March - April 2020

V19.2

MARCH–APRIL 2020 | V19.2 LOSSPREVENTIONMEDIA.COM

LOSS PREVENTION MAGAZINE

LOSS PREVENTION MAGAZINE THE AUTHORITY ON ALL THINGS ASSET PROTECTION

GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING SUSTAINABILITY IS ALL THE RAGE IN RETAIL.WHERE DOES LP FIT IN?

GETTING IN ON THESUSTAINABILITY “GOOD” THING IS ALL THE RAGE IN RETAIL. WHERE DOES LP FIT IN?

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THE IMPORTANCE OF MANAGING SHRINK AND WASTE EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF FEAR OF CRIME ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR THE EVOLUTION OF INTERVIEWING

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 6

EDITOR’S LETTER Coronavirus and Retail Security

By Jack Trlica

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Getting in on the “Good” Thing

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RETAIL SPONSORS

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INTERVIEWING Types of Denials

By David E. Zulawski, CFI, CFE, and Shane G. Sturman, CFI, CPP

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Sustainability is all the rage in retail. Where does LP fit in?

FUTURE OF LP Using Social Media as a Security and Threat Assessment Tool

By Tom Meehan, CFI

By Garett Seivold, LPM Senior Writer

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LPM EXCELLENCE LPM Magpie Award: Applauding Excellence

Featuring Fritz Hirchert, Navy Exchange Service Command, and Mat Schriner, LPC, Loss Prevention Foundation

The Importance of Managing Shrink and Waste

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CERTIFICATION A True Benefit

Interview with Byron Smith, CFI, LPC, 7-Eleven

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An interview with Mike Lamb of The Kroger Co.

MANAGEMENT Servant Leadership in Loss Prevention

By Maurizio P. Scrofani, CCSP, LPC

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By James Lee, LPC, LPM Executive Editor

EVIDENCE-BASED LP Addressing Both Red and Green Customers in Zones 4 and 5

By Read Hayes, PhD, CPP

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CYBER SECURITY Another Phish in the Sea

By Garett Seivold

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Running Scared

ASK THE EXPERT Key Control Should Control Access and Costs Interview with Cita Doyle, LPQ, InstaKey

Exploring the impact of fear of crime on consumer behavior

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By Kenna Carlsen, Loss Prevention Research Council

LOSSPREVENTIONMEDIA.COM Store Violence: How Focus Groups Can Generate Solutions, Build Support, and Demonstrate Concern

By Garett Seivold

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The Evolution of Interviewing

Moving from third-degree interrogations to nonconfrontational interviews

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PRODUCT SHOWCASE

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PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

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ADVERTISERS

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CALENDAR

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SUBSCRIPTION FORM

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VENDOR SPONSORS

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PARTING WORDS What’s Golf Got to Do with It?

By Jim Lee, LPC

By Tony Paixão, CFI, CFE, Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates

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EDITOR’S LETTER

Coronavirus and Retail Security T

he current global coronavirus crisis is accelerating weekly. As this publication goes to print in early March, the new virus, COVID-19, has spread to over seventy countries. Articles in the mass media are appearing daily with dire warnings related to everything from the negative effect on corporate profits due to restrictions on manufacturing output and supply chain delivery of goods to the shortage of medical supplies.

We have published “A Guide to Helpful Sources of Up-to-Date Information on the Coronavirus Outbreak” on our website that is updated weekly to help readers access the latest information to help you protect yourself and your family as well as to aid LP organizations respond to the epidemic. Please check it out at LossPreventionMedia.com.

Here I want to pass along some specific thoughts compiled by LPM Senior Writer Garett Seivold about how loss prevention and asset protection professionals might be affected during this crisis.

During the peak of a pandemic, security managers should expect 50 percent of their staff to be absent for at least two weeks. While work-at-home strategies may suffice for some corporate positions, LP and security staff are needed to protect assets and personnel. Loss prevention executives should consider the following scenarios: Plan for how stores could maintain their security operation at significantly reduced staffing levels.

Ask contract guard or other third-party providers what

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planning they’ve conducted and how contracted services could be impacted.

Identify a strategy for shutting down portions of facilities or reducing store hours to ease the demand for security staff.

Cross-train enough personnel to ensure that alternative staff will be able to fill essential security positions.

If a retail chain has store locations in a region where human-to-human transmission is occurring, retail operations may find the need to advise staff not to enter if they have symptoms. Companies are currently attempting to define just what the new coronavirus symptoms are and what threshold of fever, for example, should be established. In addition to warnings, it may fall to security staff to help identify if arriving employees are exhibiting symptoms. Providing equipment and training would be necessary in this case.

A major outbreak may also require security teams to prevent large gatherings by restricting access to large public areas or otherwise dividing up large groups. Corporate trainers should be gathering the latest materials to be ready to offer training and reviewing exactly what access control procedures might be required by an outbreak.

Stores in an outbreak region could remain open, especially if a retailer such as a pharmacy or supermarket provides a vital pubic service. But that is only possible if workers show up.

Employers will need to ease anxiety by providing visible evidence that they are taking all steps necessary to make the

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workplace the safest location workers can be. This is likely to require loss prevention staff to help apply disease prevention measures in the workplace to minimize the risk of transmission of a virus through environmental sources.

Security supervisors and store managers at each location should be outfitted with a description of measures that they will need to take if an outbreak occurs, so they are ready to instruct staff.

One aspect of crises such as this is communication, especially at the store level. How do businesses communicate quickly and effectively with employees who are spread out geographically?

While corporate employees will have corporate email addresses, store employees may not have access to corporate email. Phone numbers should be updated and call trees established to facilitate rapid communication.

