In California, Criminal Justice Reform Offers a Lesson for the Nation
California Prop 47 - The Debate is Heating Up
Over the last decade, California has been at the forefront of the nation's efforts to reduce mass incarceration, in part because the state was forced by the courts to lower the population of severely overcrowded prisons.

Overall crime rates, meanwhile, are at historic lows, with levels not seen since the 1960s. Yet some categories of crimes, like theft, have ticked up, feeding into a narrative by opponents of criminal justice reform that California's new measures have gone too far.

Now that President Trump has signed into law a federal criminal justice reform bill, California's experience, and the political fallout, is especially instructive. Experts are finally starting to study the effects on crime rates.

At the same time, powerful forces are lining up in an attempt to roll back some of the changes and, supporters of the new laws fear, return California to its get-tough-on-crime days.

Police unions have put up hundreds of thousands of dollars to support a ballot measure to expand the category of crimes that can be charged as felonies. And the grocery store chain Albertsons has also contributed to the effort, blaming the changes for a rise in shoplifting. Big bail companies have raised $3 million to overturn a recent California law that ends the cash bail system, which critics have long said unfairly targets the poor.

The data on crime, and what it says about reforms, has been contested. Small upticks in some types of crime in some areas has muddied the picture. And Californians may well be confused about what to believe: One day, headlines say that crime is up; the next, that crime is down. For instance, violent crime rose in California in 2012 and between 2015 and 2017, allowing opponents of the laws to point to increases, even as scholars say arguments about criminal justice policies should not be based on short-term fluctuations - and that overall crime rates are declining.

The liberal perspective at the New York Times. nytimes.com

OSHA Workplace Fatalities 2017:
Unintentional Overdose Deaths at Work Up 25% - 5th Consecutive Year of 25% Increases
Statement from OSHA Regarding Decline in Workplace Fatalities in 2017
There were a total of 5,147 fatal work injuries recorded in the United States in 2017, down slightly from the 5,190 fatal injuries reported in 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. (See chart 1.) The fatal injury rate decreased to 3.5 per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers from 3.6 in 2016. (See table 1.)

Fatal falls were at their highest level in the 26-year history of the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) accounting for 887 (17 percent) worker deaths. Transportation incidents remained the most frequent fatal event in 2017 with 2,077 (40 percent) occupational fatalities. Violence and other injuries by persons or animals decreased 7 percent in 2017 with homicides and suicides decreasing by 8 percent and 5 percent, respectively. (See chart 2 and table 2.)

Unintentional overdoses due to nonmedical use of drugs or alcohol while at work increased 25 percent from 217 in 2016 to 272 in 2017. This was the fifth consecutive year in which unintentional workplace overdose deaths have increased by at least 25 percent. osha.gov

NRF Big Show Takeaways: Predictive Weather Analytics - The New Buzz
One specific type of AI/machine learning capability kept coming up in conversations with vendors across the retail IT spectrum: predictive weather analytics.

Retailers can take reliable advance information on how weather will disrupt customer demand and supply chain patterns and apply it to optimize everything from how end caps are arranged in the store to how much stock of a specific SKU is allocated to an individual DC. With machine learning, predictive weather analytics solutions can analyze the results of previous recommendations and make better suggestions the next time a similar weather event emerges.

Whether solution providers are developing their own weather modules, baking predictive weather technology into existing applications, or partnering with third-party specialists, they are making sure retailers will be able to stand the weather.

Other Takeaway's: Omni what - that's a has been term. All retail is one channel and mobile is not just expected it's engrained in everything. Right now it's all about self-checkout, BOPIS, cashierless, same day delivery, frictionless returns and now even automated returns - Amazon - Amazon - Amazon. That's one term that will never go away. Oh we said that about Sears fifty years ago. chainstoreage.com

Starbucks Installing Needle-Disposing Boxes in High-Risk Bathrooms
Drugs & syringes have become such a problem in Starbucks bathrooms that the company is installing needle-disposal boxes in certain locations.

The coffee giant is exploring remedies after employees expressed fears about being pricked by uncapped needles and experiencing related health risks. Starbucks is testing solutions, including installing sharps-disposal boxes, using heavier-duty trash bags to prevent needle pokes, and removing trash cans from certain bathrooms.

