College Kids Gone Wild - What Do We Expect After a Year of Lockdown?

'State of Emergency' in Miami Beach as Spring Breakers Wreak Havoc
Emergency Order in Miami Beach extended to April 11

- COVID restrictions lifting + Cheap flights = Chaos
- Pepper Balls Fired at Stampeding Crowds
- 1,000 Arrests Since Feb. 3

As curfew struck and police moved to clear Miami Beach’s iconic Ocean Drive on Saturday, throngs of revelers stood shoulder to shoulder, packing the street. In footage captured by local media, people danced on top of cars, some clutching liquor bottles. One man threw out fistfuls of cash.

Then, with sirens blaring and the sound of pepper balls being fired, those in the crowd began to run, briefly causing a stampede.

The chaotic scene played out the first night police enforced a curfew in response to an “overwhelming” volume of spring break visitors. City officials had declared a state of emergency earlier that day, pointing to several instances in which crowds of partyers turned disruptive and violent.

During an emergency meeting on Sunday, city commissioners voted to extend emergency orders imposing an 8 p.m. curfew in the entertainment district and limiting access to causeways leading to the island city. The measures are now set to continue Thursday to Sunday until April 11, the end of the spring break period.

The city has been mostly calm during the day but volatile and unpredictable in some areas at night, according to authorities. Clements said there had been several stampedes, including one in which a woman cut her leg while trying to run away. Most alarming, he said, was when a man fired a gun into the air.

Since Feb. 3, the police department said, about 1,000 arrests have been made, including 350 on felony charges. About 51 percent of arrests involved non-Florida residents. Officers also have seized 80 firearms. Police in nearby cities have sent reinforcements to help manage crowds.

Miami Beach leaders attributed the surge in visitors to coronavirus-related closures in other areas, coupled with cheap flights and demand for travel. Florida reopened before many other states and has fewer restrictions.  washingtonpost.com

'Too Many are Coming'
Miami Beach officers shoot pepper balls into spring break crowds to enforce emergency curfew
Miami Beach Police fired pepper balls into crowds of partiers and arrested at least a dozen people late Saturday as the city took extraordinary measures to crack down on spring breakers who officials have said are out of control.

The aggressive enforcement actions came just hours after Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber declared a state of emergency and set an 8 p.m. curfew, saying the crowds that have descended on the city recently are "more than we can handle."

"Too many are coming, really, without the intention of following the rules, and the result has been a level of chaos and disorder that is just something more than we can endure," Gelber told CNN's Ana Cabrera. cnn.com

Black Leaders Speak Out About Use of Force in Miami Beach
Black leaders react to South Beach spring break curfew, crackdown: ‘unnecessary force’
The use of force to clear out people of color from South Beach alarmed some Black leaders. And if Miami Beach has openly recoiled at the behavior of at-times chaotic crowds filling the city’s entertainment district every weekend, some in South Florida are having a similar reaction to the way the city and its police have handled the presence of thousands of people of color.

“I was very disappointed,” Stephen Hunter Johnson, chairman of Miami-Dade’s Black Affairs Advisory Committee, said Sunday morning. “I think when they’re young Black people [on South Beach], the response is, ‘Oh my God, we have to do something.’” miamiherald.com

Nationwide Protests Against Anti-Asian Violence

Asian Associates - Shoppers - Friends
Retail America Needs to be Supportive & Proactive

US: 30.5M Cases - 555.3K Dead - 22.7M Recovered
Worldwide: 124M Cases - 2.7M Dead - 99.8M Recovered

Former Senior Loss Prevention Executive
Know of any fallen LP exec? Let's remember & recognize.

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 279  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 269
*Red indicates change in total deaths

California Can Mandate Vaccines But Not Discriminate
California Provides Employers with Guidelines on Mandating Vaccines
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) recently issued guidance on whether employers can require workers to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.

The department said the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) allows employers to mandate vaccines that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, employers may not discriminate against employees or job applicants based on a protected characteristic—such as age, race or sex—and must provide reasonable accommodations related to a worker's disability or sincerely held religious belief. Employers are prohibited from retaliating against an employee who engages in protected activity. The guidance aims to help employers comply with the FEHA if they choose to mandate vaccination.

