Augment your CCTV with face matching technology

Retailers rapidly deploying face matching software to prevent deadly violence, ORC loss

Retail employees and customers share understandable concerns about store safety. Criminals killed more than 300 U.S. retail customers and 150 retail employees in 2021, according to industry publication D&D Daily. That's why retailers are rapidly deploying face matching software to address life safety concerns and crippling ORC losses.

Recall: Many retailers initially resisted CCTV systems, citing "Big Brother" concerns. Bold retailers followed the lead of banks and added cameras. Eventually, customers perceived stores with cameras as safer. Now retail security cameras are ubiquitous, and only about one percent of all recordings are ever reviewed.

Modern face matching technology transforms your existing CCTV system from a passive, reactive tool to a proactive, real-time violence prevention tool. Face matching software provides advance warning of threats and immediate event notifications. Retailers receive instant notifications when persons of interest enter—a vital advantage when seconds matter.

Retailers using facial recognition software have matched active-shooter threats, disgruntled ex-employees, violent ex-spouses, members of ORC syndicates, murder suspects, arsonists, and sex offenders. They have also helped find missing Amber Alert children, missing elderly citizens, and human trafficking victims.

If you knew there was a proven solution to keep your valued customers and associates safer from violent offenders, would you implement it? The real risk is answering no. FaceFirst's solution is fast, accurate, and ethical—learn more today at facefirst.com.

 
Prop 47 & Other Reforms Driving Up CA Retail Crime & Violence?
'No Regard for Life': California Dream Dwindles as Crime Rises
Myra Millan, manager of a 7-Eleven in Los Angeles, told The Epoch Times that working at the convenience store has become "scary, because you never know what is going to happen.".. You don't know what to expect, who to trust and who not to trust."  Los Angeles crime is a microcosm of what many business owners and residents alike are facing across the state.

Crime Data

In California's big cities, safety is a top concern. According to LAPD data, which is reported weekly, robberies were up 17 percent the week of Sept. 19, compared to the same period last year.

The latest crime statistics for the state as a whole show violent crime is on the rise. According to the attorney general's office, homicides increased 7.2 percent between 2020 and 2021. Despite the increase, officials insist the overall crime rate is low compared to the state's historic highs.

The violent crime rate in California—measured by the number of violent crimes per 100,000 people—increased 6.7 percent from 437 two years ago to 466.2 in 2021.

LAPD Chief Michel Moore noted in the department's most recent data report that in the city there has also been a "troubling increase" in robberies involving firearms. Viral videos on social media show a grim reality of organized retail theft, assault, home invasions, and sprawling homeless encampments in the state's largest cities.

Behind the Numbers

Critics point to several of the state's criminal justice reform policies that have been passed in recent years—such as Propositions 47 and 57, and zero-cash bail.

Passed by voters in 2014, Proposition 47 reduced the sentencing for theft from a felony to a misdemeanor if the amount stolen doesn't exceed $950. According to PPIC research, the proposition "may have contributed to a rise in larceny thefts, which increased by roughly 9 percent."

In 2016, Proposition 57, meanwhile, allowed for early parole for nonviolent criminals. Zero-cash bail, also established in 2020, allows criminals to be let out without bail. theepochtimes.com

NYC Sending Cops to Retail Crime Hot Spots
NYPD to deploy rookie cops to NYC crime hot spots in renewed focus on thefts, robbery, subway attacks, repeat offenders
Rookie cops due to hit the streets later this month will jump right in to the fight against theft, robbery and violence that has plagued much of the city, NYPD brass said Friday.

Newly-minted cops from a class of 700 due to graduate from the police academy Oct. 17 will be sent to commercial strips plagued by larceny — such as Fordham Road in the Bronx, Jamaica Ave. in Queens, and 86th St. in Brooklyn.

Cops also promise a focus on repeat offenders they say are too often returned to the streets under the state's bail laws. They noted that in the Upper East Side's 19th Precinct, 43 suspects have been arrested for 438 crimes in the neighborhood this year — and nearly 600 times for offenses elsewhere in the city.

When former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton took over in 2014, he did away with Operation Impact, a program that sent rookie cops into crime hot spots. This time, the rookie cops sent to the streets will be "closely supervised and trained," said Chief of Department Kenneth Corey.

