LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review: Episode 36 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tony D’Onofrio, and Tom Meehan

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

Consumers are expected to spend, on average, $1,387 per household this holiday season – down 7% from 2019. Spending is expected to shift to non-gift purchases – up 12% from last year. On this week’s episode, our co-hosts discuss this and more, including COVID-19 updates, D&D Daily’s retail robbery & ORC data for Q3, the need for a more frictionless brick-and-mortar experience, and rising cases of scams, including puppy, medical, and robocall scams.  The post CrimeScience – The Weekly Review: Episode 36 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tony D’Onofrio, and Tom Meehan appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi everyone, welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we aim to explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners, as well as other professionals. We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Be a leader in loss prevention by implementing integrated solutions that enhance safety, reduce shrink, and help to improve merchandising, operations, and customer service. operations, and customer service. Bosch Integrated Security and Communications Solutions spans zones one through four in the LPRC's zones of influence, while enriching the customer experience and delivering valuable data to help increase retail profitability. Learn more by visiting Bosch online at boschsecurity.com. Welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science Podcast. Today, our latest in our weekly update series, joined as normal, thankfully, by colleagues and friends, Tony D'Onofrio and Tom Meehan, as well as our producer, Kevin Tran. Welcome, everybody.

So we'll jump into it. Things have continued to move rapidly on the COVID-19 front, the pandemic. We know that there have been increases in infections. It's sort of all over the place. We just heard that in Florida, for example, the infections haven't boosted yet. But again, there are always lags after the holiday season. But since so many people did not go there to see family or friends that may have been contained a little bit, but the data will show. The same thing with the ICUs and emergency departments as far as pressure.

That seems to be distributed unevenly across the United States. dynamic that we've heard throughout this is that the as a more rural areas those areas that don't have as much of medical capability um started to get hit by infections and those that started to get more serious infection that had underlying conditions or were more vulnerable because of age and so on um over very rapidly overwhelmed uh local capacity and And so we saw what can happen in a location like New York City that has incredibly vast and very capable medical resources because of the sheer number of humans, that they were overwhelmed. And so we're seeing that in some areas of the country. Others were not, but is a wave coming. Um, so again,

it continues to be the hands, face and space so that we're not spreading and onboarding, uh, acting as a key link in the infection chain. The virus loves us. If we don't, uh, uh, wash our hands, you know, cover our face and, and keep a little bit of space from other humans because that's how the virus is transmitted and viruses are going to virus. So moving on to the vaccine front, just continually almost every day, new information. We know that today at 6.31 a.m. local time in Coventry, England in the United Kingdom, a 91-year-old healthy, as far as they know, individual citizen, royal subject, was vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. One of the first of millions that will be vaccinated in the UK. And that's before the AstraZeneca, Oxford has cleared the final hurdles

or the Moderna vaccine. So again, three that have actually come out of phase three trials with an incredible amount of analysis. And bear in mind on the safety profile, the phase one, then the phase two, and then the phase three trials, all heavily monitored for what we would think safety and efficacy, and of course, dose ranging analysis, trying to understand how much do we need? How often do we need to give it? It looks like the first three vaccines that will be coming out the gate, they are recommending and requiring two injections, two doses per person to maintain,

to achieve and maintain a longer lasting immune response. We see that one has, is reporting more we see that one is reporting more immune response side effects than the other, but both have them. And as I mentioned on this podcast before, taking the Shingrix shingles, anti-shingles vaccine, which is a two-dose regimen, I was able to achieve a pretty healthy, robust immune response. In other words, each time for about two days, I felt like I had the flu. And as far as I know, I have not had the flu in over 20 years. So, but that's actually could be a good sign. Neither have had serious side effects or anybody needing to be hospitalized after months and months of study. The other thing that I understand the vaccine scientists and physicians that are working on these and many

other, we know there are a hundred vaccines in development, different phases, including 17 now in the very rigorous phase two, and again, 13 in phase three, are that they like to look after the approval or coming out of the phase three trial, another six weeks minimum. Normally, side effects are present within that six-week period. So in the United States, the FDA is requiring two months. The administration said, no, we want eight weeks data minimum on top of your completion of your trial, where again, we've got all that data. And bear in mind too, with each of these, particularly under Operation Warp Speed, there were already independent researchers and US FDA and other medical officials that had access

