LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 40 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan, and Tony D’Onofrio

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

On this week’s episode, our co-hosts discuss LPRC updates, false-flag operations, the COVID-19 vaccine black market, violent civil unrest, the Capitol, paid agitators, 2021 technology trends & predictions, and much more. The post CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 40 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan, and Tony D’Onofrio 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. We use Bosch Camera's onboard intelligent video analytics to quickly locate important recorded incidents or events. Bosch's forensic search saves you time and money by searching through hours or days of video within minutes to find and collect video evidence. Learn more about intelligent video analytics from Bosch in zones one through four of LPRC's zones of influence by visiting Bosch online at BoschSecurity.com. Welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science Podcast. This is our latest in our weekly update series. Here we are today on January 12th, 2021.

Not a lot has changed, but yet a lot has changed. And, you know, we talk about on the COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 virus front, you know, we've all heard a lot of reporting around new variants of the virus, which we're told by the virologist and epidemiologist, this is very common, but what does it look like? And with the UK conducting so many forensic assays, they were able to more rapidly start to uncover and then track and do forensic and contact tracing to get an idea of where might it have come from? How did it travel. We see South Africa, who doesn't do quite as much, but they do really good, evidently really good forensic work on viral transmission. And so they identified another and seemingly potentially more dangerous in some ways variant. And again, they're telling us the variant means that there's a cluster of mutations that

occur almost simultaneously, or at least apparently do. And that this is what they're able to do. Now there's a lot of research going on currently to understand, well, what are the mechanisms? And why does this look like this is a more transmissible variant or resistant to certain actions? Like, is it resistant to any of the therapeutics that might be employed that are introduced in through medical care rather than our bodies' innate and adaptive immune systems? In addition to the adaptations to the adaptation, the adaptation, excuse me, that our bodies are making to fight the illness and eject the virus. So some part of what they're thinking right now on a couple of studies evidently is that, that indeed both of these variants are more transmissible, which

is not good news. Again, we've mentioned this before, but if it's easier to transmit this, that the transmission chain is more likely to maintain the connections, maybe that's because it's, and this is where they're looking at the mechanisms, because there's more viral particles per droplet. It's expelling more, you know, this type of thing. Should we stay a little more distant? Should we wear even thicker or, you know, more layered masks to reduce the amount of droplets that are carrying the viral particles? And so it's sort of why, and then, okay, so then let's try this and let's try that and then study and see what's going on. It doesn't look like either the variants are resulting in increased,

if at all, any reinfection, which was an initial concern. Going over to testing, you know, again, I've been reading some research around saliva versus swabs. I know at UF, each week I go in and get, you know, you do a drive-through, and it's some sort of saliva test. So that's, it looks like they're both very effective. They both have their downsides. They're both very effective. They both have their downsides. Swabs can be more, have a higher sensitivity and specificity rate than saliva. But then other tests show the opposite. Swabs can be obviously evidently much, I have not had this procedure, much more uncomfortable,

even though it's just for a second, than the saliva, which is probably more embarrassing. But they could be inconsistently used. And therefore, they're a lot of times miss some of the viral particles if the person is not heavily infected, but they are in fact infected. In other words, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is in their nasal tract. So the saliva test does allow the tester to stay away from you. And so like in our case, they hand you a tube, everybody's masked up, you race around your vehicle with your flashers on, go do your collection, if you will, and you go through the queue and then you, and you're still in your vehicle, hand it off to somebody that's heavily masked and they then are labeled and so

forth. Now we know that there are a lot more home testing kits on the way. And in fact, they're therapies, you know, more testing has been doing, been done on the ivermectin, the anti-parasitic,

parasitic. There's a, there's another test that's been going on with another, and I'm not going to try and peroxidate, glutamide, I'm sorry, on males. Males seem to struggle more with getting the illness and getting more serious disease from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and more, a higher fatality rate. And so they're testing this in males. It didn't seem to have much, I guess, efficacy in females,

but it does seem to be effective in males. But this is in phase 2, so they've got to go to phase 3 or expanded phase 2 trials on it. The ivermectin holds some plasma, I, I guess, some promise. The next one is the convalescent plasma. There are mixed results right now trying to understand what's going on. Is it in fact helpful or not? And if so, is the window so narrow and the procedure so complex and manpower intensive where when the system's overwhelmed, there's just not enough room and not enough people to properly administer the therapy. So that type of testing. And again,