The DFEH noted that the FDA has authorized and recommended three COVID-19 vaccines and more may be approved.

The DFEH said that California employers must engage in an interactive dialogue with employees who have a disability-related or religious reason for refusing an FDA-approved vaccine. shrm.org

Ex-FDA head warns COVID-19 variant could infect vaccinated New Yorkers
New York’s homegrown COVID-19 variant may be infecting people who have already had the virus — or even been vaccinated, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration said Sunday.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb said it remains unclear if the COVID-19 variant, known as B.1.526, is driving viral surges in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. “What we don’t understand with 1.526 is whether or not people are being re-infected with it and whether or not people who might have been vaccinated are now getting infected with it,” Gottlieb told CBS anchor Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.” nypost.com

Mixed Virus Data Has Some Experts Questioning Pace of N.Y.C. Reopening
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced this week that businesses like indoor fitness studios would be allowed to reopen.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced recently that New York City would take several more steps toward normalcy: More people would soon be allowed in restaurants; an 11 p.m. curfew at businesses like movie theaters would end; and yoga classes, among other indoor fitness activities, would be allowed to restart.

But not everyone agrees that reopening is safe, partly because the presence of variants that are more contagious, and possibly deadlier, complicate the short-term outlook.

“Our health care team has said very clearly this is not what they would have done,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday about the reopening of fitness studios. “The state just doesn’t care.”

For business owners and state officials, the case is clear: just look at the numbers.

On Feb. 25, New York City had a seven-day average of 4,043 cases per day, according to data from the city. This week that number has dipped to an average of less than 2,700. There’s been a similar decline in new hospitalizations: to a seven-day average of 178 per day this week, from an average of 326 in late February. nytimes.com

Law360 Article Publicly Available
Prisons Had Four Times COVID Cases & Twice The Deaths Per Capita

How COVID Has Affected Policing And Incarceration
Prisons and jails are hot spots for virus outbreaks, with virus-related death tolls twice as high as among the general public, according to criminal justice experts. In response to those virus outbreaks, officials last year changed policing practices to send fewer people to jails and stopped transfers of inmates from jails to prisons.

But criminal justice experts told Law360 that governments should have released more people and invested more resources into crime prevention programs.

"We can incarcerate less and be just as safe," said Insha Rahman, vice president of advocacy and partnerships at the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit research and policy organization that works with the government to improve justice systems.

Death rates were higher among the incarcerated because jails and prisons are largely overcrowded, unsanitary and lacking adequate medical care. And many prisoners in many facilities didn't have access to hand sanitizer, masks or gloves.

#1 Lesson: Public health crisis can't be managed with the way U.S. prisons and jails are set up.

43,895 Federal Prisoners were released in March 2020.

Fewer Arrests for Misdemeanors - Increased Violent Crimes - Continue Reading

Law360 Article Publicly Available
How COVID Impacted Criminal Courts, Communities
Criminal courts have had a difficult time adapting to the pandemic because of a lack of technology and processes for operating remotely, but they have started conducting virtual hearings and allowing for more electronic filings, according to criminal justice experts.

Courts Needed to Innovate

According to a December report from the Council on Criminal Justice's National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice, one lesson to be learned from the pandemic is that the criminal justice system needs to update its technological infrastructure.

Some courts have entertained the idea of conducting Zoom trials, or attempted trials in which jurors are socially distanced, but courts haven't proceeded with these measures as a remedy to trial delays, according to legal experts. Defense attorneys have also voiced opposition to Zoom trials, saying that they need to be in the same room as jurors to ensure that they have their attention and that their clients get a fair trial.

"Body language is critical to competent representation," said Brian Woolf, a criminal defense attorney at Woolf Law Firm LLC. "It's too dangerous to allow jurors to be on Zoom and who knows what they look at."