"These societal issues affect us all and can sometimes place our partners (employees) in scary situations, which is why we have protocols and resources in place to ensure our partners are out of harm's way," Starbucks representative Reggie Borges said. businessinsider.com

Editor's Note: From blue lights in c-store bathrooms to deter the use by addicts to this development almost inviting them. Another example of the great divide. Just a thought. -Gus Downing

Biggest Robot Deployment - Safety Robots?
Giant Food Stores Deploying 'Marty' Robots Across Chain of 172 Stores
The project is a partnership between Ahold Delhaize USA services company Retail Business Services, Giant and Jabil subsidiary Badger Technologies.

The in-store robots, which move around the store unassisted, are being used to identify hazards such as liquid, powder and bulk food-items spills and provide reporting that enables quick corrective action. The robots' efforts free up associates to spend more time serving customers. They also help stores mitigate risk caused by such spills. theshelbyreport.com

Editor's Note: This is the first time we've seen a roll-out of robots specifically for safety reasons and it happens to be the biggest ever.

Safety Vests
Amazon's Safety Vests Improve Worker/Robot Safety & Interactions
Over the last year Amazon has rolled out new worker safety wearable to 25+ sites.

The Robotic Tech Vest is really more like suspenders attached to an electronic belt. The Amazon Robotics-designed product was created to keep workers safe when they need to enter a space in order to fix a robotic system or retrieve fallen items. Built-in sensors alert Amazon's robotic systems to the wearer's presence, and they slow down to avoid collision

The vest is designed to work in tandem with the robots' existing obstacle avoidance detection.

All of our robotic systems employ multiple safety systems ranging from training materials, to physical barriers to entry, to process controls, to on-board," Amazon Robotics VP Brad Porter told TechCrunch. "In the past, associates would mark out the grid of cells where they would be working in order to enable the robotic traffic planner to smartly route around that region. What the vest allows the robots to do is detect the human from farther away and smartly update its travel plan to steer clear without the need for the associate to explicitly mark out those zones."  techcrunch.com

Mexican Fuel Thieves Cause Explosion - Kills 79 People
TLAHUELILPAN, Mexico - Mexico's president vowed on Saturday to redouble his fight against an epidemic of fuel theft after thieves punctured a pipeline north of Mexico City, causing an explosion that killed at least 79 people and injured 81 others.

The blast underscored the deadly perils of the fuel-theft racket, which has cost the government billions of dollars a year and has been the target of a weekslong crackdown by the administration of Mexico's new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Friday's explosion, which occurred in a rural, impoverished part of the state of Hidalgo, was particularly deadly because the breach in the pipeline created by criminals had also lured hundreds of villagers from the municipality of Tlahuelilpan, drawn by the promise of free gasoline. nytimes.com

FedEx pays $35.4 million to end NY lawsuit over illegal cigarettes
FedEx Corp will pay $35.4 million to settle three lawsuits in which New York state and New York City accused the company of shipping millions of untaxed cigarettes to residents over a decade

The settlement came after a judge ruled last Oct. 15 that FedEx had knowingly violated a federal anti-cigarette trafficking statute, and a 2006 agreement with the state not to ship cigarettes to people's homes. They said FedEx knowingly shipped cigarettes on behalf of such companies as Kentucky-based Cigarettes Direct To You and Long Island-based Shinnecock Smoke Shop. New York officials said FedEx's conduct undercut their efforts to protect public health by curbing smoking, and cheated the state and city out of tax revenue from cigarette sales. reuters.com

Hottest Retail Tech's At Adoption Tipping Point?
Two of the Five Top Retail Tech To Watch in 2019 - Impacting LP The Most
Automated checkout/Cashierless stores: This year is likely to witness much more movement on smart/automated/cashierless checkout schemes. Amazon may be poised for a more rapid expansion of Amazon Go if reports are correct that it's seeking airport space and mulling a plan to open 3,000 stores by 2021. But other technology companies, like Standard Cognition, are saying deployment of their solutions by other retailers will begin to ramp up this year.

Evan Shiue, head of strategy at Standard Cognition, said its automated checkout platform will be in "thousands of stores" by the end of this year. "Our early customers span the pharmacy, convenience and grocery segments."

BOPIS moves beyond mass market: Buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) could be set for a mass-market breakout in 2019. Several large retailers adopted BOPIS early on, and have continued to refine their approaches and develop new ideas for how stores should be designed and store operation transformed around the concept.