it's going on with several hundred different types of therapies where people are again, looking at, we've heard everything from antihistamines to different sleep aids and on and on trying to see, is there something that can break the chain. The vaccine front, we understand the United States, there have now been over 26 million doses distributed with more as we speak, moving out 24-7 across the country to the different states as we focus on the U.S. right now in this podcast. At least 10 million have been administered, So we can see the slowdown again is not necessarily logistics getting there, but because the amount of doses per pack and, of course, the extreme temperature that they've got to be supplied at making it very difficult

having enough people that are trained coming up with more and more efficient ways to move people through and administer, working through all the admin to understand who did get vaccinated and with which vaccine and when their second dose is required and how to get them in for that second dose. There's a lot of complexity here. And when you talk about over 330 million humans, probably at least 200 million need to be vaccinated to reach that group immunity or herd immunity concept to break these viral transmission chains so we can go back to somewhat normal life. There's the issue. out now tens and almost hundreds of millions of doses that are in process now or in the system now or staged to be put into the system. AstraZeneca's and Oxford's vaccine approved in the UK and a couple of other places, not in the US yet. The J&J and Novavax vaccines are in phase

three. We may be looking at, in the next 90 days, some real action there. And so the idea of having four to five of these powerful vaccines available in tens to hundreds of millions of doses is encouraging for some kind of late spring to late summer where we got a lot of people vaccinated here. And we can see now, if we're now at over 10 million, getting more efficient and effective every day, we should be there. We know there are dozens in preclinical, more options. There are 43 in phase one, 20 more in phase two, and yet 20 more in phase three. And of course, there are globally eight vaccines that are either emergency use authorization or approved. So incredible progress in just months. On the LPRC front, moving over, we will have this later, we were suggested by our producer, Kevin Tran, an erosion of consequences and this deep sanctionary concept that if we provide people

with sanctuaries, whether real or imagined, and help them rationalize or neutralize their guilt, justify their actions, or they realize there's no real downside or consequences to victimizing others in their places and property, then that might be part of what's going on and always has with criminal offending and victimizing people. So we'll talk more about that later, but it's an area of study for our team as we pull together materials, anything we can find on it, and then work out ways that we can measure relevant constructs, as we call them, and then finally do testing with those constructs to see, all right, how do we help

people realize, you know what, if you do something wrong, if you harm somebody else in any way, their property or their person, or even their peace and well-being, then there are deep consequences for you rather than you have deep sanctuary and cover. So FusionNet, we continue to, that's always available to our members, but we had a cluster call around preparing for the demonstration that was well advertised in the nation's capital. We have another one coming up today, this being Tuesday, the 12th, where we're going to be talking about with the group at 6.30 p.m. Eastern on FusionNet around preparing for the inauguration and so on. Part of what's going on too, the confusion is as retailers and others, and we post, look for any and every open source intelligence

items that we can have, is talking about false flag operations. In other words, doing something to make people think that you're part of that group or to lure somebody in. These have been real problems in starting world war two in Vietnam, for example, where what looked like one country being assailed was in fact the other country that acted like it was them, and they dressed up like them. So we see both the right and left, if you will, conservative liberal groups that are conducting false flag operations right now, which makes it confusing. And the reason we think that's important for us to understand better is to see how this is affecting our workers and their morale,

to see how this is affecting our workers and their morale, how it's affecting the safety and security of our people and our places. Especially, it looked like in the first demonstration we saw in D.C., there wasn't much retail damage. There's not as much effect there than more in government buildings, like what we saw later at some point in Seattle and Portland or in Wisconsin, where they occupied or attacked government buildings. In this case, it seemed a little more isolated to that because we're talking about the nation's capital in that area where there mostly are just government buildings. They're not

interfaced with retail. So stay tuned on FusionNet. Vaccine cluster call too for those retailers that are going to be involved in distributing and administering the vaccine. Again, some of our retailer members are involved in the logistics of moving the vaccine around the country more efficiently and getting it to the right place in time. Others are somewhat involved in that, but are obviously the drugstores, supermarkets, and so forth, the mass merchants like a Walmart and Target involved in that, but are obviously the drugstores, supermarkets, and so forth, the mass merchants like a Walmart and Target involved in actually administering the vaccine. So how do we do that more safely and securely for those involved that are administering and being administrated to? Moving to AI Solve, part of LPRC Innovate, We now have four servers either in the building on-premises or not that are being