Restricted Access to Counsel - Compliance With Jail Diversion Programs - Unpaid Court Fees and Fines - Reentry Became More Difficult

In the spring of 2020, jail and prison populations in the largest facilities across the country declined 11%, according to the institute. law360.com

The Workplace Is Going to Look A Lot Different
With increased levels of anxiety and frustrations

Key considerations for returning to offices post-Covid
As vaccinations reduce the lethality of the virus, many organizations are eyeing a return to normalcy

Recent study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), 75% of executives surveyed said they anticipate at least half of office employees will be working in the office by July 2021.

While both businesses and employees are anxious to return to some semblance of normalcy, experts say that a return to business as usual will still look a lot different in the waning days of the pandemic.

When is the Right Time to Open?
Government rules around acceptable vaccination or infection rates would likely be the biggest external factors, according to Hinton, while internal conditions would likely involve things like employee sentiment towards returning to the office.

What’s Needed to Reopen? securityinfowatch.com

Reinventing the Workplace
Personalized - Team Driven - Flexible Game Plans

How to Manage the New Hybrid Workplace
Many employees won’t go back to the office full-time. That’s going to require a massive rethinking on the part of bosses.

But these hybrid arrangements will require a massive rethinking on the part of bosses—both in terms of individual schedules and a vision for the organization as a whole. No longer will they be able to manage remote workers like they’re office employees whose desks happen to be really far apart. Nor can they treat office days as the “real” workdays and write off the time that workers spend at home.

Instead, bosses need to ask themselves a question that most have never had to consider: How do I manage a workplace in which office days and home days are used for the work that is best suited to each setting?

Here’s how to do it:

Set clear guidelines for ‘office required’ and ‘office optional’ circumstances - make a list of the types of work and meetings that substantially benefit from in-person interaction.

Consider office weeks as well as office days - Sometimes a full week (or two) at the office is much more useful than a day or two.

Rotate teams, not employees - When you’re working out a plan for your team, you need to think like the conductor of an orchestra. It’s your job to think about how to harmonize the whole.

Encourage focused workdays at home - Encourage your team members to block off big chunks of their schedule on at-home days, so that they can do focused work without the kinds of interruptions that are typical in an office.

Normalize online communication - The more you use digital-collaboration and communication tools like Slack, Google Docs and Asana, the easier it is to be location-agnostic.

Encourage satellite collaboration - Encourage your team members to integrate mini off-sites into their own plans.

Find out about your employees’ individual circumstances - The better you understand how each employee benefits from remote work, as well as where each employee struggles, the better you can craft a hybrid plan that works for that employee and the overall team.

Make flexibility fair - It isn’t your job to judge whether a person’s desire for flexibility is reasonable; each employee should be able to negotiate their own balance of work-from-home and office time based on the demands of the job, not the demands of home.

Beware the always-at-the-office worker - try to set some minimum and maximum parameters for how people divide their time between home and office so that people remain similarly connected. Also, make the playing field level. If you’re holding a meeting in which even one participant is dialing in from home, make the entire meeting remote. wsj.com

Warning: High Turnover Expected & Gen Z is "struggling"
Microsoft to partially reopen its Redmond campus March 29 and possibly fully reopen on July 6
Microsoft officials are sharing their own thinking on how it plans to reopen as a hybrid workplace the same day it is publishing its research from a year of hybrid working.

Today, March 22, Microsoft is providing another update on its COVID-19 coronavirus-inspired re-opening plans. Officials also published its year-in-review Work Trend Index with findings about the evolving era of hybrid work.

Microsoft's blog post about its reopening plans adds color around executives' already-announced plans for making Microsoft a hybrid workplace going forward.

In terms of Microsoft's 2021 Work Trend Index -- an analysis on how, one year into the pandemic, work has changed forever -- Microsoft execs had some findings that officials said business leaders should keep in focus as they plan for the coming hybrid-work reality.

The research shows that 41% of the global workforce is likely to consider leaving their current employer within the next year. This number is even higher for Gen Z (54%).

The data in the report shows that Gen Z is really at risk and will need to be re-energized. Sixty percent of this generation -- those between the ages of 18 and 25 -- say they are merely surviving or flat-out struggling zdnet.com