and were conducting active surveillance throughout the trials in the United States, the UK, and elsewhere. So that's another reason the UK went ahead and approved the use of the Pfizer commencing this morning, which would be December 8th for 2020, because of all the surveillance that was conducted, all the data on each and every person. We know that the doses, it's my understanding that pregnant women were not included in an abundance of caution, but that they fully believe that there are women that actually were pregnant during the trials. the placebo or the actual vaccine before, during, after dose one and before, during and after dose two. So they do have data around if you're pregnant and then again, different age groups. It's my understanding as well as there's normal protocol and vaccines that nobody under 12

participated in the trials. And so what they like to do is walk that type of testing down in a separate phase three trial. So you go down stepwise in age groups. But again, it looks like in studying and preparing that under age 12, serious disease and particularly fatalities, very, very, very rare across the world with millions, several millions of infections. So that's a little bit about what's happening there. We also know that in addition to the Pfizer-BioNTech, the Moderna US, and then the AstraZeneca Oxford, that the J&J is coming near the finish line. They expect to deploy at least 1 billion doses in 2021 of theirs. Theirs has been a one-dose phase three trial so

far, a much larger trial, at least 60,000 human subjects are participants, but they've also funded and are conducting a simultaneous phase three trial where they're looking at a two-dose protocol to make sure that they not only trigger a robust and proper immune response, but that that's more sustained. And should they need that, again, we know the logistics we've talked about securing the, these vaccines from, uh, from being diverted, stolen, um, being, uh, adulterated or, um, hijacked or, or, and otherwise out, uh, other fraud that might occur as well as theft. Um, but also that, um, that are looking at the logistics of moving, particularly with the cold storage requirements, but we're seeing that Pfizer, um moving, particularly with the cold storage requirements. But we're seeing that Pfizer seems to require the coldest, but that the other options coming out would not require that.

An interesting vaccine in phase two trial from Zytus, that would be a skin patch application rather than an injection. application rather than an injection. We see that another one coming from CureVac that's actually working with Tesla on a manufacturing of theirs. It would be using another type of technology, but again, would only need to be stored at 40 degrees rather than below zero. than below zero. And then Inovio, for example, the application of the injection would not be of this vaccine by injection, but also it would be a handheld device that does a subtle electro impulse and injects it. But again, we're looking at several hundred different vaccine options, another several hundred therapy options for those of us that are infected before we experience any symptoms during or if we get serious disease. So those continue at pace. So a lot of exciting news on the prevention, the therapy, and of course

fronts and the treatments. So moving over to looting, we've been doing some deeper dives and trying to understand some of the dynamics we talked about. Some seem to be related to racial injustice demonstrations, others to NBA or Major League Baseball, in other words, professional sports championships. Others, we just saw Chicago was hit pretty seriously by hundreds of young teens. And so the, stay by as we continue to study and understand the group dynamics that occur and what that looks like. We're also playing particular, paying particular attention to a new anti-violence program that's going to be initiated in Baltimore.

This actually will be the third time this program has been initiated, but the belief is that this time it will be adequately funded, better planned, and the funding and planning and the commitment they believe they've got at all levels will make it more effective, efficacious program. The same program with modifications appears to have been fairly effective in New Orleans and two or three other major cities. And in fact, the police chief from New Orleans is now the police commissioner in Baltimore. So he is completely and fully committed to detailed planning. There are researchers from Johns Hopkins and Harvard and other academic institutions, criminologists that are working alongside and have been measuring the initial two that were

done in Baltimore to help advise on ways to better conduct. And in fact, further commitment comes from the new mayor-elect in Baltimore, who as a young man grew up during one of the first of the trials of this program. And he has his reasons or his personal observations why he didn't think the commitment was there. He thinks it's a good program. It just wasn't thoroughly applied or given enough time. And so it's very committed. So stay tuned.

But the idea is that we not only want to have individuals, us, potential victims, our stores, our homes, our places and people be a little more protective of our own behavior so that we're not as vulnerable, not as exposed to risk to predators, offenders, but also that we can work more collectively, not just at that place or space, but in that block, that neighborhood, that area, and so forth. So these large-scale operations where you're looking at the operative mechanisms at the different strata are of particular interest to us. And many of the retailers that we work with are very excited and motivated to work together, to work collectively, one, because they think they can be more effective, and two, they can share some of the cost with the revenues down so much in retailing. So that's a big push here at the LPRC and through the Safer Places Lab program at the

University of Florida that we're standing up in earnest right now. The LPRC's solution partner directory is being stood up as we speak. Um, and Kevin can speak more to that later on an upcoming podcast as to how, uh, that's going to work, but all the new ways that the LPRC will be supporting and working with the solution partner members, those that create the technologies, um, and the tasks and, uh and personnel operations that are so critical to the retailers themselves to support them and get their technologies better known, better deployed, and tied together, integrated in a better way. We were pretty excited that we received our Dell Technologies new PowerEdge server to be used for artificial intelligence, AI, particularly computer vision, but also natural language processing or NLP server came in. The NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs that were gifted to us by NVIDIA should be arriving this week.