More than two-thirds of more than 1,300 shoppers surveyed said they planned to use BOPIS services for holiday shopping needs.

That is likely to influence greater adoption and leveraging of the enabling technologies that support BOPIS this year. These include platforms, devices and mobile architectures linked with inventory and supply chain data that allow store websites and in-store associates to coordinate online orders, in-store available stock and shipping between stores. Ultimately, BOPIS and the technologies that enable it offer the most obvious proof points that retailers' omnichannel visions finally are becoming reality.

Still, retailers need to be step-wise in their BOPIS rollouts. If they rush to market with BOPIS without adequately supporting it, it could end up being a sales killer. retaildive.com

America's Department Store Era May Be Over
Analysts Say Macy's Will Close More Stores
The department store's November/December comparable sales on an owned plus licensed basis rose 1.1% (owned merchandise rose 0.7%) and e-commerce grew in double digits, but the real problem was that it couldn't sustain momentum after strong Black Friday sales.

Macy's wasn't the only retailer that saw traffic fizzle in the holiday months; Nordstrom also reported lackluster crowds at its full-line stores, especially compared to its off-price Rack unit. What that means to some analysts is that the department store model itself - Americans' most prized shopping destination for much of the 20th century - may be over.

"The C and D malls are definitely going to be going away, or at least look markedly different, and Macy's is still anchoring some of those tougher malls,"

Editor's Note: In 1984, the LP leaders of this group ruled the NRF LP conference with the specialty stores almost like the step children. The likes of Federated, May Company, Carter Hawley Hale, Dayton Hudson, Abraham & Strauss, Foley's, Macy's, and a host of others pre-industry-meltdown in the 90s - all in powerful influential positions steering the industry outside of the discount world who reined at IMRA, today's RILA. retaildive.com

Penney tries to come up with Hail Mary plan
Declining Sales & Executive Vacancies; 'A Broken Business'
J.C. Penney saw its same-store sales fall 3.5 percent during one of the strongest holiday seasons in recent years. The department store chain is looking to fill key positions, close underperforming stores and come up with a strategy that will make it relevant to modern consumers.

Three months after the embattled retailer hired a new chief executive, a handful of senior positions remain vacant. The series of events are prompting analysts and other industry experts to question whether Penney can avoid the fate of fellow department-store operator Sears Holdings Corp., which filed for bankruptcy and barely staved off liquidation.

Last week, Penney disclosed it has failed to restock any of the other open positions in its executive ranks. Penney said it is searching for a chief merchant, chief customer officer and head of planning and allocation. Its principal accounting officer will leave March 31, and it is looking for a successor to its chief financial officer who left in October.

"There is uncertainty around the company's strategy given the changes in the top ranks," said Monica Aggarwal, a Fitch managing director. "We need more clarity in terms of how they plan to position themselves." "Penney has some serious challenges to overcome, and gaps in the senior leadership aren't helpful to the changes they have to make." wsj.com

"You Can't Put the Icing Before the Cake"
Ellison's Plan is Back to Basics
Marvin Ellison might be new to Lowe's, but the strategies he's focused on are old.

One of the main things he wants to improve? How Lowe's caters to its customers, which vary from ambitious do-it-yourselfers to customers who want nothing to do with the building process to professionals who know exactly what they want. According to Ellison, the challenge is making sure staff know how to interact with each of these customers and can provide them with the level of service that makes sense for them.

"It starts with retail fundamentals first. As the old saying goes: you can't put the icing before the cake," he said. "We talk a lot about, we've been serving a lot of icing lately, but the fundamentals - or the cake - has not been baked nearly effectively as it could be. So as a management team, we're trying to be disciplined to focus on the fundamentals and not get distracted by all of the other things that we could be spending time on because we have to get this stuff first."  retaildive.com

*Not a bad message for the LP industry as well.

Judge rules U.S. law enforcement cannot compel biometrics to unlock device
A California judge has ruled that American cops can't force people to unlock a mobile phone with their face or finger. The ruling goes further to protect people's private lives from government searches than any before and is being hailed as a potentially landmark decision.

Previously, U.S. judges had ruled that police were allowed to force unlock devices like Apple's iPhone with biometrics, such as fingerprints, faces or irises. That was despite the fact feds weren't permitted to force a suspect to divulge a passcode. But according to a ruling uncovered by Forbes, all logins are equal.

