Today we will be talking about Organized Retail Crime. It is not just shoplifting; it is a large-scale effort to steal retail merchandise and resell it for financial gain. It is not a new topic; it has been a problem for the retail industry for many years.

Although reliable statistics is a challenge, there are indications the problem has increased in recent years. The results of a 2023 National Retail Federation national survey of 63 retailers showed that losses from shrink was $112 billion in 2022. In increase of 20% over 2021. External theft accounted for 36% of the losses and internal theft 29%.

A recent case in North Carolina illustrates the challenge in dealing with organized retail theft. When authorities entered the home of a couple they were investigating, they discovered over a million dollars in stolen merchandise from Lowe’s home improvement and other retailers in the area. The couple was selling the merchandise online that several others had stolen for them – which is typically how organized retail theft works. The couple was convicted of the thefts and served 9 months in prison.

In June 2023 the Fairfax County Police Department announced they were focusing on retail crime as a part of their Summer Crime Initiative.

We are fortunate to have with us today the Chief of the Fairfax County Police Department - Kevin Davis. He was appointed Chief in April 2021. Previously he served as the City of Baltimore’s police commissioner from 2015 to 2018, chief of the Anne Arundel County, MD, and as assistant chief of the Prince George’s County, MD police department where he started his career in 1992.

Today, we will be talking about Capital Region Real Time Crime Center in Tallahassee, Florida that was launched in February 2023. The first real time crime center was established by the NYPD in 2005. It was originally designed to operate 24/7 to provide information support to patrol officers and detectives in real time – as they were responding to and investigating events on the street. The concept has evolved over the past 18 years to take advantage of a wide range of technology resources. RTCC’s have been adopted by police agencies across the country. Many of them integrate technology such as cameras, gunshot detectors, license plate readers and analytical software to provide operational information support to field operations.

In a unique partnership Florida State University hosts the Capital Region Real Time Crime Center in which the FSU Police Department, Leon County Sheriff’s Office, Tallahassee PD, Capitol Police and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are working together to provide information and analytical support as they respond to calls and investigate crime in the field. The RTCC includes an in-house learning lab in which students and researchers from FSU’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice can provide immediate analysis of crime trends.

We are fortunate to have with us today Professor Brian Stults from the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University where he has been a faculty member since 2006. He is also the Director of Research and Evaluation for the RTCC. Brian’s research addresses issues of race, crime, and community in urban areas, with a particular focus on residential segregation, racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and spatial and temporal patterns of crime.

Also joining us is Leslie Rabon who is the Executive Director of the Capitol Region RTCC. She began her career with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office in 2004 when she was hired as the agency's first Intelligence and crime analyst. Leslie has been involved in the development of strategies related to intelligence, data-driven approaches, gang enforcement, prevention, and intervention on a local, state, national, and international level. Mrs. Rabon holds a bachelor's degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in critical incident management from St. Leo’s University.

In this Episode we discus the Allied Universal World Security Report published in September 2023. The report – Allied’s first - is based on a survey of 1,775 Chief Security Officers from large global companies in 30 different countries.

Some of the key findings in the 54-page report include:

· 88% of the CSOs report that company leaders are more concerned with cyber security than physical security.

· 80% of the CSOs believe that recruitment and retention of security professionals will be a major problem over the next five years.

· 90% of the CSOs indicate that it is more important for security professionals to have technological capabilities and a high level of customer service training.

· More than $1 trillion dollars in revenue was lost in 2022 from internal and external physical security incidents in 2022.

The report is filled with interesting insights into the growing challenges of private security. We only have time to touch on a few of them, so we encourage you to read the report. You can find it here: https://www.worldsecurityreport.com/

Today we will be talking about Police Vehicle Pursuits. Police pursuits have been the subject of controversy for many years because they often end with crashes that result in serious injury or death to those involved, and frequently innocent motorists and pedestrians not involved in the chase. The US Department of Transportation’s Center for Statistics and Analysis reports that pursuits ending in death increased 41% from 2001 to 2021 – 36% of the deaths were innocent bystanders.

Many cities across the country have seen increases in both violent crime and traffic injuries and deaths following the pandemic. In response, some police agencies have relaxed their vehicle pursuit policies resulting in an increase in pursuits. In Milwaukee for example, policy changes in 2015 and 2017 contributed to pursuits increasing from 414 in 2017 to 1083 in 2018 – injuries tripled. In 2021, the California Highway Patrol reported 12,500 pursuits with 20% resulting in a crash and 7% in a fatality or injury. Pursuits increased by 7% in 2021 over 2020. Twenty-seven percent of the deaths and 31% of the injuries were innocent bystanders.

The Police Executive Research Forum recently released a new report funded by the US Department of Justice that provides guidelines for police agencies. The Chair of the Pursuit Working Group for the report is Professor Geoff Alpert from the University of South Carolina Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. We are very fortunate to have him with us today.