"We're not just playing defense anymore," Corey said. "We're going to start visiting our recidivists at home. We're going to knock on their doors, sometimes, with probation, sometimes with parole, if either of those apply ... We know who you are. We know where you live."

Crime is up 33% this year — despite a decline in murders and shootings. The rise has come even as cops report making more arrests so far this year than in any year since 2001 — 141,239 to date. And they've also seized more than 5,600 guns.

Police blame New York's 2020 bail reform law for much of the rise in crime, and say too many criminals charged with grand larceny are being released to the streets without bail. They note that the 38,732 grand larcenies recorded so far this year are 41% of the total felonies that comprise the crime rate. nydailynews.com

NYC's Theft Surge Impact
Rite Aid may place all store items in showcases due to theft in New York City
Rite Aid is contemplating placing all merchandise in showcases in New York City in an effort to curb retail theft, according to Fox 5 New York.

In late September, executives at Rite Aid cited "shrink," a term that retailers use to describe theft, as an issue the pharmacy chain is dealing with during the company's quarterly earnings call. CEO Heyward Donigan said Rite Aid experienced "unexpected headwinds" from shrink, "particularly in our New York urban stores."

Rite Aid posted a $331.3 million net loss for the third quarter of fiscal 2022, up from $100.3 million a year prior. Matt Schroeder, Rite Aid's CFO, said during the earnings call that Rite Aid's front-end gross profit was "impacted by a $5 million increase in shrink."

Other actions Rite Aid has considered include operating a "pharmacy only and as a pharmacy prescription-only format in some of the communities," he said. The company has also placed off-duty police officers in some stores.

Rite Aid closed locations in New York's Hell's Kitchen and Upper East Side neighborhoods earlier in the year.

The stores were closing "for a number of reasons" based on months-long reviews that were carried out "across the full footprint of 2,500 stores," a Rite Aid spokesperson previously told FOX Business. Rite Aid's store closing plan meant the shuttering of over 60 locations across the country. finance.yahoo.com

Gun Homicides & Suicides Surged by 8.3% in 2021
Gun-Related Suicides and Killings Continued to Rise in 2021, C.D.C. Reports
Homicides and suicides involving guns, which soared in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, continued rising in 2021, reaching the highest rates in three decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

Firearms caused 47,286 homicide and suicide deaths in 2021, up from 43,675 in 2020, according to the agency's research, which is based on provisional data. Rates of gun-related homicide and suicide each rose by 8.3 percent last year.

"Everyone is talking about the rise in homicides, but it is largely driven by guns," said Ari Davis, a policy adviser at the center. Yet gun suicides also drove an overall rise in suicides. "An 8 percent increase in gun suicides over one year is a really large increase," Mr. Davis said. "It's very worrisome."

From 2019 to 2021, homicides involving guns increased by 45 percent, while murders that did not involve firearms increased by only 6 percent, according to a preliminary analysis. While gun-related suicides increased by 10 percent over the two-year period, suicides by other means decreased by about 8 percent, according to the analysis.

Although the C.D.C. research does not address the underlying causes, the increase in firearm deaths parallels a spike in gun purchases during the pandemic, including an increase in first-time owners.

Americans went on a gun-buying spree in 2020 that continued into 2021, when in a single week the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported a record 1.2 million background checks. Purchasers often turn to handguns for self-protection, but research has shown that having a firearm in the home dramatically raises the risk of gun death, including both homicides and suicides.

Other disruptive aspects of the pandemic may also have contributed to increased violence, said Thomas Simon, the lead author of the C.D.C. research. nytimes.com

Bail Reform Takes More Fire
Mother's slaying in Buffalo intensifies GOP blast of bail reform
Top Republicans like gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin and state Republican Chairman Nicholas A. Langworthy are expressing outrage because the suspect wanted for killing Keaira Bennefield in front of her three children had been released from custody in Cheektowaga Town Court the previous night.

Under the 2019 law, judges are not able to set bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature revised the bail laws earlier this year to give judges some discretion, but "dangerousness" is still not a factor judges can use to set bail. buffalonews.com

Hochul slammed for appointing bail-reform advocate as one of her top legal aides

Federal judge temporarily blocks New York State's new gun law

Marriott, Hilton latest companies hit by US crime wave

What's 'The True State of Nationwide Crime in America?'