designed and set up for some pretty heavy 2D IoT integration as well as artificial intelligence, as far as natural language processing, computer vision, and even data recognition. and even data recognition. Otherwise, and so we're appreciative to Dell and NVIDIA, to Tyco, to Sensormatic on the nation of these heavy-duty on-prem servers. And so moving over to Operation Next Level, Lighthouse Consultants team of five professionals working with Kevin Tran and Jesse on our team to reach out and talk

with retailers across the United States, North America, and then later over in Europe, UK, and then going on from there. Part of a board of advisors initiative as well with Smart Growth. So the idea is to bring in more and more really super sharp and committed retail companies into the fold. And so there is going to be an LPRC Research in Action webinar, invitation only VIP webinar for next level invitees. In other words, retailers that are interested in the LPRC and becoming part of the research and results community. We're excited about that. The member-only LPRC kickoff, obviously, every year we do it in January, just following the NRF Big Show up in New York, hosted by Bloomingdale's. We'll be virtual,

heavy-duty planning. We've got the agenda. We've got the speakers. It's a really cool rollout. So you'll see both in the LPRC research and action for retailer prospects, if you will, member prospects, and the LPRC kickoff. We'll have different but both highly compelling new research findings and some great discussion opportunities, brainstorm opportunities around all the things that we're all experiencing in the same way we're doing with these very illuminating cluster calls. The Ignite Winter Planning Meeting Conference, again, will not be able to be held in person here

at the University of Florida's Innovate Hub. Instead, we'll be virtual. So that's being planned right now. New research on organized retail crime. Corey Lowe, Dr. Lowe on our team, has just conducted three different projects. And some of them will be put out at both of these meetings that we talked about. Actually, all three. We'll have a strategy ad session, by the way, for number ones and twos at the Ignite as part of that conference. So we're excited about that. at the Ignite as part of that conference.

So we're excited about that. And we've got another randomized controlled trial being planned right now with a major consumer products company. More to come on that later. So no further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Tom Meehan. And Tom, if you could illuminate us on what in the world is going on

in the United States and the world that we need to know about so we can become involved and engaged. Yeah, sure. Thank you, Reid. And I think it's been a crazy week since we taped last time and a lot of updates, but I'm going to actually probably be a little bit more brief because they kind of all center around two things. One, I'll start with COVID-19 and there have been a plethora of reports of black market vaccines. And just to be aware of this, it's important to note that some of these warnings are preventative in nature to try to just remind people to be aware of the fact that with a vaccine like this, and the way that it is being distributed today does allow you in some states to register, in some countries to register. But this is not only a U.S. challenge, it's a global challenge where the black market vaccines, and this is the really dangerous part, the report talks about the potential for a counterfeit vaccines. fit vaccines. It also talks about the potential for actual real vaccines that are taken or,

you know, basically through a hijacking type event. And then you have the risk of that these vaccines, while they're authentic, may not have been controlled correctly from a temperature standpoint. This poses obviously a significant risk from a health and safety standpoint. And with that being said, there's or the blue box challenge of keeping it closed, but it's also having a really simplified approach to who gets it, when they get it. And then, as Reid, I think, mentioned earlier, it's not just about the vaccines. It's about people who can properly administrate it, the length of time that they last. So this black market vaccine thing, I think, is a very real thing that is coming. I think we will see it outside of the U.S. first, especially in some European countries where they are developed countries, but they don't have really the same critical infrastructure to

help support a mass vaccination effort. So the Czech Republic, Poland, a mass vaccination effort. So the Czech Republic, Poland, those two countries come to mind just because I deal with them regularly and I speak to folks there where there's not really a straightforward approach on vaccination and everybody's kind of in this limbo, if you will, about, hey, what do I need to do to get a vaccination? So more to come on that. The next thing I'll talk about, which is probably the thing that we'll spend some time on as the LPRC with the fusion net, is the based on the unfortunate events that happened recently in the Capitol. And the report is staggering when you read it because it basically says that there should be an expectation of violent civil arrest in all 50 states. states. Now, without any factual evidence to support this, I think there is this challenge of balancing intelligence with actionable data. And when you have an event like what occurred in D.C. on the 6th, which while it may not have been the largest gathering we've seen in the last year

or even the most violent gathering, there's an emotional attachment to the United States around the Capitol buildings and what occurred. So there's also this kind of perception that these buildings are impenetrable. So when you have an event that occurs there, I think it has more of an impact on folks because they see it occurring. So we'll continue to update. I think we have a FusionNet call on Thursday this week. So today is Tuesday the 12th. So on the 14th, we'll have a call here to talk about some of the things that occurred. And I think for a retailer,