We just got the number this morning, the tracking number. So we're excited to have that new server. And that's very complimentary to the server, that Sensormatic AI, that KS, that Gopi and the team have donated and that we'll be working on. Zone 3, in other words, in-store two different projects, as well as two different Zone 4 parking lot projects with AI. And now with the new Dell technologies, we'll be able to extend that further. And there'll be more news as we, I believe, will be getting yet a third AI server as well. And these servers are going to allow us, the LPRC, but also to conduct R&D with our solution partners and prepare and be ready to start to move from the lab

in the lab spaces as well as the parking lot and loading dock and other environments we can research here at UF at the Innovate Hub, but then move out into the stores, but also allow us to work more closely with the UF faculty in industrial and systems engineering department, as well as electrical engineering and computer engineering and ECE. And then finally with SICE, which is a computer information and systems engineering. So with those three departments, we'll be collaborating more closely in them and their PhD students. Also, I mentioned robotics. We've got some robotic technology now in the engagement lab at the LPRC. And Dr. Boyi Hu and his five PhD students have now been cleared in during COVID here to work closely with us on R&D in that lab space. We're very excited about that. And so you're seeing this

combination of smart device and part of the smart device is leveraging some edge AI capability to better serve the customer, increase efficiency and safety in a few different ways that we can talk about later. HazardNet, we got a nice jump in our human subject or our participant engagement and enrollment yesterday. We were excited about it. It was a little flat as people were all over the place taking tests, our student sample, and traveling and staying clear because of COVID. in the privacy and security and safety of their own homes through a protocol designed to keep them safe and separated while they record their video clips. Our annotators have started annotating the video to be used to, again, train and then later inference different models, so using different models.

Operation Next Level is well underway here. Their team will be in Gainesville next week. Uh, but we're working on concentrated recruiting, um, of new retailers and key solution partners, the United States, Canada, the UK, and Europe, um, and then expanding later on. So, uh, we're excited to talk about that. Some new ORC research. It's not ready yet, but I'll have Dr. Corey Lowe on our team go through that. And then we'll have Kenna Carlson on our team go through some of the new research she's doing on an upcoming episode. So that'll be the end of my briefing. I'm going to head over to Tony D'Onofrio and let's find out what's going on in the world, literally the world of retailing.

Tony? Thank you very much, Reed. And again, great update on both LPRC and the great things what's going on in the world, literally the world of retailing. Tony? Thank you very much, Reed. And again, great update on both LPRC and the great things that's going on there, and also the positive front on the vaccine. It was good to see that 90-year-old get the first shot in the UK. So let me start actually with some data on the Q3 2020 from D&D Daily on their retail robbery report for the quarter. So year to date for the first nine months, retail robberies are stable to slightly lower at 4,09 year. Q3 robberies are the lowest on record in Q3 at 1,278 versus 1,464 last year.

The top three sectors in the quarter were convenience, jewelry, and restaurants. 37% were armed, 31% were unarmed, 32% were burglaries. And the highest day of the week where robberies take place, which was a surprise to me, was Sunday and Monday. So Sunday and Monday is when the most robberies take place. The number one state was Texas, followed by New York and California. Last year was California, Texas, and Florida, the top three. Chicago was the number one city, and it overtook Houston from last year as the most robbery. San Antonio was number two both years. New York tied Houston at number two this year in Q3.

And last year, New York was number five. So robberies are up in New York. Let me now switch to also their Q3. And last year, New York was number five. So, robberies are up in New York. Let me now switch to also their Q3. Again, this is the D&D Daily Q3 Organized Retail Crime Report. Year-to-date organized retail crime cases are down 25% on last year, the lowest since 2014. the lowest since 2014. Q3 dollar amounts are down 52% on last year, lowest since 2016. The total number of ORC cases in Q3 were 311 versus 395 last year. The top three case types are theft and shoplifting, which were 74%, robbery, burglary, 14%, and credit card fraud, 5%. The top three merchandise stolen were electronics, tool, and hardware, including the top three states in ORC in the quarter were Florida, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, and Ohio, comparing to last year, where the top three were California, Florida, and Texas. So Florida makes an appearance in both

years in terms of the top three. So that's a little bit on organized retail crime and robbery. Let me switch now to some new research or new report that was published in The Times in London and also published by Recondeur this week on the future of retail. So in that, they actually cover the world. So they talked about the U.S. For example, U.S. or Americans plan to spend $1,387 this year for the holidays, which is down 7%. Gift card will be down 5% this year to $487 of that total. Non-gift purchases, which include clothing, home holiday furnishing, plus other, they're going to be up 12%. So we're spending more on ourselves and our homes at $436.