Hopefully, your company security and crisis management departments have plans in place for disruptions such as this. If not, you are likely working overtime right now trying to put together as much information and planning in place in case the new coronavirus continues spreading at its current pace.

Best of luck to you and your teams as we navigate this pandemic together.

Jack Trlica Managing Editor

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EDITORIAL BOARD Charles Bernard Group Vice President, Asset Protection and Comprehensive Loss, Walgreens Ray Cloud Senior Vice President, Loss Prevention, Ross Stores Scott Draher, LPC Vice President, Loss Prevention, Safety, and Operations, Lowe’s Scott Glenn, EDJ, LPC Vice President, Asset Protection, The Home Depot Barry Grant Chief Operating Officer, Photos Unlimited Robert Holm Director, Global Safety & Security McDonald’s Seth Hughes Director, Asset Protection, Risk & Safety, Internal Audit REI Co-op Frank Johns, LPC Chairman, The Loss Prevention Foundation Mike Lamb, LPC Vice President, Asset Protection, The Kroger Co. Michael Limauro, LPC Executive Leader, Asset Protection Whole Foods Market David Lund, LPC Vice President, Loss Prevention, DICK’S Sporting Goods

John Matas, CFE, CFCI Vice President, Profit Protection, Investigations, Fraud, & ORC, Macy’s Randy Meadows Senior Vice President, Loss Prevention, Kohl’s Dan Moren Senior Manager Starbucks Richard Peck, LPC Senior Vice President, Loss Prevention The TJX Companies Joe Schrauder Vice President, Asset Protection, Walmart Stores Tina Sellers, LPC Vice President, Loss Prevention, Family Dollar Hank Siemers, CFI Vice President, Global Retail Security, Tiffany & Co. Mark Stinde, MBA, LPC Senior Vice President, Asset Protection, JCPenney Paul Stone, CFE, LPC VP Security, Goodwill Industries of SE Wisconsin Pamela Velose Vice President, Asset Protection, Belk Keith White, LPC Executive Vice President, Loss Prevention and Global Sustainability, Gap Inc.

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MANAGING EDITOR Jack Trlica JackT@LPportal.com EXECUTIVE EDITORS James Lee, LPC JimL@LPportal.com Merek Bigelow MerekB@LPportal.com

Loss Prevention, LP Magazine, LP Magazine Europe, LPM, and LPM Online are service marks owned by the publishers and their use is restricted. All editorial content is copyrighted. No article may be reproduced by any means without expressed, written permission from the publisher. Reprints or PDF versions of articles are available by contacting the publisher. Statements of fact or opinion are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the publishers. Advertising in the publication does not imply endorsement by the publishers. The editor reserves the right to accept or reject any article or advertisement.

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LOSS PREVENTION MAGAZINE 700 Matthews Mint Hill Rd, Ste C Matthews, NC 28105 704-365-5226 office, 704-365-1026 fax

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Jacque Brittain, LPC JacB@LPportal.com RETAIL TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Tom Meehan, CFI TomM@LPportal.com SENIOR WRITER Garett Seivold GarettS@LPportal.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Read Hayes, PhD, CPP Walter Palmer, CFI, CFE Maurizio P. Scrofani, CCSP, LPC Ben Skidmore Shane G. Sturman, CFI, CPP Bill Turner, LPC David E. Zulawski, CFI, CFE CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Kevin McMenimen, LPC KevinM@LPportal.com DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL OPERATIONS John Selevitch JohnS@LPportal.com SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGERS Justin Kemp, LPQ Karen Rondeau DESIGN & PRODUCTION SPARK Publications info@SPARKpublications.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Larry Preslar ADVERTISING STRATEGIST Ben Skidmore 972-587-9064 office, 972-692-8138 fax BenS@LPportal.com SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

NEW OR CHANGE OF ADDRESS LPMsubscription.com or circulation@LPportal.com POSTMASTER Send change of address forms to Loss Prevention Magazine P.O. Box 92558 Long Beach, CA 90809-2558 Loss Prevention aka LP Magazine aka LPM (USPS 000-710) is published bimonthly

by Loss Prevention Magazine, Inc., 700 Matthews Mint Hill Rd, Ste C, Matthews, NC 28105. Print subscriptions are available free to qualified loss prevention and associated professionals in the U.S. and Canada at LPMsubscription.com.

The publisher reserves the right to determine qualification standards.

International print subscriptions are available for $99 per year payable in U.S. funds at circulation@LPportal.com. For questions about subscriptions, contact circulation@LPportal.com or call 888-881-5861. Periodicals postage paid at Matthews, NC, and additional mailing offices.

© 2020 Loss Prevention Magazine, Inc.

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RETAIL SPONSORS

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INTERVIEWING

by David E. Zulawski, CFI, CFE and Shane G. Sturman, CFI, CPP

Types of Denials W

hen a suspect denies involvement at the onset of an interrogation, it will be extremely difficult to persuade them to change their mind. The individual has essentially taken a position and now will go to great lengths to defend it even in the face of incontrovertible proof of their guilt. Therefore, we recommend avoiding any type of accusation in the beginning of the interrogation as it typically forces a person to deny and then protect their position with additional denials.

By using a nonconfrontational approach, the investigator can search for the truth, avoid denials, and enhance the possibility of obtaining incriminating admissions.

In addition, this nonconfrontational approach allows the investigator an opportunity to enhance the power of their evidence by having the suspect lie about it. At worst, this strategy has seriously put to question the suspect’s truthfulness as they boldly lie about evidence or circumstances established in the investigation.

Emphatic denial is any response (verbal or physical) from a suspect that refuses to acknowledge the truthfulness of the accusation.

