Using 'Broken Windows' Approach to Defeat ORC?
Criminal theft rings are devastating businesses; Congress can help stop them
In the midst of the last crime wave in the 1990s, many jurisdictions adopted the “broken windows” approach to crime reduction, recognizing that turning a blind eye to crime invited more crime. Rather than ignore graffiti, vagrancy, vandalism, and theft, law enforcement sought to punish these crimes.

Not only did this response make neighborhoods safer. It sent a clear message that perpetrators of crime, even “victimless crimes,” would face punishment. The result was an overall reduction in crime, including violent crime. It is time to readopt this approach, and we can start by tackling organized retail theft.

Organized retail theft has forced several Walgreens and a Cotopaxi store in San Francisco to close, as well as multiple Wawa stores and 7-Elevens in the Philadelphia area. It has forced drug stores to shutter in Manhattan. The list of brick-and-mortar businesses across the country closing because of organized theft keeps growing — everything from the local mom-and-pop shop to large retailers.

Criminal organizations take advantage of several legal loopholes

First, since 2000, at least 40 states have raised the monetary threshold for the value of stolen goods necessary to trigger a felony charge. This explains why thieves have been known literally to show up with calculators, adding up the value of stolen goods they carry out the door.

Second, many local prosecutors have gone even further, adopting nonprosecution policies for what they erroneously refer to as “victimless crimes.” This is akin to rolling out the welcome mat for criminals. These are far from victimless crimes: Businesses face monetary losses that they have to pass along to law-abiding customers in the form of higher prices.

Third, it is too easy for criminals to sell their stolen goods anonymously to unsuspecting buyers using online platforms. No such “know your seller” law applies to internet-based platforms.

States can update their laws to aggregate thefts to ensure thieves and the leaders of criminal theft rings can be prosecuted. Local officials can adopt a zero-tolerance policy and commit to prosecuting offenses. And Congress can pass the INFORM Act to require internet platforms to collect basic identifying information about high-volume online sellers, closing off the most popular avenue of selling stolen goods. washingtonexaminer.com

Gas Stations: The Center of Philadelphia's Crime Crisis
As shootings and carjackings climb at Philly gas stations, victims and grieving families file lawsuits
The unsolved murders of Robinson and Ott are among nine killings committed at Philadelphia gas stations in 2021 and so far this year. That’s up from zero such homicides in 2018, 2019, and 2020, police said.

The slayings are a tiny fraction of the total number of homicides committed citywide — a record 562 homicides in 2021, and just off that pace so far in 2022.

While gas station owners say the uptick is simply a manifestation of Philadelphia’s broader gun-violence problem, the trend has caused several people who have been injured or lost loved ones to file negligence lawsuits. They say gas stations should have done more to protect patrons.

Lawyer David P. Thiruselvam, who has filed nine lawsuits against gas stations, said, “It’s becoming an epidemic, and the gas station industry is aware of it because it’s in the news all the time. But they are not doing anything about it.”

Gas and guns

Other violent crimes at gas stations have soared, according to police data. Carjackings have more than quadrupled, with 30 so far this year, up from seven last year. There were none between 2018 and 2020.

There have been 69 gunpoint robberies at stations this year, up from 65 for all of last year. Nonfatal shootings at gas stations have spiked, as well, leaving 17 victims so far this year and last year. The city averaged only one a year from 2018 to 2020.

Temple University criminal justice professor Jerry Ratcliffe said the spike in gun crime in general, and at gas stations in particular, is likely being driven in part by the fact that there are more legal guns on the streets, a number that surged during the pandemic shutdown.

In addition, he said, there are more illegal guns, as those who are not allowed to legally possess them do so anyway out of fear of rising crime. At the same time, it’s possible that they’re also less fearful of arrest because Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has expressed skepticism that arresting and prosecuting gun-possession cases will lead to a reduction in violence.  inquirer.com

Shoplifting Surge Pushing Drugstores to the Brink
The Rise and Fall of the Drugstore Chains

CVS and Walgreens became fixtures of 21st century city life. Their time may be up.

Many big-city pharmacy chains are halfway there, with plexiglass cases that have mushroomed over even low-priced household goods like shampoo and deodorant—to say nothing of laundry detergent, razor blades, and baby formula. It’s like shopping at a pharmacy 100 years ago, with a white-aproned clerk pushing around a ladder to grab your tinctures and tonics, except now it’s a minimum-wage cashier with a key ring. These days, you press a red button and a loudspeaker tells the store that you have a foot fungus.