The order came from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in the denial of a search warrant for an unspecified property in Oakland. The warrant was filed as part of an investigation into a Facebook extortion crime, in which a victim was asked to pay up or have an "embarassing" video of them publicly released. The cops had some suspects in mind and wanted to raid their property. In doing so, the feds also wanted to open up any phone on the premises via facial recognition, a fingerprint or an iris.

While the judge agreed that investigators had shown probable cause to search the property, they didn't have the right to open all devices inside by forcing unlocks with biometric features. forbes.com

Traveling This Week? Better Plan on 3 Hours for Security
TSA workers calling off doubles & hits record high
More Checkpoint Closures Likely
The number of airport security workers failing to show up for work hit an all-time high over the weekend, straining checkpoint lanes at several major hub airports.

The number of unscheduled absences was 8 percent nationally, compared with 3 percent a year ago, as the Transportation Security Administration conceded that many of its workers could no longer handle the financial hardship of working without pay during the government shutdown.

At Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport, one checkpoint was shut down at 5:35 p.m. Saturday due to a shortage of workers. At various points during the shutdown, airports in Atlanta, Houston and Miami also have operated under contingency plans to address the shortage.

"There is an increasing percentage of the TSA workforce that is calling out predominantly for financial reason," TSA spokesman Michael Bilello said. "This is isolated now to a number of our largest hub airports

Bilello said the agency had sent special agents from its National Deployment Force to supplement checkpoint agents. NDF members normally are dispatched when an event - like the Super Bowl - or a crisis - like a major hurricane - takes place.

"We're exposed," added Vincent, co-chair of the Transportation Research Board's subcommittee on commercial aviation. "Somebody is going to get hurt." journalgazette.net

Asset Protection Operations Manager Job Posted for BJ's Wholesale Club in Westborough, MA
The Asset Protection Operations Manager supports the field and Home Office Asset Protection teams, Clubs, and Distribution Centers, focused primarily on identifying and predicting trends through data analytics; implementing enhancements and solutions to solve business problems; and managing vendor relationships. bjs.com

Director Loss Control Posted for Murphy USA in El Dorado, ARK.
The Director Asset Protection is primarily responsible for providing direction, developing, overseeing and validating all security, theft reduction and asset protection procedures within the field and home office. The Director interacts continuously with the Regional Vice-Presidents, Division Directors, Home Office Partners, and his/her team to directly impact enterprise shortage control, security awareness, and program compliance for all MUSA retail locations. brassring.com

Murphy c-stores and gas stations operating over 1,400 stores in 26 states.

Stop & Shop pilot to offer cashier-less shopping on-demand

Stage Stores Ramping Up Off-Price Conversions

Reinventing the Fitting Room Focus at NRF Big Show


Closures - Cuts - Chapter 11's - Liquidations

Payless ShoeSource Strategic Alternatives - May Close 1,000 Stores

Signet Jewlers to Speed Up Closing Stores

Save-A-Lot Laying Off Staff 100 at New Corporate Headquarters

Mattress Solutions (142 stores) Files for Bankruptcy



Quarterly Results
VF Q3 Vans up 25%, North Face up 14%, Timberland up 1%, Wrangler down 2%, Lee down 9%,
total revenue up 8%
Costco holiday sales up 7.9%
Target holiday comp's up 5.7%
Urban Outfitters holiday comp sales (two months) up 5%, wholesales up 3%
Game Stop holiday comp sales up 1.5%, US comp's up 3.6%, International down 3.1%, total sales down 5% Barnes & Noble holiday sales comps up 1.3%
Nordstrom holiday comp sales up 1.3% Rack comp's up 3.9%, digital sales up 18%
Kohl's holiday comp sales up 1.2%
L Brands Victoria's Secret five week holiday comp's flat while December comp's down 6%
Signet Jewelers holiday comp sales down 1.3%
Tiffany two month holiday sales - worldwide comp's down 2%, Americas comps flat, Asia Pacific comps down 4%, Japan up 4%, Europe down 5%, worldwide net sales down 1%
J.C. Penney holiday comp sales down 3.5%


Last week's #1 article --

Macy's marks worst day ever on Wall Street, will shut eight stores in 2019