In the United States, public law enforcement obtains an admission or a confession at a rate that falls somewhere between 40 percent and 65 percent, according to reports in the UCLA Law Review (vol. 43) by Paul Cassell and Bret Hayman and the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (vol. 86) by Richard Leo in 1996. Other studies from around the globe range in the same general percentages. Law enforcement officers in the public sector are much more focused on interviewing than following a standardized interrogation protocol. As a result, a strong skill set in interrogation is not monitored or measured by their organizations.

In the private sector, it’s not unusual for admission or confession rate to range from 70 percent to 90 percent.

There could be several reasons for this. First, the private sector primarily deals with fraud and property crimes, which are considered less severe than crimes against persons. Second, the private sector is largely committed

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Zulawski and Sturman are executives in the investigative and training firm of Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates (w-z.com). Zulawski is a senior partner, and Sturman is president. Sturman is also a member of ASIS International’s Retail Loss Prevention Council.

They can be reached at 800-222-7789 or via email at dzulawski@w-z.com and ssturman@w-z.com. © 2020 Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates, Inc.

to the use of a nonconfrontational style of interrogation that doesn’t require the person to deny anything at its onset. Third, companies often monitor and measure their investigators’ performance focusing on the proper strategy and use of a nonconfrontational style of interrogation.

Finally, many organizations by policy only speak with employees whose guilt has been clearly established.

However, it should be noted that the nonconfrontational approach we advocate does not require any evidence be revealed to the subject. The use of a participatory interview prior to the nonconfrontational approach allows the investigator to offer the subject an opportunity to explain away seemingly damning evidence revealed in the investigation and help prove his innocence or guilt.

In our research, we have found that most suspects confessed for one of three reasons. First, they believed there was evidence of their guilt. Second, they wanted to put a positive spin on an otherwise bad situation by rationalizing what they had done. And third, they felt guilty about what they had done. Effectively, about 70 percent of the people who confess are trying to protect their self-image by rationalizing their actions. It seems that any investigator who fails to offer face-saving devices and show understanding to the individual is encouraging denials and lessening the likelihood that the guilty give an admission.

In our experience, the words and strategies used by the investigator cause most denials.

When a subject has lied about evidence revealed by the investigation, it provides the investigator a strong level of concern that the individual may be guilty. The strength of the evidence against the individual plus their lies indicate a strong presumption of guilt. Locking the individual into an alibi, story, or sequence of events makes the presentation of evidence more powerful since the subject has lied directly to the investigator.

In an interview with a strong presumption of guilt, we should consider the most common ways individuals deny and the strategies they employ. In some situations, a denial of innocence may be made by individuals who don’t understand the elements of the crime. In other instances, a denial may be forthcoming because the person continued on page 14

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a truthful person who legitimately knows nothing of the incident. However, it is especially indicative of deception if there is evidence linking the person to the situation while they claim no knowledge.

Another attempt to reduce the cognitive dissonance of lying is the use of a specific denial. The emphatic denial is attached to a specific statement that makes it now a true statement. “I didn’t choke her with that rope.” In this statement, the individual is not denying choking the victim, but rather denying using the rope to choke her.

This type of denial is often triggered by an investigator who has misinterpreted the crime scene and made some statement to the offender that is not correct.

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has been labeled as a “thief,” “sexual deviant,” or other term that does not fit their perception of the incident. In our experience, directly accusing using a label often has the effect of strengthening the denials, making a more difficult conversation.

An investigator will face two unique styles of denials during an interrogation. Although both denial styles include refusal to acknowledge involvement, they are dramatically different in how they occur and how they must be handled.

Emphatic Denial

Explanatory Denial

Emphatic denial is any response (verbal or physical) from a suspect that refuses to acknowledge the truthfulness of the accusation. Generally, the individual does not offer an alternative explanation for the situation and simply answers with the emphatic denial: “I didn’t do it,” “You’re wrong; it wasn’t me,” or simply shaking their head (nonverbal response).

Explanatory denial is any response from a suspect that offers an excuse or a reason why they could not or would not be involved in the incident, such as, “My mom and dad didn’t raise me that way,” “My father’s a policeman,” or “I would’ve thought of a much better way to do it.” Explanatory denials are usually truthful statements made by an individual to take the offense during an interrogation. Because of their truthful nature, these statements are difficult for an investigator to overcome.

“I love my wife.” Obviously, love is a very difficult and variable emotion. Love can be expressed in many different ways, so it provides the subject an easy defense against the investigator’s accusations.

A variation of the explanatory denial is when the subject acknowledges some aspect of the incident but alleges their actions were misinterpreted.

Subject: “I was just jogging down the street when these two guys grabbed me and accused me of stealing from cars.”

Interviewer: “Why were you running?”

Subject: “I was trying to catch the train into the city.”

Interviewer: “It’s got to be three miles to the train station from there.”

Subject: “Yeah, I wanted to get there as quick as possible.”

Interviewer: “So why would these guys grab you?”

Subject: “I don’t know.”

In this exchange the subject maintains their innocence while claiming people have misjudged their actions. This type of tactic is used in a variety of situations by individuals attempting to explain away evidence or witness testimony.

Interviewer: “The witness said it looked like you had your hand on her bottom.”

Subject: “I didn’t. Maybe it was just like an optical illusion from where she was standing.”

Just because a subject denies or uses an explanatory denial does not necessarily mean that they are guilty or deceptive. Innocent people can also use these tactics.

However, emphatic denials and explanatory denials and their variations should be examined in the context of the investigation, against evidence available and the individual’s normal behavioral patterns to determine if these are areas of concern.