FBI's 2021 Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program's First
National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

The Transition to One National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
'Experts Are Concerned' About 48% of PD's & America's Biggest Cities Not Submitting Crime Data

Don't Be Fooled By The Numbers & Don't Assume Your C-Suite is Informed
Robberies Down 8.9% - Right - Well 50% of the Stores Were Closed And...

FBI's national crime data for 2021 incomplete, lacks data from nearly 40% of police nationwide

New York City and Los Angeles failed to provide full crime reports to the FBI

"I don't think you could get national numbers, at least not useful national numbers, from this data," Jacob Kaplan, criminologist at Princeton University, told the Marshall Project earlier this year. "It's going to be really hard for policymakers to look at what crime looks like in their own community and compare it to similar communities."

Most departments in Florida, California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania failed to report data, according to the Marshall Project, which has been tracking the data for months. The two most populated cities in the country, New York and Los Angeles, also failed to deliver full reports to the FBI last year.

Only 52% of law enforcement departments nationwide sent full, 12-month reports of crime data to the FBI for last year. Roughly 9,700 law enforcement agencies did not provide full data sets, Reuters reported.

Agencies with populations greater than 100,000, faced challenges and were unable to modify their systems to begin submitting NIBRS data in time to meet the required cut-off date of March 14, 2022, for inclusion in the annual release of crime data for 2021.

"The overwhelming lack of law enforcement participation presents a challenge when assessing the true state of nationwide crime in America," said Jillian Snider, the policy director for the R Street Institute's criminal justice and civil liberties team. She added that people should "proceed with caution" when using the data for policy purposes.

The data's incomplete status has some experts concerned. foxnews.com

Surveys conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics suggest that more than 50% of violent crimes and around 70% of property crimes are never reported to police. For certain types of offenses, such as sexual assault, upwards of 75 percent of incidents may never be officially documented.

The rate of violent crime in urban areas increased 29% from 2020 to 2021. (Bureau of Justice Statistics)

For most of the past 20 years, somewhere between 15 to 30 percent of law enforcement agencies failed to report complete crime data to the FBI. As a result, we have no crime data for jurisdictions that cover somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of all U.S. residents.

This year, the issue of non-reporting is worse than it's been in decades. That's because the FBI is no longer accepting data from agencies that use the Summary Reporting System (SRS). theappeal.org

Since 2017 Feds Paid NYC $24M in NYPD Grants To Get Reporting System in Line

NYPD's failure to comply & submit crime data to feds could cost NYC $4M in Fed grants in 2023
After years of warning, now NYPD has a hard deadline of June to make the grade.

The federal agency had asked departments for a more detailed reporting system starting in January 2022 — after having spent the past six years warning police agencies of the move.

The NYPD's failure to report crime to the FBI surfaced last week, when the agency's Uniform Crime Report was released. The document showed an "overwhelming" lack of police participation, including by the NYPD, in the new reporting process.

The new process changed from submitting simple monthly counts of crimes to using the National Incident-Based Reporting System, NIBRS, which is designed to provide more context to each illegal act, such as dates and demographics of suspects and victims.

The feds warned agencies for the last fiscal year that missing crime-stat years could lead to reduced grants in the future. nypost.com

FBI: Five Things to Know About NIBRS
Will Offer More Robust Crime Statistics Data to Police, Public

PHILADELPHIA POLICE UNDERREPORTED CRIME DATA TO FBI FOR CITY'S BLOODIEST YEAR ON RECORD

FBI UNDERCOUNTS NUMBER OF TIMES ARMED CITIZENS HAVE THWARTED ACTIVE SHOOTING INCIDENTS: REPORT

US: 98.5M Cases - 1M Dead - 95.7M Recovered
Worldwide: 627.1M Cases - 6.5M Dead - 606.8M Recovered

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 362   Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 809

COVID's Permanent Retail Impact
Trip through holidays past &  future shows COVID's lasting impact on the season

Masks, distancing, curbside, October sales, out-of-stocks, inflation — the holidays have been evolving rapidly since the pandemic started.