He is an internationally known and respected researcher who has made enormous contributions to improving policing through his research, teaching, consulting, and writing over his 50+ year career. He has published 26 books and monographs and authored or co-authored 120 articles and book chapters. He has written 3 books on police vehicle pursuits. His research covers a wide range of subjects, including the use of force, reducing officer-involved collisions, and discretion.

This episode of the Community Safety Web Podcast continues our series highlighting emerging security technologies that are dynamically addressing community safety issues and problems. In this episode, we embark on an exciting journey into robotics in policing and private security.

Over the years, science fiction has tantalized our imaginations with visions of robotic law enforcement and security systems. From the cybernetic police officers of "RoboCop" to the AI-driven sentinels of "Minority Report," the idea of machines protecting our streets and communities has captured both our fears and our hopes.

What once seemed like a distant future is rapidly becoming our present reality. Robotics, driven by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and sensor technology breakthroughs, are transforming the landscape of policing and private security. These advancements offer unprecedented opportunities to enhance public safety, streamline operations, and address the challenges that have plagued these sectors for decades.

Dean Kamen, Founder of DEKA Research and Development Corporation, helps us explore the evolving capabilities of this groundbreaking technology and the myriad of long-standing problems it can address while considering some common concerns and misconceptions.

Today we will be discussing Sentinel Event Reviews in policing. Sentinel events are incidents with undesirable outcomes that may signify underlying systemic weaknesses, likely the result of multiple contributing factors and may identify ways to strengthen the system or process and prevent future negative outcomes. A sentinel event review is an examination involving all stakeholders of the system in which the error occurred. It aims to prevent similar errors in the future rather than assigning blame and punishing those making the error.

Sentinel event reviews have their roots in the manufacturing environment and have become widely used in other high-risk fields like aviation and health care. Over the past 10 years the police have begun to utilize the sentinel event review process. Although not widespread, police departments in Seattle, Tucson, Madison, Milwaukee, New York, and Tempe have conducted sentinel event reviews.

We are pleased to have Michael Scott with us today. He is a Clinical Professor and Director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, School of Criminology & Criminal Justice (CCJ) at Arizona State University. Mike began his career in policing as a police officer with the Madison, WI police department. His career in policing has been both as a practitioner serving as a policer chief and special advisor to the chief in St. Louis and the NYPD Commissioner. He was a Senior Researcher at PERF and clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Law. He is a 1987 graduate of Harvard Law School where he received his Juris Doctorate.

Mike is also involved with a project at Arizona State University to explore the development of a statewide system for conducting sentinel event reviews of police use of force, particularly among vulnerable populations.

Today we are excited to bring you the first in a series of episodes focused on specific innovative and evolving security and safety technology solutions that are solving problems and reducing risk. As we begin this series it should be noted that the Institute and hosts of this podcast are not endorsing these technologies or the companies who have created them. Rather we see this is an opportunity to explore technology solutions that can have significant impact on ongoing security and safety challenges.

It is a widely accepted fact, and a topic of a previous episode, that gun violence in the US continues to be a tragic epidemic. Gun violence is a leading cause of premature death in the U.S. killing more than 38,000 people and causing nearly 85,000 injuries each year. Police and security professionals and community leaders have long searched for ways to prevent, mitigate and reduce these crimes. The technology we are highlighting today aims to do that through identifying weapons before they can be used.

Today we are happy to be joined by Mike Ellenbogen – the founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Evolv Technologies. Started in August, 2013, Evolv is a growth stage company focused on protecting people from gun and bomb violence by fusing innovative new sensors and advanced AI.

Evolv’s stated mission is to “return confidence and peace of mind to people visiting public spaces”. Evolv has created a touchless screening system to identify weapons and health related threats. Through a combination of technologies that include advanced sensors, machine learning, cloud analytics and centralized data storage; the Evolv platform identifies guns, knives and explosives without disrupting people movement and flow.

Unlike traditional metal detectors, x-rays and manual bag checks Evolv’s process allows individuals to walk freely through their portals without stopping. The technology allows for the screening of 4000 people an hour in a single lane.

Today we will be talking about stress and burnout among police chiefs. Serving as a police chief has always been a demanding and stressful job. The past several years has been even more challenging as chiefs have dealt with significant declines in staffing, higher levels of mistrust in the community, spikes in homicides, a pandemic and widespread protests directed at the police themselves. Chiefs from the largest cities in the US turnover in less than five years, and in many cases are just exhausted from the relentless demands of the job.

We are fortunate to have Dr. Kandi Wiens with us today to help us better understand stress and burnout in police executives. She is the co-director of the Penn Master’s in Medical Education program, co-director of the Health Professions Education certificate program, and co-academic director of the Penn Chief Learning Officer executive doctoral program. Dr. Wiens is an executive coach, national speaker, and organizational change consultant. Her coaching practice is deeply grounded in emotional intelligence, burnout, and resiliency research and methods.

Kandi is also a member of the Major Cities Chiefs Association Police Executive Leadership Institute faculty. In addition to her classroom work, she provides individual coaching to each member of the class on a 360-degree assessment. She has also been engaged with research on stress and burnout among police executives which she uses to provide advice and guidance on stress management.