Explanatory denial is any response from a suspect that offers an excuse or a reason why they could not or would not be involved in the incident.

On occasion, when an individual’s presence at the scene can be established, they may use a slightly different emphatic denial: “I didn’t see anything.” This emphatic denial is slightly different in that while acknowledging their presence at the location, they deny that they saw or heard anything relevant. This type of denial is used by those who don’t want to admit collusion or do want to protect another from being implicated. This denial reduces the discomfort an individual feels when lying and provides a simple “I don’t know” answer since they missed observing the incident. Related to this type of denial is any statement that blames intoxication, sleeping, or drug use for their inability to recall what happened.

This form of the emphatic denial may also be used by the individual to draw out information from the investigation. Since the subject doesn’t know what the investigation has revealed, they may use this strategy to force the investigator’s hand in revealing evidence. If the investigator chooses to give up evidence at this point, they may reveal much about what the investigation has discovered or suspected.

Another strategic use of an emphatic denial by a guilty subject is to deny any knowledge of the situation. This effectively allows them to avoid any question simply by saying they weren’t there and don’t know anything about the event. This type of statement could also be made by

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FEATURE

GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING SUSTAINABILITY IS ALL THE RAGE IN RETAIL. WHERE DOES LP FIT IN?

By Garett Seivold, LPM Senior Writer

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GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING

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hot topic at NRF 2020, sustainability may be the most fashionable retail business trend going. It’s driven by the realization that companies can’t simply squeeze profits from the public and take from their customers. They must also give back to ensure a healthy environment and customer base is around to support sales a decade from now. It has also become a public relations prerequisite. Retailers are expected to be profit-driven, certainly, but they must also be perceived as community-minded.

Maintaining a positive brand image has always been vital to a retailer. What has changed is how easily it is for people to weigh in on matters that can impact it. Customers post bad reviews and swap stories of being mistreated. They post incriminating pictures or videos to boost the odds their smackdown goes viral.

Employee message boards provide easy intel on whether a company is a good place to work or has a toxic environment. Environmental and social activists—as well as trolls—lie ready to pounce. Stores’ community relations, charitable giving, and environmental behavior are under constant scrutiny.

Today, more than ever before, activities related to sustainability impact customers’ shopping choices.

Retailers are their reputations. But what exactly is sustainability in a retail context? And security? What can the industry do to support it—and how can LP teams fit in?

In a way, sustainability is a form of risk management. It’s an effort to prevent potential downsides from undercutting positive business performance, which is kind of at the heart of LP’s primary mission: to make sure that as retailers boost sales and grow profits, they aren’t being undercut by losses. A clear, direct line does not exist between the two, however. So given its growing importance to retail CEOs, issues at the intersection of sustainability and security are worth examining.

A Big Push

More than ever, retail organizations are trying to develop a reputation for

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For those charged with store security, the “right” amount of lighting must be sufficiently bright to provide security even on the darkest night. To green designers, however, the “right” amount of light is as little as necessary in order to save energy. But sometimes both goals can be satisfied in different types of organizational building design. sustainability. The idea is simple: if a company takes a shortsighted, exploitative approach to the environment, labor, and social issues, they will only be profitable in the short term. To ensure a healthy business environment is in place ten, twenty, or fifty years down the road, any company—retailers included—needs to act responsibly in these areas now. In short, sustainability recognizes how important it is for corporations to promote a physical and social environment that will continue to support their business functions.

Sustainability has gone from obscure theory to the corporate ideal. Leaders from some of the world’s biggest companies identify corporate sustainability as a more important measure of corporate success than stock market performance, market share, and corporate governance. Statements like “sustainable development” and “good corporate citizenship” now litter annual reports and corporate websites. Many companies publish dedicated reports annually under the sustainability banner: “an environmental, social, and governance report,” “a corporate responsibility report,” or something similar. Activists may argue that more MARCH–APRIL 2020

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companies talk-the-talk than walk-the-walk when it comes to sustainability, but there is no disputing that most companies are now sensitive to the issue, with the issue gaining particular momentum among customer-facing retail organizations.

Starbucks is an example. The coffee giant announced in January ambitious new sustainability goals, aiming to be “resource positive” in areas including carbon emissions, waste, and water. In his announcement, CEO Kevin Johnson explained the reason behind it, which is largely an argument for sustainability itself. “By embracing a longer-term economic, equitable, and planetary value proposition for our company, we will create greater value for all stakeholders,” he said.

At NRF 2020 Vision: Retail’s Big Show, multiple retail representatives promoted their companies’ environmental bona fides, with top executives from Patagonia, Lush, The Body Shop, and Williams-Sonoma all promising to build on prior sustainability efforts. Beauty retailers are part of the green rush, with Detox Market debuting a plan to plant 2.5 million trees in the next five years and develop sustainability standards for brand partners.

But even as retailers promise sustainability, its importance to consumers could also be one of retail’s biggest obstacles. Fast fashion, for example, has been the subject of public protests for its perceived harm to the environment. And in a survey of UK consumers in January by GlobalData, 48.9 percent said the reason they plan to buy less in the year ahead is a conscious decision to have less of an environmental impact. “The shift away from spending on nonessential retail products is set to continue…especially as sustainability concerns seep into their consciences,” commented Sofie Willmott, lead retail analyst at GlobalData.

Last month, Nike’s new CEO John Donahoe acknowledged in a CNBC interview that “the consumer increasingly cares about sustainability,” and that fact will drive company strategy moving forward.