Socializing away from home and traveling will be down 34% to $260. And no change in entertainment or having parties at home at $205, but I guess they're going to be smaller. 51% of USA consumers said they feel anxious shopping in-store this holiday season. 65% say they would prefer to shop online to avoid crowds. They also provided some interesting forecasts in terms of what's going to happen next year and what's actually going to happen in 2025 and what also is going to happen to 2020, 2030.

So here are the six forecasts for the future of retail. So by 2021, they expect, and I fully agree, the return to physical stores. Mediocre 2020 players won't survive the pandemic. Fewer, but there will be fewer, but far better stores. Brick-and-mortar retail will become a high-touch, sensory-driven experience. We'll need to become more frictionless,

and this includes context-less payments, reduced physical touch points, and expanding and simplifying click and collect. Also in 2021, we'll see more personalized offers. Offers will become more sophisticated and personalized by the end of the year. When you opt in as a consumer, retailers will predict your needs and deliver them. And in fashion, they're also predicting that we'll have an app that will actually figure out how to actually get our size correct, which will improve online ordering.

By 2025, the prediction is for a blended retail experience. So by 2025, we will be experiencing the tail end of the pandemic leading to hybrid working models, reduced business travel, commercial buildings and lower occupancy, and the discretionary spending will remain cautious. There will be a resurgence of shopping in malls, which will offer a richer range of experiences by blending retail, music, dining, and entertainment. Also, by 2025, customer expectation will rule. So by 2025, mall retail will tap into local communities, developing hyper-personalization and hyper-localization to attract consumers to suitable offers. Future retail trends will see stores evolve and follow examples of Nike and Starbucks to play three hubs for immediate consumption as an experiential venue and as a showroom to support the brand and support online sales as e-commerce fulfillment centers. And then by 2030, they expect the predictions are for smart supply chains. So by 2030, entire value chains will be

aligned to accurate predictive models of consumer needs using AI. And finally, number six, by 2030, we'll have seamless shopping. So consumers will have seamless shopping experiences through social platforms. Social commerce will become a powerful tool for small brands to access the well-targeted consumer segments and make them able to compete with large brands. So some of these predictions, I think, will actually come sooner. For example, social commerce is already a multi-billion dollar business in China that is doing really well. So it needs to come to the West sooner. The whole personalization really, again, needs to come sooner because that's what consumers are looking for through their digital devices.

So some of these, I think, will happen sooner. Some of these, like getting our size right, I think, will take longer. But it's interesting to see in terms of how retail is evolving as we get to the pandemic at the next level. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Tom. Thanks, Tony. Thanks, Reid. And we'll go through very quickly because some of this stuff is repetitive. I'll talk about a story that isn't funny, but often when I talk about it, sometimes people think it's humorous, but the puppy scams, we talked about this about two months ago.

There's been an increase of puppy scams in the second wave of lockdown. Basically people that are stuck at home want to get pets and a lot of dogs that are in demand are very difficult to get. Shelters thankfully are empty, so there aren't as many rescues out there. And there unfortunately are a rash throughout the United States of folks that are posting, taking deposits and not delivering

dogs. There were multiple arrests actually in the last five days. I think the first wave was everybody wasn't as prepared as the second. So law enforcement has really taken an aggressive measure. There was actually some news reports last night on it. So just a stark reminder, my family has asked about a dog multiple times and started to look. And if you know about the scams, it's somewhat obvious when you get into it. But if you really want a dog, large upfront deposits, not being able to see the dog, videos that are dated, things of that nature that are coming through. So just another reminder to stay weary. This week, the FBI released a warning. They really released two around scams. One amount, an increase of scams specific to the vaccinations as vaccinations

become available and the news comes out that there is a concern of scams or miracle cures. You know, the tips are very simple is research carefully, check with your local doctor, ignore calls for immediate action. You know, you're not going to get a text message that says you need to come through this in order to run through. There is, and Reed mentioned this a little bit because there are therapeutics and treatments that are out there that are not necessarily require a shot or intravenous. The patch for one, those are the ones that the scams that are really being targeted.