the challenge is how do you balance, I would say, almost a full year of civil unrest with the event that occurred on the 6th? I think Reid mentioned the Capitol event. And while I don't want to say wholly, in most cases avoided direct impact on our listeners and retail because of the proximity to major retail establishments. So I think there was less of an impact that there was before. And while I don't know that we'll get too far into it, there is a tremendous, tremendous amount of use of social media here. And we you know, we all have to be very cautious that when we're using social media to gather intelligence, we have, I know we all know it, we all say at the same time is that the validity of that information, unfortunately, at times

cannot really be seen until it's too late, until it's actually occurring. So the false flag event where you have folks from the other side appearing to be there on one side sending information, there is a lot of posts that I'm seeing that are really agenda-based. They aren't actually really specific on events. They're more just saying something's going to occur. And then when you dig in a little deeper, you can draw the conclusion that these folks aren't actually a part of any group, that they're just trying to either send a message or an agenda. And within reason, some of these civil unrest obviously causes disruption. But when you think of domestic terror, and I know when I say that, I'm not

actually referring to the six, but the methodology here with some of these false flags events is just to cause concern. So it's actually not necessarily about whether or not something will occur. It's about making people close their stores, plan for something to occur, even if it may not occur. So when you think of that, this is the one time I would say you really have to spend a little bit more time validating the information as much as you can. Is it coming from a source that is credible? Is it coming from a source that has been involved before? So clearly, if you're using social media, some of the simple things to look for is if you're following a person and watching a person making a threat,

and they have a lot of videos of themselves at prior protests, and they're an activist that's been involved, that you may want to come up with an individual rating system to say, based on what I'm seeing, there's a higher likelihood that this could really occur versus a post of a brand new account that something hasn't occurred. Now, that's very anecdotal and not scientific in nature, but what I would say is I've never seen the amount of activity that I've seen on social media that I've seen in the last two weeks based on threats of violence um and threats of of civil disturbance that's going to occur based on um you know some of the events that occurred in dc this this past week so um with that i would just say to stay vigilant use the resource of the

lprc uh the fusion native net is great because it allows you to interact with several different folks in the same space at the same time. And that helps kind of work through. outcome or a better information stream based on having all of the folks involved versus just some of the posts involved. I do believe based on what I'm seeing that there will be absolutely some events. It feels like, and again, anecdotal talking about what I'm seeing on social media, so I'm always overly cautious to state this when I say something like this. It feels like there are a lot of small group type events that are being talked about on social media. So what I'm seeing is I'm seeing a lot of individualized, smaller subsets of groups talking about events and very small event-driven type communication where there's a small group of 100

or so. I would say that in the past, I would have told you that the Proud Boys was a very small, unorganized group. I think that they have a much greater presence this time than they did before. a much greater presence this time than they did before. And I'm not going to debate or argue the fact of an ideology or an actual group, because I think both of them have real challenges and real things that you have to be concerned about. Obviously, groups are more organized and can come across. But I think I was talking to an intelligence professional recently, and they said, well, that's not really, you know, they're not really organized. It's just a bunch of people getting togetherazi white supremacy groups that have been for many years segregated into their own that are now molding into and taking advantage of the Proud Boys slogan or the QAnon slogan. They're not what you would say are traditional folks that you'd see in that group.

They generally have some, in some cases, some of the folks I'm following have extensive criminal histories around and are usually, I don't know if that's the right term, but usually a loner or in a group that is around white supremacy and not actually what you would normally see in some of these protests. Now, again, that could be an agitator taking advantage. It could be someone that truly has changed their methodology of thinking. But it's important to note that some of these groups, you have really, I don't want to use the word, but really bad folks that are now involved in groups that before were political in nature and were non-violent. And now you have some really hardened criminals involved that basically want to agitate.

And this allows them a channel to run through. And then the last thing we're seeing a huge spike in, which I think we do see in most protests of this nature, whether it be a BLM protest or even an animal rights protest, is professional agitators. And what I say by professional agitators, these are paid individuals that actually are like event planners. They use the same things that we would use to talk about LPRC impact. They use the same things that we would use to talk about LPRC impact. They use apps and advertising and all sorts of things along that nature. And one of the easiest ways to identify a paid agitator via social media, because they do use social media and they do really, they want to advertise, they want people to know who they are, is one of the individuals that someone asked me to look at was at an anti-fur protest, was at a BLM protest, and that was at DC.