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GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING Building Security

Sustainability

Common Ground

Optimal lighting:

Minimize lighting:

Strategic installation:

• Crime deterrence • Camera surveillance

• Reduce light pollution • Energy conservation

• Limit flow of people to certain lit areas (identify after-hours parking area, for example)

OUTDOOR LIGHTING

Intelligent lighting controls: • Variable intensity lighting systems (for example, LED light that adjusts according to level of ambient light) • Motion detection (lighting off/reduced unless activated) • Video analytics (capable cameras could be used to adjust lighting systems to provide the level they require; even as they track objects) INDOOR LIGHTING Optimal lighting: • Crime deterrence • Safety • Limit window opening to reduce blast damage

“Daylighting” through natural windows

Intelligent lighting controls: • Occupancy sensing so that lights are off unless motion is detected and scheduling so lights on/off based on preset schedule • Variable intensity lighting systems that read the amount of natural light in room and adjust indoor light level accordingly • Integrative enhancements, such as lighting system with access control; system reads who enters and lights their “area” fully

• Improve employee morale, health, productivity, aesthetics • Energy conservation

HEATING, VENTILATION, AND AIR CONDITIONING • Prevent flow of outside air to prevent risk from contaminated air • Inoperable ground-level windows to prevent physical intrusion • High efficiency HEPA filtration to purify air in case of CBRN attack

Natural ventilation through open windows

• Place air intakes higher up on building to protect against tampering and provide fresher air • Occupancy sensing so that systems operate where/when people are present and scheduling • Thermal cameras to shows signs of heat/energy losses and provide added security • Integrative enhancements, such as with access control, to activate HVAC in employees’ workspaces; remain off if employee job profile is to go from space to space, such as housekeeping, after-hours security

• Improve employee morale, mental health • Energy conservation

EXTERIOR ENVELOPE • Prevent blast damage through stand-off, design, difficulty of vehicle approach

• Energy conservation through use of heat retention in cooler climates, heat deflection in warm climates • Minimize disruption to environment and heat islands like large parking lots

• Thermal mass walls for blast mitigation and heat insulation • Window glazing to prevent blast damage and reduce energy consumption • Vehicular access management to allow some underground parking to reduce large parking lots but limit risk from truck bombs, such as controlling by size of vehicle, individual status

• Maximum vegetation and natural landscaping for shading, minimizing disruption to natural environment

• Variable grading that uses the natural contour of land to preserve natural landscape and improve blast mitigation by preventing vehicle approach • High canopy trees to avoid blocking sightline of cameras while providing shade • Rainwater reservoirs for energy conservation or preserved wetlands or moats to increase stand-off while complicating vehicle approach

LANDSCAPING • Strategically arrange vegetation for blast mitigation while still maximizing surveillance

Source: Applied Risk Management LLC; interviews, other sources

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GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING For retailers to overcome concerns of sustainability-minded consumers, Willmott suggested stores may need to devise schemes like offering a discount when shoppers bring back empty containers or perhaps even offer a version of climate credits to offset their purchases. “A brand’s positive environmental stance must be communicated through aspects that customers can interact with,” advised Willmott.

RILA has taken on the issue of what sustainability means in a retail context: “Sustainability means creating financial value while protecting the environment and generating social value, both within operations and along supply chains.”

Some of retail’s impact on the environment and society are direct, but many more are sprinkled across its operations. “Consequently, retailers’ sustainability programs vary widely, from a focus on energy efficiency in direct operations, to informing customer choices, to targeting global issues deep in the supply chain, such as deforestation,” notes the RILA Issue Brief: Sustainability in Retail.

It takes work. Retailers must set goals, engage leadership, connect disparate sustainability activities, and tell their stories through multiple channels, says RILA. But it’s worth it. “It creates innovation, opens new markets, reduces business risks, and enhances brand reputation—all of which build resiliency,” notes the association.

Sustainable Security?

Companies began to report their impact on society and the environment under pressure from calls for greater transparency, but they now use these reports to polish their images and showcase their efforts to be good corporate citizens. Companies tout environmental activities, community involvement, workforce and supplier diversity, and improving safety records; yet, in an era where both the public and shareholders want assurance that private companies take security seriously, it remains uncommon that companies communicate security as a core corporate value.

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Business Case for Retail Sustainability Internal Stakeholders

Customers

Competitors

Becoming conscious of their product purchases and enjoy the purchase of ethically sourced products

Using their sustainability leadership as a competitive differentiator

Investors

Requiring investments to be transparent about their impacts and risks

Employees

External Stakeholders

Regulators

Retailers

Considering the environmental and social impacts of their operations and supply chains

Looking for pride in their employer’s practices and products

Regulating product supply chain environmental and social impacts

Activists and Media

Increasing supply transparency and enforcing product accountability Source: Retail Industry Leaders Association, Center for Retail Compliance

To be sure, compared to a decade ago, security activities are more likely to be represented in sustainability or corporate responsibility reports, especially data security, but the connection remains weakly drawn. A more fully realized appreciation for security in a sustainability context would certainly benefit LP teams’ operations. When security is formally embedded in the effort to publicly communicate good corporate citizenship, it becomes harder for companies to back away from the security mission when priorities shift or sales slip.

It’s true that corporate security does not easily fit into the sustainability or social responsibility framework.

Companies can use injury and illness rates to describe a commitment to safety and health; describe improvements in wages, benefits, and working conditions to show concern for workers; tally emissions and offsets to demonstrate environmental sensitivity; and reveal corporate donations to prove they’re committed to communities in which they operate. It’s not as easy to share proof of a commitment to security without

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divulging data or security controls that companies would rather keep private.

So how might LP and security fit into retail sustainability efforts? First, LP may need to play a little defense, as the question is not only what LP can add to sustainability efforts, but also how might a retailer’s sustainability commitments negatively impact LP’s operational missions?