The plastic cases for merchandise have become a symbol of a society in decline, even if the precise shape of the problem isn’t exactly transparent. Shoplifting is definitely cutting into store margins. Rite Aid says the problem cost it $5 million last quarter in New York City; Walgreens claimed to have closed stores in San Francisco as a result. You can be skeptical of companies playing the blame game, but retail experts are certain: If shoplifting weren’t chipping into profits, you wouldn’t see plastic cases at all.

What’s driving shoplifting? Take your pick: social dislocation, unemployment, and desperation from the pandemic, blocked-up court systems letting the sticky-fingered go free, lenient district attorneys, new standards for felony charges, big city police work stoppages, the expectation that shoppers cover their nose and mouth like bank robbers. Shoplifting has been used to justify a resurgent law-and-order politics that has energized GOP campaigns over the past couple of years, with the head of the California Republican Party claiming Walgreens closing five locations in San Francisco was evidence that “Democratic policies have created a crime spike.”

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores pointed me toward a different solution: a federal bill that would require online marketplaces to verify the identity of third-party sellers. If shoplifting is indeed worse at some stores, it’s because thieves are reselling those products on Amazon and eBay.

Other drugstores have not cited shoplifting as a rationale for closing branches. Writing earlier this year in Curbed, Jack Denton made a convincing case that—whatever the New York Post would have you believe—a 15 percent rise in New York City retail theft complaints is not what’s driving store closures. Fundamentals are.  slate.com

Cashierless Checkout: Recipe for Out-of-Control Theft?
'Unsustainable' theft at cashier-free convenience store may force its closure

The first 24/7 cashier-less store in Vancouver, located at a student residence at UBC, may close just a year after it opened.

Vancouver's first 24/7 cashier-less shop may not last too long. That's because of an "unsustainable amount of theft" is going on at the store, called Avenue C. Located at the Walter Gage student residence at the University of BC (UBC), the "express micro-market" is open to the general public at all times of day and night as a small convenience store with a self-checkout.

If the theft continues, the shop, which opened in October 2021, may not be around much longer.

"Our goal is to keep Avenue C open for our community and we are working with Campus Security and Canteen Canada to enhance security measures," says UBC director of food services Colin Moore in a statement. "However, if we are not able to significantly reduce the level of theft, we will need to close the market."

A spokesperson for UBC says a letter was sent to students living in the area about the thefts and potential closure, due to how many thefts there were. However, exactly how much theft is going on is not being shared with the public.

He adds that people who steal may be subject to an RCMP investigation and/or face consequences from the school under its own code of conduct, but doesn't say if any action has been taken.  townandcountrytoday.com

'People Able to Steal Multiple Times Before DAs Prosecute'
Rise in Retail Theft Incidents Reported Around the Country and Locally
A recent survey of small business owners across the country showed that 54 percent of them experienced an increase in shoplifting last year, much of it stemming from organized crime.

During an interview on the WCUB Breakfast Club, Neil Bradley, Executive Vice president, and Chief Policy Officer with the national Chamber of Commerce told us, “What they told us is 56 percent say they’ve been a victim of this in the past year and a majority say it’s getting worse. Our good friends at the National Retail Federation tried to put a dollar amount on it. What they found was that for every billion dollars in retail sales $700,000 was lost to theft. That number is up dramatically in the last 5 years.”

In our area, Bradley explained retail theft was such a growing problem in Green Bay, that the police department had to set up an initiative to do something about it.

“It turned out before that they had to pick up somebody at least 4 times for theft from a store before they would refer it to the district attorney’s office for prosecution,” he said. “That’s a pattern by the way we see across the country of people being able to steal multiple times before anything is ever done to them.”

Bradley added, “That’s a lot of what is fueling this shoplifting epidemic.” seehafernews.com

NYC's Crime-Fighting Surveillance is Under Fire From Critics
NYPD spent $3 billion on surveillance but critics say details are vague despite new disclosure law

The NYPD spent nearly $3 billion on surveillance technology in a 12-year stretch but continues to flout the law requiring it reveal details of each contract

The dollars spent between 2007 and 2019 are with companies large and small — including a contract with a vendor based out of an East Flatbush, Brooklyn, apartment. The money spent was opaquely listed as “special expenses” in the police budget until 2020, when the City Council passed, over the NYPD’s objections, the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology, or POST, Act.