2020

By Black Friday 2020, the world had endured more than six months of a once-in-a-century pandemic that had already killed more than 200,000 people in the U.S. Stores had endured several weeks of closures and revenue drop-offs in the spring. In reopening, they had a blueprint for operating in a pandemic: mask requirements, capacity limits, foot traffic restrictions, sanitation protocols and a host of other measures.

2021

While U.S. consumers got their COVID shots and went shopping, many countries that produce the goods they buy continued suffering deadly outbreaks and went through lockdowns. China shut down major port and factory cities to control COVID-19. In Vietnam, the pandemic shut down or slowed factories in several areas. Bangladesh, India and several other major manufacturing areas suffered outbreaks as well. All of this was on top of capacity constraints throughout the supply chain, a result of the economic standstill of early 2020. Thus, for 2021, supply chain bottlenecks, along with sharply rising demand, defined the year in retail.

2022

At the beginning of this year, retailers may have dared to hope of a return to normalcy by the holidays as supply chain pressures eased. But the year has been anything but normal. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the turmoil it caused in energy markets, inflation has squeezed consumers even harder. And consumers responded to high gas and food prices by playing defense in discretionary spending. retaildive.com

More Supply Chain Issues Coming?
China imposes lockdowns as COVID-19 surges after holiday
Chinese cities were imposing fresh lockdowns and travel restrictions after the number of new daily COVID-19 cases tripled during a weeklong holiday, ahead of a major Communist Party meeting in Beijing next week.

The latest lockdown started Monday in Fenyang city in northern China's Shanxi province after a preliminary positive case was found in citywide testing the previous day, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

China is one of the few places in the world still resorting to harsh measures to keep the disease from spreading. The long-ruling Communist Party is particularly concerned as it tries to present a positive image of the nation in the run-up to a once-in-five-years party congress that starts Sunday. abcnews.go.com

This Deadly COVID Twist Is Like Nothing We've Seen Before
The new BQ.1.1 subvariant is spreading fast across Europe—and we're not prepared for just how dangerous it could be.

Remote jobs have tripled during the pandemic
These are the top 10 companies hiring for them

Remote work era is blurring line between work and life

What is Source Tagging and How can it help Retailers?
- EAS in Grocery

Source tagging for high-theft items

There is a very definitive list of items that shoplifters target, especially organized retail criminals who are stealing at scale. These are usually small, expensive (for their size), and with a high resale value.

One advantage to retailers of thieves continually targeting the same items, across all stores, is that retailers and manufacturers can take proactive action to protect these items. That's why many high-theft items are also protected by source tagging. Manufacturers of these items know that their products are targeted, so see that they have no choice but to provide the retailers that carry their items as much extra protection as they can. After all, they need the retailers to continue to stock and sell the products.

Benefits of source tagging

Undertaking a source tagging program has many benefits to the end retailer. As already discussed, it removes the need for the in-store employees to tag products, a time-consuming process that takes these workers away from their primary duty, assisting customers on the shop floor. However, this is not the only advantage.

Applying security tags during the manufacturing process brings a high level of conformity to the application process. Tags can be placed in exactly the same place on every single item. Uniform label/tag placement maximizes tag performance and minimizes the impact on branding - if the appropriate location on the packaging is selected.

Source tagging also means that products are protected from source to store, rather than simply adding the protection in-store. When source tagging with RFID, this can enable product tracking across the entire supply chain; reducing lost items, streamlining processes, and enabling better on-shelf availability at the end of the chain.

The case for source tagging

A well-run and executed source tagging program can offer retailers a huge differentiator in achieving a positive ROI from any EAS implementation. It offers retailers the most comprehensive protection of their most vulnerable products and gives them the ability to tap into the work done by other businesses in the industry. Deploying EAS requires investment from a retailer, and source tagging can help them get the most out of that investment, in a shorter time too.

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October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month

Weekly Topic: The Insider Threat

Insider threat is the potential for an insider to use their authorized access or understanding of an organization to harm that organization. This harm can include malicious, complacent, or unintentional acts that negatively affect the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of the organization, its data, personnel, or facilities. External stakeholders and customers of DHS may find this generic definition better suited and adaptable for their organization's use.

The Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) defines insider threat as the threat that an insider will use his or her authorized access, wittingly or unwittingly, to do harm to the Department's mission, resources, personnel, facilities, information, equipment, networks, or systems.

Learn more here about insider threats here