Some environmentally conscious retail practices, for example, such as more friendly packaging or refill stations, can make product easier to steal. And dimming exterior building lights to save energy limits their security surveillance and deterrence value.

Because a natural antagonism can exist—and demand that LP offer a dissenting view on select sustainability initiatives—it’s important for LP to work in concert with sustainability teams and have early input into proposed projects and goal setting. Perhaps a retailer can forgo heat-sealed, “clam-shell” plastic packaging on some product lines, but LP could provide input on which products are not a good candidate for more environmentally friendly options from a theft prevention standpoint.

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GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING The push for sustainability provides another reason why security leaders need to position security to be a key stakeholder in the design phase of new stores, office buildings, or distribution centers. Planning should outline security principles, recognize sustainability goals, and find the common ground between them. For example, for those charged with store security, the “right” amount of lighting must be sufficiently bright to provide security even on the darkest night. To green designers, however, the “right” amount of light is as little as necessary in order to save energy. But sometimes both goals can be satisfied in different types of organizational building design. (See the accompanying sidebar for select possibilities.)

LP should also be aware of its potential impact on retail reputations.

It’s infrequent, but on those occasions when LP activities are in the news, it’s often cast in a negative light. Currently, for example, workers from multiple retailers are trying to win class action claims for unpaid time spent in security

checks post-shift, including H&M, Eddie Bauer, and Apple. Racial discrimination in store surveillance or shoplifting stops and claims of mishandling sensitive internal investigations can also get widespread pick-up in a media landscape increasingly driven by what people are talking about on social media. While LP can’t shy away from its duties out of fear of public backlash, the impact of its activities on retail brands is a legitimate consideration. Small mistakes that previously went unnoticed are now amplified, raising the bar for LP in areas such as candidate selection and agent training, partnering with outside security firms, and conducting investigations.

Next, because LP activities can be the source of negative publicity, teams might choose to aggressively investigate those opportunities where security and good corporate citizenship converge. The most obvious example, one in which LP teams frequently shine, is through volunteering and other charitable efforts. Loss prevention teams have helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity and

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participated in efforts to set a Guinness World Record for the number of bagged lunches prepared in one hour. Rob Holm, director of global security, safety, and intelligence at McDonald’s Corporation notes that his team regularly serves meals for families at Ronald McDonald Houses.

At Retail Business Services, the asset protection team gives back to communities on a regular basis, “particularly in the area of hunger relief, a passion of Joe Darnell the retail grocery brands our team supports,” explained Joe Darnell, manager of asset protection services.

Most recently, AP associates volunteered at a food bank as part of a company-wide day of volunteerism in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They regularly prepare lunches for community members at North Carolina

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GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING soup kitchens and recently shifted from exchanging gifts among team members at the holidays to using those funds to purchase items to donate to a local shelter. “The feedback from our associates after shopping for the shelter has been very positive, indicating it was a rewarding experience, and they look forward to this activity every year,” said Darnell. Supporting community members in need is also a focus for Kroger’s AP team, which raises funds throughout the year to give back during the holiday season (see sidebar).

LP teams don’t organize volunteer efforts to burnish their or their company’s reputations, but sharing those activities with a company’s sustainability department can help it to paint a complete picture of the company’s role in the communities they operate. As noted, RILA identifies storytelling and “connecting pockets of sustainability activity” as two keys for a retailer to develop a successful sustainability program.

LP teams also benefit communities through their expertise in identifying and addressing fraud, which may not cause store losses but adversely impact customers. Several LP pros we interviewed noted that their organized retail crime (ORC) units are increasingly providing victim-assisted fraud services, such as an employee being defrauded or a customer or guest falling victim to impersonation scams, like IRS scams where elderly shoppers will come into the store thinking they have to pay the IRS in the form of a gift card. Helping these customers falls squarely within community assistance, a bedrock of sustainability.

Joe Darnell shared that back in early 2019 many elderly customers were falling victim to a gift card scam in which they were being enticed to purchase gift cards, would later share the gift card information over the phone, and then see the value of the gift cards erased. The company’s ORC investigators regularly undergo training to understand such schemes and to be able to help local authorities. “As a result of these trainings, we estimated a reduction of $3.6 million in consumer

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Recent storm events have put retailers’ unique logistics expertise on full display. They have repeatedly mobilized truckloads of water, groceries, consumables, and pharmacy supplies to various communities in need, demonstrating how valuable they can be in disaster relief efforts. fraud and a reduction of over $5,500 in customer losses,” said Darnell.

Retailers need to extend that attitude to online victims as well, suggest analysts from CyberInt in the company’s Annual Threat Landscape Report for 2020. They insist that retailers’ concern with security should progress beyond their own infrastructure and employees to include protection of the company brand and its customers. Specifically, the report advises retailers to guard against allowing its customers to be targeted in phishing campaigns that misappropriate their brand to lure victims into surrendering personal and financial data. Again, while retailers may not suffer direct losses from such schemes, they do pay substantially in the long run.

Addressing the needs of victims when writing security plans is another way LP can help their organizations help employees. For example, by providing employee victims of domestic abuse with obtaining court orders or providing home security advice or assistance.

“You have to begin with the education piece. You want to do everything you can to get the word out to staff that you want to help victims [of intimate partner violence],” according to Dr. Ron Wallace, a criminal justice professor for American Public University System who has studied intimate partner MARCH–APRIL 2020

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violence’s intersection with the workplace. “Include the topic during new employee orientation. Send an email out to all staff. Hang a poster in the breakroom; make it the subject during team meetings or in periodic meetings with staff. It’s important to use multiple channels in providing information and to conduct repeated outreach,” he advised.