The law requires the NYPD to explain each contract — from drones to facial recognition software to license plate readers and beyond — and to reveal which other law enforcement agencies have access to the data. But advocacy groups say the NYPD is not meeting the law’s disclosure requirements.

“With many of these contracts we know the vendors’ names, we know the amount that’s being spent. But we don’t have many details about what they’re doing and why they were selected, which is a huge open door for waste, fraud and abuse,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Oversight Project, known as STOP.

Those concerns are “baseless,” an NYPD spokesperson said, noting that the police inspector general recently said the department “has complied with the POST Act’s requirements to produce and publish impact- and use-policies for each of the technologies utilized.”  nydailynews.com

Buffalo community reflects, mourns 6 months after Tops shooting

24 shot, 5 fatally in weekend gun violence across Chicago

US: 99.8M Cases - 1.1M Dead - 97.4M Recovered
Worldwide: 640.4M Cases - 6.6M Dead - 620.1M Recovered

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 362  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 812

COVID is Fading, But Retail Violence & Abuse Continues
UK Shopworkers Are Facing More Abuse Than Before the Pandemic
Shopworkers in the UK are facing more verbal abuse and threats from customers than before the pandemic, as a worsening cost-of-living crisis ratchets up tension in retail stores.

More than 70% of staff say they’ve been verbally abused while almost half report being threatened, according to a survey of more than 4,600 employees by retail trade union Usdaw, which has around 360,000 members.

Cases of abuse spiked during the pandemic, with consumers taking out their frustrations over mask requirements and social distancing on shop staff. While the trend has since leveled off, reported cases of threats and abuse remain higher than in 2019.

The findings mark the start of Respect for Shopworkers Week, which will see Usdaw activists campaign in workplaces and call on shoppers to respect workers’ rights. Incidents traditionally rise during the run-up to Christmas, with packed retail stores and rising consumer stress levels.

The focus on working conditions comes as companies in the retail and hospitality industry face severe challenges in recruiting. Next Plc Chief Executive Officer Simon Wolfson last week criticized immigration polices he said were driving a labor shortage, saying Brexit hasn’t turned out the way he’d expected.

UK retailers are offering higher salaries to staff as inflation pushes up the price of everything from food to energy, with supermarket companies including Tesco Plc and J Sainsbury Plc having already raised pay twice this year.

Unions, meanwhile, are increasingly resorting to strikes in a bid to improve pay packages for workers in sectors from transportation to healthcare to government services. bloomberg.com

The Return of Masks to Battle 'Tripledemic'
Masks could return as L.A. County sees worrying uptick in RSV, COVID infections
Facemasks could potentially return as L.A. County continues seeing a troubling uptick in respiratory illness including two new COVID-19 variants and RSV infections among children.

If the county reaches 100 cases per 100,000 residents, indoor masking recommendations could return. For now, L.A. County is at 86 cases per 100,000 residents. “Indoor masking will, as it has in the past for elevated transmission, be strongly recommended for everyone,” said Ferrer in a Friday press conference.

Along with other respiratory illnesses like the flu and COVID, doctors are now dealing with a surge in RSV (respiratory syncytial virus infection), especially among children.

L.A. County reports seeing higher numbers of RSV than in previous years. Shriner believes isolation during the pandemic may be the cause. Health officials are encouraging people to receive their booster shots and flu vaccines to avoid straining local medical facilities even further. ktla.com

'Deja Vu': Fears Rising of Winter Surge in America
New omicron subvariants now dominant in the U.S., raising fears of a winter surge
Two new omicron subvariants have become dominant in the United States, raising fears they could fuel yet another surge of COVID-19 infections, according to estimates released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The subvariants — called BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 -- appear to be among the most adept yet at evading immunity from vaccination and previous infection, and have now overtaken the BA.5 omicron subvariant that has dominated in the U.S. since the summer.

"This time of year last year we were optimistic. We were coming out of the delta wave, and it was steadily decreasing, and we went into Thanksgiving to wake up to omicron. So there is this sort of déjà vu feeling from last year," Luban says. npr.org

Will We Get Omicron’d Again?
It’s been a year since Omicron changed everything. A repeat is unlikely, but not impossible.