And they are someone who has, believe it or not, an LLC and a licensed name. And they actually go around and what they say is they're an event organizer and a photographer, but they're what I call a professional paid agitator. They actually work with someone. Someone usually does pay them. They at times actually rent buses to bus people in. So I've seen an increase of that type of activity where it's a person with that background saying, come to this spot. We'll have a bus. We'll bring you in. We'll give you box lunches. It sounds humorous when I say box lunches, but it also

allows them to solicit or bring people in that would not normally be there. So much, much more to come. I'm sure on the next podcast, we'll have even more to talk about it. But my message to everyone is to please stay safe and err on the side of caution with this one. I would say that the stakes are a lot higher. There are a lot of folks that are agitated. There's clearly a divide in the country. But if you were going to make a business decision before and teetering on waiting till something occurred, my recommendation, again, and this is Tom Meehan's recommendation, not LPRC, not control tax, is to take the extra step

and maybe board the building up and get your folks out. If you're in a hotbed, if you're in the hotbeds that have been hotbeds throughout the year, I do believe that we will see some activity that's unprecedented. Over to you, Tony. Thank you very much, Tom.

Very sobering comments in terms of what we're dealing with right now, both in the pandemic, as Reid was mentioning, and more importantly, recently, all the activities in D.C. So I'm going to switch to a lighter topic and actually look forward into 2021. And this week, concentrate on the predictions for the year in terms of how 2021 will shape from a technology and also trends point of view. So let me start with seven retail technology trends to watch in 2021 from RIS News. Number one, supply chain fulfillment rethink. 71% of retailers name lack of real-time inventory visibility as a top supply chain obstacle that reduces efficiency and productivity. Retailers will invest in the back and front office as related to supply chain, inventory management, distribution, track and trace, and delivery fulfillment. management, distribution, track and trace, and delivery fulfillment. Number two, social commerce. Facebook and Instagram accelerated the deployment of social media platform shopping capabilities in 2020. Social shops and ad platforms are an opportunity to engage shoppers,

build a relationship, and drive sales. Number three, data analytics. Expect analytics platforms, tools, and people upgrades as retailers look to play catch up in more effectively using data that they've been only collecting and storing. Expect workloads to shift more quickly to cloud versus on-premises. Number four, customer 360. While the phrase customer 360 has been in the market for years, new definition and ways of building customer profiles are evolving as data sources and cloud-based integrated data platforms evolve. Expect retailers to continue to test and learn in this space.

Number five, stores for digital natives. Digitally native brands have a unique opportunity to test physical stores in 2021 with plentiful and prime commercial real estate options available globally. And I do see more digital native brands opening physical stores this year. Number six, core modernization and security. Security of data, application, and other elements managed by retailers will continue to be a top priority. To enable this, modernizing the core, pursuing a journey to cloud and deploying resilient security protocols will be a priority in 2021. And finally, the seventh trend from RIS News, closet resupply as we reopen. So shoppers will be eager to renew and restock as the economy opens, especially when retailers train shoppers that it's time to reopen the wardrobe for business

and get out of the yoga pants and golf shirts. And my favorite from these trends was their buzzwords that this author saw in 2021. And these were the buzzwords that he saw for 2021. Digital transformation, digital core, modernization, AI, machine learning, digital core, modernization, AI, machine learning, cloud migration, chat robots, intelligent automation, microservices, customer 360, control tower, agile, store the future, and scaling. These replaced the buzzwords in 2020, which were, my Wi-Fi is not working.

I think you're on mute. Sorry, I was on mute. Sorry, my dog are barking. And your screen froze. So those are the words that we leave behind in 2020, hopefully. So those are RIS. Let me switch to 2021 predictions from analysis of 200 plus articles by Visual Capitalist. And this is just a running list that I'll go through. I won't number them.

So environmental, social and governance investing reaches a tipping point. Brands must be authentic and value driven. Big tech backlash continues. Bitcoin hits the $50,000 mark. Certain mid-sized U.S. cities get a boost. Everybody now loves Austin, for example. Facebook will bend and possibly break. A broad trend of decentralization.