When Body Shop first tackled the issue many years ago, it did so by kicking off a “Shatter the Silence” program to reach out to employees. The program included posting information about domestic violence along with crisis numbers inside bathroom stalls and hiring expert trainers to provide each employee with two hours of education on domestic violence, including the “power cycle” that characterizes it.

Limited Brands has participated in corporate alliances to promote workplace strategies to combat domestic violence, including policies, training, and victim assistance.

Addressing trauma assistance in crisis response plans, such as in the event of an active shooter, robbery, or assault, is another way security and sustainability intertwine. Making it part of the program enables an organization to respond to traumatic security incidents in a systematic manner, provides an opportunity for employees to share their experiences with their peers, and helps organizations identify those employees that need additional help.

“Good crisis planning isn’t only about how to react to a violent incident but also how to reconstitute from a violent incident and to get back to business,” explained Anthony Mangeri, a first responder with thirty years of experience and a leader in the public safety community, in an LP Magazine interview on how retailers can improve their response to workplace violence.

Post-incident procedures, including medical follow-up and the availability of counseling and referral, are important elements of a response plan, he said.

This relates directly to the issue of sustainability. Companies that fail to effectively respond to incidents of

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GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING workplace violence only serve to deepen the impact of the event and dampen the effectiveness of future security awareness programs. If employees believe that a retailer’s response to security incidents is insufficient, they are less likely to believe that the program truly has their best interest at heart.

Being of service to communities in times of crisis is another way LP departments participate in activities that fall under sustainability’s umbrella. As described in LP Magazine’s coverage of major storm events, LP is often at the center of community crisis responses, helping stores serve as staging grounds for relief efforts, distributing critical supplies, or serving as safety refuges for displaced individuals. Brinker International, which owns the Chili’s restaurant chain among others, gladly accepts the role it can play in a crisis as a food provider. “In every event, we accept an obligation to employees, the community, and first responders,” said Bill Heine, chief security officer. His team, which is responsible for all

business continuity and crisis management, holds pre-storm conversations with vendors to stock restaurants with groceries in the event it becomes necessary “to be there to feed employees and families and first responders.”

Recent storm events have put retailers’ unique logistics expertise on full display. They have repeatedly mobilized truckloads of water, groceries, consumables, and pharmacy supplies to various communities in need, demonstrating how valuable they can be in disaster relief efforts. As we noted after Hurricane Harvey, media coverage has shown that retailers’ quick response and helpful community involvement can be a significant source of positive brand advertising and create a lasting bond with members of the public. Surveys have shown that 88 percent of the public hold a more favorable impression of companies that provide aid during and after a major natural disaster.

Some industry leaders would like LP to take on more responsibility,

including Ben Dugan, CFI, current president of the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail (CLEAR) and a manager of ORC and corporate Ben Dugan investigations at CVS Health. In outlining goals in a CLEAR newsletter in 2019, as he assumed the role of president, Dugan pressed for enhancing coordination among law enforcement and LP to better assist communities in times of crisis. “There is so much more to our professions than the enforcement of laws. We each have an opportunity for great partnerships to further engage the communities in which we serve. One such example is coming together during natural disasters to help one another with various needs such as food, water, shelter, and medications,” he wrote.

“My vision goes far beyond just investigations and into aiding the

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Feature 1 GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING communities where our police officers serve and the retailers do business.”

CLEAR’s future may include acting as a conduit for establishing better ties in this area, so law enforcement and retailers might work more effectively together to assist the public during crisis events, as well as working collaboratively to address violence-related mass events. What was initially a vision to form partnerships to fight organized retail crime is expanding to forge great partnerships to better serve communities, according to Mitzi Perry, a retired investigator at the St. Petersburg Police Department and a CLEAR board member.

As store emergency and logistics programs have matured, retailers are now more capable of supplying assistance than ever before—allowing action to match the desire to get communities back on their feet. Because LP teams already have established partnerships with emergency responders, they are well positioned to take a leadership role in serving in this critical community assistance capacity.

Store security technology—mass communications, video surveillance, and so on—provides another avenue for LP teams to serve the public good, especially as integration gets easier. For example, retailers in one European shopping district used their technology to combat rowdy behavior upsetting residents.

Through use of audio analytics, lights would increase brightness when escalating voice levels were detected.

Doing so helped to modulate behavior, improve residents’ sense of well-being, and restored the shopping area’s reputation as a safe place to go at night, explained Ken Mills, general manager of IoT, surveillance, and security at Dell, at a security conference panel last year. Of course, retailers must provide support cognizant of the possibility that too much surveillance assistance to law enforcement may appear as an invasion of consumer privacy.

Stores can also provide direct support to people in need, something that has been reported in promotions of retailers’ sustainability activities for decades.

Among the first was 7-Eleven in Japan,

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Sustainable security is a model that relies on bridges rather than fences. By engaging a community—rather than retreating from it—companies may be able to reduce future incidents of sabotage, theft, and protest. If community members perceive an alignment between their security and that of a major retail organization, it enjoys a “social fence” that is far more valuable than any physical fence, say experts. which described back in 2004 the security department’s participation in a law enforcement program to establish convenience stores as “safety stations” for the community, under which they cooperated in crime prevention patrols, assisted with locating missing persons, and offered a safe place of refuge for those in need.