Cal/OSHA Amends Proposed COVID-19 Regulation

Germany fears winter COVID wave as restrictions ease

Dollar General: Poster Child for OSHA Severe Violator Enforcement Program
Repeat violations, millions in penalties land Dollar General in OSHA’s SVEP
“Since 2017, Dollar General Corp. and Dolgencorp LLC have received more than $12.3 million in initial penalties for numerous willful, repeat and serious workplace violations,” DOL said. The latest penalties, based on 31 alleged violations at Dollar General stores in Alabama, Georgia and Florida, qualified the company for placement in OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program, according to the DOL.

The SVEP is an enhanced inspection and enforcement effort designed to clamp down on repeat offenders. These are “employers who have demonstrated indifference to their occupational safety and health obligations through willful, repeated, or failure-to-abate violations,” an OSHA directive explains. Dollar General’s inclusion in the SVEP comes six weeks after the agency expanded its criteria to include violations of all hazards and a broader swath of industries, according to a Sept. 15 OSHA release. Prior to the change, employers landed in the SVEP for violating a limited number of standards, such as fall and excavation or trenching violations, Constructive Dive reported.

For several reasons, employers do not want land on the SVEP list, law firm posts warned in the wake of expanded program. For one, employers will face mandatory follow-up inspections, enhanced settlement provisions and federal court enforcement, the OSHA directive states. And follow-up inspections could result in additional citations and penalties.

Employers might also be disqualified from bidding on certain jobs, Jackson Lewis attorneys Melanie L. Paul and Paige T. Bennett noted in an October post. Because OSHA makes the SVEP list publicly available, being in the program could damage a company’s reputation, they noted.

Under the new criteria, an employer can be placed in the program if inspectors find at least one willful, repeated violation, or a failure-to-abate violation, that resulted in an employee fatality or three or more employees being hospitalized, according to the directive. Employers are also subject to the SVEP if an inspection identifies two or more willful repeat violations, or a failure-to-abate violation, based on the presence of a “high gravity serious violation.” Per OSHA, this is a severe offense that has a high probability of occurring and carries a penalty of $14,502 per violation. hrdive.com

Retailers in for a Turbulent 2023?
The Worst is Yet to Come, and for Many 2023 Will Feel Like a Recession

By Tony D'Onofrio, Global Retail Influencer & Prosegur's CEO & Managing Director, Global Retail Business Unit

Retailer Turbulence Returns

Surprising new First Insight research points to a major disconnect between consumers and retail executives.

• 58% of retail executives think that consumers are shopping more for deals, but this is true for only 40% of consumers.

• 43% of retailers think consumers are buying less overall, yet only 29% of consumers admit that this is the case.

• 94% of executives think shoppers have less confidence to spend versus 79% of the consumer respondents.

"Many retailers are already dealing with excess inventory issues after over-ordering during the peak of the supply-chain shortage, having seasonal items delivered late or seeing consumers’ preferences change." Strapped consumers spending less could force retailers to heavily discount leading to lower retailer profitability in the second half of 2022 and into 2023.

We are indeed living in interesting times. Both consumers and retailers are facing substantial challenges ahead. But as the opening quote reminds us, history is filled with difficult moments. The smartphone, the internet, e-commerce and the continued exploding innovation around us are a vivid reminder that we are in an even more creative time in history. The best is yet to come.

Read Tony D'Onofrio's full article here

CSO Event: State of Security Management - Next Steps

Wednesday, November 30, 2022 11:00 AM ET

Co-authors of the ASIS Foundation sponsored "State of Security Management" study will share more details of the findings as well as their perspectives on where we go from here. 

The event is restricted to CSO members.

Click here to learn more

High Inflation Halts Europe’s Post-Covid Retail Recovery

AI takes retail marketing to new level


Last week's #1 article --

Party City to shrink corporate workforce by 19% as consumers pull back
 

Senior LP & AP Jobs Market

Senior Director, AP Operations job posted for Walgreens in Deerfield, IL
Responsible for developing the Company asset protection and comprehensive loss strategies policies that maximize the company ability to identify exposure to profit loss for retail and pharmacy. Partners with senior leaders to develop strategies that identify and address systemic asset protection opportunities and situations within the Walgreen environment in order to enhance profits, reduce loss, and ensure the safety of team members, customers and patients. jobs.walgreens.com