've been studying involves fraud and violence, which is pretty awesome because those are the two working groups that I'm currently.

working with here at the loss prevention research council yeah all right that sounds great i mean it does fit in perfectly with uh lprc so getting into your study uh so for listeners who may not be familiar can you give us a brief overview of new york's panic button requirement and explain why it is important for the retailers yeah sure um so there's this new york retail worker safety act that's been passed and so the It goes into effect, I believe, on January 1st, 2027, employers with 500 or more retail employees statewide must provide every retail employee access to a silent response button and training on that use. And so this is important, but why it matters is that this requirement creates an operational

question for our retailers, specifically, about the technology, the type of routing for the alert system, the response procedures are going to have, and the training and documentation. And so it's not just necessarily about purchasing a device, but really understanding what device is going to work in your environment. And so that's the idea behind this safety act. So there's a lot more that goes into it. And you know, you can find more information in the report, but that's the broad, high level overview. So how does you design and conduct this survey and report? So Dr. Corey Lowe came to me and said that he would like to survey some of our retailers to get an understanding of some of the what's out there and what were they doing? Because he had been getting feedback from some of the retailers asking about it.

And so we decided to create a study. And so what I did is I basically just sent a short survey out to about 300 retail contacts. and only about 32 respondents actually provided data, but it was enough to at least provide some descriptives and let individuals know in what I call benchmarking, benchmark against other people. And so when I designed this study, I designed it in a way that the questions asked might be open-ended

or they might just be simple information where you could get frequencies or percentages on exactly what are other people doing out there. So it's useful for that. It's useful to take a glance at and see what others are doing. I wouldn't say that it's rigorous statistical analysis in that sense. But in terms of benchmarking and get an idea of what's out there and maybe some ad hoc advice from other individuals that took the survey, it'd be useful. Okay.

So what did the survey reveal about where retailers currently stand preparing for the requirement? Okay. So preparing for the requirement. it was kind of widespread. So some of the retailers seemed like they were pretty far along in terms of having the requirements needed for the panic button. Some of them were also actively piloting, you know, trying out different things or maybe evaluating a certain solution. And there was a small section that didn't understand or didn't know about the requirement. I'm sure they do now after taking the survey. Right.

But yeah. So there's different levels. in terms of where they're at. But it does seem like the majority are at least moving towards meeting the requirement according to what they answered with. Okay, well, that's promising. So one key finding was that the ease of deployment and employee usability were among the most important technology selection factors.

So what does that tell us about the practical side of compliance? Yeah, that's interesting. So the practical side, and I'm glad you brought this up because You know, this is always what I'm thinking about in terms of what's out there and what's actually practical, right? So a solution can look good on paper, but it can still fail operationally, right? And so you had two different things that came about it. It was employee ease of use was pretty high-rated in terms of the amount of retailers out there that are, like, concerned about that. It's an employee ease of use, and then the other one was ease of deployment across their locations.

Okay. So there's some different types of solutions out there and you should evaluate it if you're a retailer. But really try to think about what works best in your environment and whether your employees will actually use that type of solution. I wouldn't say that that's my advice, but that seems to be the case of what people are selecting in terms of what the answer in there in this survey. Okay. So what's sort of the main takeaway for the retailers and what should they be doing as the 2027 deadline approaches? You know, like I said, again, I'm not the one to give advice on your specific store. So I would go take a look at the study yourself and kind of make those decisions.

But if I were to read this study and kind of think in my own head, I would think of four main things. First, this isn't a no, this isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. You know, there's different store sizes, different store environments. And so you should think about how that works there. the panic button requirement specifically. It might not just be only a technology decision, right? There's a lot of different moving parts that come with this panic button requirement. And so you should probably think through all those different aspects.

I would definitely make the decision along with your organization. I wouldn't just use benchmarking. And also, I wouldn't just only use your organization. I would also see what else is out there. But use benchmarking carefully. I'll understand that, you know, their organization is the same as mine, that type of thing. So those are the kind of the main takeaways that I would recommend for anyone who's reading this report. Also, go and actually read the report.

Even if it's just the high-level executive summary and you get through that, or if you have a specific question, you can take it and throw it into an AI bot and ask, hey, what does it say about this? I think it's important that you go and look at it yourself if you're interested in that. So that'd be my main takeaways. Right. Yeah, it is one of a, you know, longer report than we usually have, but it's definitely worth the read if anybody wants to go and give that a read and learn more about this New York panic buttons, the survey that Jacob sent out.

But that's really all we have time for today. So thank you so much, Jacob, for being here. Yeah, it's been a pleasure. And I hope everybody enjoyed getting to meet you and learning about some of the research that you've done in the past and now here for LPRC. And I'm looking forward to what else comes out of this. And thank you to all of our listeners, and we will see you next time on the Crime Science Podcast.

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 LPRsearch.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 Lost Prevention Research Council.