A nasal spray, a patch, avoid your doctor, we can send it directly to your house. We'll probably take your insurance, just pay the shipping fee. So the scam is not necessarily one of the scams where they're looking for large dollars. They're really saying, give us your insurance information, your personal information, and then send us a payment for shipping. So this is kind of a double whammy. They get your personal information, and then send us a payment for shipping. So this is kind of a double whammy. They get your personal information and then they keep that shipping money and nothing comes through. A good rule of thumb, and while it may sound obvious when you're listening to this

podcast, is the FBI just simply made a statement that is claringly important to remember is that you're not going to be getting, you know, a medical treatment or prescribed online for COVID. There's no plans for an online distribution of COVID. And if you're not dealing with your doctor directly to assume that it's not real and to move on. Additionally, and I think we talk about this every year, but this is, again, more related to COVID. Both Amazon Prime and Apple, there have been a new kind of robocall scam for the listeners that get that random dial with a computerized message. The Amazon Prime one is a little more clever than some in the past because it does sound somewhat authentic. Because you're an Amazon Prime member, We have you on this automated piece. Press this button to learn about your package.

And there's a couple of different methods of operation whether it be stealing your Amazon information or so on and so forth. And similar with your Apple account, your Apple account's been compromised. You can reset your password, click on this link. That's a password. So there have been in the last 10 days kind of a changeover with the package side of it and the Apple side of it.

While I would say these are things that are constantly happening and it serves as a good reminder, as we do and we talk about different methods to deter theft and different ways to help mitigate loss and actually apprehend folks. The folks that are doing these scams are constantly, constantly changing the messaging and working around it. So what I would say is I did actually hear the recording for the Amazon Prime. I think that it's actually very well done. The call center, I'm not sure where it is yet. It's a clean call center. It sounds very Amazon-esque, like when you talk through it. I did not hear the new Apple one. So it's just keeping in mind. And we're all, at this point, I would say the majority of folks are doing a lot more online shopping. So we're trying to track our packages.

And there are some logistics challenges around those things. So this kind of is timely, especially if you're waiting for a package for a family member or you're waiting for something. As we all know, these fishing or fishing schemes pry on the fact that there's some validity to it and that enforces the message of it could be true. So it's important to really think through and look at that. The easiest methodology is go back to the merchant. If you do get a phone call or you do get a text message and you have an incline that it could potentially be an accurate message, Go back to the merchant. Go to the merchant's website directly. Go pick the phone up directly. And I often say this, that extra 30 to 60 seconds could avoid you months of aggravation

around some of these scams. Additionally, and I'll round it out with this, and it feels just like it did back in April when we started talking about this stuff in May, is as folks are going remote and schools are starting to close, there is a rash of different types of attacks that are focused on home networks. the internet and related to risk is, you know, use good passwords, change your passwords often, you know, that's a pain. Use two-factor authentication where available and do your very, very best to keep your work computer separate from your kids' homeschooling computer. I think it's to be said today, I know that that's not as easy as it sounds. Last night, I was on a call fairly late with someone dealing with an issue, and their computer wasn't working, so they had to use their kid's computer.

And immediately, we started talking through the risks. And the person on the phone who I would say is actually extremely proficient technology-wise and is in our space, so is aware of the risks risks simply just said, well, my computer's not working. I don't have an alternative. So this is the option I chose and the risk is there. So we talked about some alternatives like using a tablet, a closed loop system, different ways that we, this individual could access their network, But it leads to the belief that sometimes this is not an error. That was a conscious decision to do the work, but then there

really wasn't a conscious decision of what the backlash was. And with that, I would just remind everybody that as we approach the holidays to just stay safe online, continue to wear a mask, and it often says that, but the numbers in some states, while they're not consistent, to just stay safe online, continue to wear a mask. And a read often says that, but the numbers in some states, while they're not consistent, are getting much higher. But I wish everybody well and to stay safe. Back over to you, Reed. Excellent. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tony. Always, every week, such incredible information, ideas, thoughts,

news from the front, studies, and all that to help us all. I'm always taking notes. So I appreciate that. Yeah, it's about the inoculate, right? It's about the dosing and everything in life. And the same thing, you know, nobody, nobody despises wearing a mask more than I do personally. But, you know, we do it for others. We do it for ourselves. And like you say, it's to slow the spread of the amount of inoculate or of viral particles in the water droplets so that we either don't get infected or infected anybody else, or if somebody's infected, it's lower than it's maybe not a serious dose to create serious disease. So with that, I want to thank both Tony and Tom, our producer, Kevin Tran. Please send up to operations at

lpresearch.org or hit our website, lpresearch.org for any and all questions, comments, or suggestions about crime science, the podcast, or things that we're doing at the LPRC. Everybody stay safe out there and have a great week. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security. 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.