China has a strong 2021. Individuals and employers start taking wellness seriously. Inequalities continue to worsen during a K-shaped recovery. U.S. cities get creative with space and mobility. Movie theaters begin their next act. A great rethinking of office life is underway. American millennials will answer the call of the suburbs. A weakness in U.S. dollar.

Summer of love 2021. No idea what that means. Strong U.S. housing market. Cautious optimism about the European economy. Most companies will embrace a hybrid work model, a souring outlook on specs, which are special purpose acquisition companies, positive growth for small cap stocks,

GDP growth next year, likely in the 5% to 6% range, low and stable mortgage rates, ballooning debt and deficits, and all eyes are on Apple in terms of growth acquisitions and new products. So those are the ones from visual capitalists. And let me end with my own. I just published a new blog this week on my three surprising predictions for 2021. And they are the following. Number one, we're coming out of financial pain, really, that in 2020 will cover a reduction in global retail sales of $1.6 trillion.

In dealing with this pain, we need to keep in mind these three things. Number one, safety concerns, but we would ask for all of 2021, and in fact, they'll continue in 2022. us for all of 2021 and in fact, it'll continue in 2022. In April, a majority of consumers felt not safe going into malls. In August, safety became a top three purchase driver for consumers. It was actually tied with ease of buying with value of money being number one. A December podcast featuring a coronavirus, University of North Carolina scientist pointed out that we may reach herd immunity for 70% in most developed economies, but it will take longer for the world's 8 billion people worldwide, especially in emerging economies. the world's 8 billion people worldwide, especially in emerging economies. And with new strains emerging, it will be difficult even for developed economies to return to full normal. Just think of

what's happening right now with the UK strain and the South Africa strain. So those strains really wreak havoc in all of the world in terms of their arrival. Number two trend that I see is high-speed digital transformation. A McKinsey report in August stated that in 90 days, we accelerated 10 years worth of consumer and digital adoption, and that trend really is continuing. Almost three quarters in an MIT survey believe the crisis has sparked internal innovation. So in other words, everybody in the companies now are focused on innovation. 90% in companies expect corporate technology adoption to speed up. Hottest tech, according to the same MIT survey, product and service digitization, data analytics, supply chain digitization, cloud migration, AI, internet of things, and robotics.

And the number 310 that I see is more time-saving retail services, please. A 2019 Wall Street Journal article pointed out that Americans spend 1.2 billion hours each week driving to the mall, finding a parking space, wandering around the aisle, checking out, and then driving back home. To me, that sounds like a lot of waste of space, and consumers are really liking the new services. I've talked about this before. They're getting extremely high ratings. So, for example, buy online, pick up in stores in the holidays got four out of five stars. Curbside retails got 4.3 out of five stars. And the reason they like these are beyond safety.

So consumers like these because of the short wait times, lower cost than delivery, they are reliable, they speed up fulfillment, and last, they actually listed concern with safety. So they like the fact that they're gaining time. My view is that we'll have a tough first three to six months, but then it will get better, especially in the developed world, but it will take longer than even 2021 for the entire global population to reach herd immunity, which means we'll be on guard for a while. So the world that COVID-19 leaves behind will include increased concerns with safety, dramatically higher digital transformation, and increased utilization of time-saving consumer services. And with that, back to you, Reid. All right. Excellent. Thank you so much, Tony, Tom. A lot of insights,

I think, for our listeners. We're on guard here. We're scanning everything we can. We're always remaining objective. We want to make sure that we're collecting information across the board, applying the scientific method whenever possible. You know, that means there's some kind of logic model, how things might work. And then there's evidence, right, or observations to collect to see, all right, does that support or not support the initial hypothesis or view or thought? So we want to do that with everything we can. It's not always optimal at first. We have to first start collecting initial information. So, but with the pandemic, I like, Tony, the way you finished up. I think the world is, I wouldn't say we've grown up, but we've certainly learned a lot of lessons, hopefully, as far as human behavior, as well as viral or pathogenic behavior

and how the two are completely linked in the same way we talk about red and green shoppers, that the people that we want to be on our property, buying, working, being productive, they're legitimate place users. And the red shopper, the person that's there to victimize that place and the people that are there using the place are a problem, but they're linked. And so we have to continue to look at things holistically, and that's what we'll do here at the LPRC. So on behalf of myself, our producer, Kevin Tran, Tom Ian, and Tony D'Onofrio, I want to thank everybody for tuning in and listening to Crime Science Podcast. Everybody, please stay safe. Let's break the chain and get on with everything. Thanks.

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.