Stores continue to participate in such programs, helping people in need and deriving positive public relations from them. McDonald’s restaurants, for example, participates in the National Safe Place program, through which libraries, schools, fire stations, and other locations are designated as safe places for runaways, abuse victims, homeless people, and others in need. On Christmas Eve, training provided under that program to employees at a Stockton, California, McDonald’s resulted in a highly publicized, feel-good holiday news story of a woman who MARCH–APRIL 2020

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mouthed the words “help me” to a crew member. The crew member helped the woman escape from her abuser by delaying the pair’s food order and holding up the drive-thru to give law enforcement time to arrive and arrest the man. “Now that woman is safe thanks to the swift action of those McDonald’s employees,” an ABC news reporter concluded. “It was such an exciting and proud moment for us to know what we’re doing is working and that our employees are comfortable handling things like that,” added the franchise owner-operator.

Sustainability in International Operations

To foster sustainable security, companies need to consider the long-term implications of short-term security decisions. Sometimes the best short-term security solution may not be in the best long-term interest of a company’s security reputation.

The issue of sustainability in security is particularly relevant to international retail operations, especially those operating in politically and socially volatile environments. In this context, experts note that a sustainable approach to security involves engaging the local constituencies that influence security. By pursuing strategies in which a retailer’s security and the security of the surrounding communities are mutually reinforcing, the security of the retail organization becomes sustainable.

A robust approach involves the constituencies that are essential to sustainable security: employees and contractors; public security forces, both local and national; and local communities. Sustainable security takes a broader and longer-term view of threats and builds alliances to develop a more secure environment for everyone in the region. For example, local communities often pose the greatest threat to operation in remote areas overseas, but if those communities perceive that they benefit when the company is more secure, then local stakeholders cease to be a security liability and instead become an ally, note sustainability experts. continued on page 24

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GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING continued from page 22

A Kroger Christmas For Sandie Karr and Sharon Sevier, analysts on the transaction monitoring team for Kroger corporate asset protection, the simple desires of the people they’ve helped has made a lasting impression. The twenty-five member team adopts a family in the Cincinnati area every holiday season, making presents possible when they otherwise wouldn’t be. They’ve helped a family devastated by a house fire and a single mom with several children facing poverty. Often, they’ve learned, it doesn’t take much to make holiday wishes come true.

“One time, the kids had a snap bracelet on their Christmas lists, which is something that’s maybe $1.99, and that kind of struck a chord with me,” said Sevier. “Just how really small the wants are sometimes.” Sandy Karr said she’s been moved by the same thing, noting how one single mother’s entire holiday season was changed simply by making it possible for her to provide a holiday feast for her family.

The AP team’s community outreach effort began in 2010 when a manager suggested helping a local family in need instead of staff exchanging gifts. It now includes fundraising efforts during the year—the Christmas in July car wash is the big one—so they can make a substantial difference in a family’s life come the holidays. “It started small, but every year it ends up going so well, and people just feel so good helping, that we are moved to do a little more and a little better the following year,” said Karr.

It also gives the AP team a chance to interact with the community in a different way than they normally do, noted Sevier. “In AP you kind of see more of the bad side of things the rest

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of the year, so it’s really uplifting to make a positive difference for a family every year,” she said. “It also really drives our team spirit, to provide that help and support to the community.”

The AP team’s holiday giving program doesn’t have Kroger’s brand attached to it, but the company supports it fully, and it fits in with the company’s long history of helping the communities they serve. In addition to substantial direct charity giving, Kroger Community Rewards links its loyalty card with local charities, helping people donate to the local organizations they support through their everyday shopping. A few years back, Kroger’s efforts scored it the top ranking in a Chronicle of Philanthropy listing detailed in Forbes magazine that recognizes American companies that give back the most.

The AP team’s holiday charitable effort is its most significant, but members also participate in other initiatives that include adopting a local public-school class and food and clothing drives. “I know everyone from AP realizes how important it is to help out, and from a company standpoint, Kroger is always ready to give back and support whatever stores or departments do to help,” said Sevier.

“It makes me proud to be working for Kroger as a company, to provide that uplift to our customers,” said Kevin Larson, CFI, senior manager of asset protection and transaction monitoring.

But even if giving back is not part of a company’s culture, he believes it’s a responsibility of the LP profession.

“I think it’s important for every department to be involved in projects to help our communities and support charities,” said Larson. “There is no reason they shouldn’t be.”

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Sustainable security is a model that relies on bridges rather than fences. By engaging a community—rather than retreating from it—companies may be able to reduce future incidents of sabotage, theft, and protest. If community members perceive an alignment between their security and that of a major retail organization, it enjoys a “social fence” that is far more valuable than any physical fence, say experts.

Unfortunately, there is no one model to follow. How a retailer can—or should—engage a particular community in building a more secure environment will differ from country to country and region to region.

Practically speaking, actions that support sustainable security might include retraining security personnel and/or developing a clear understanding with security contractors on permissible and impermissible conduct. A retailer operating in a foreign country where the use of extreme force is common may need to take actions with respect to local security personnel to ensure that officers react in proportion to the threat and in line with its ethical standards.

The use of trained security personnel can help prevent reputational and litigation risks that arise from inappropriate actions or approaches not condoned by the organization, and it is also recognized by the Global Reporting Initiative as an indicator of a company’s sustainability profile. Specifically, it suggests that companies measure and report the percentage of security personnel trained in the organization’s human rights policies or procedures that are relevant to operations and to report whether training requirements also apply to third-party organizations providing security personnel.

Other sustainable security activities might include: Reviewing all local security contractors to ensure a record clean of excess force and abuse claims.

Requiring all contractors, both security and otherwise, to adhere to the company’s own internal security procedures. Organizations must also resist entering into relationships with

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GETTING IN ON THE “GOOD” THING unscrupulous entities to improve near-term security as such ties ultimately raise the risk exposure by linking the store to groups over which it cannot exert any control. Such arrangements are always unsustainable, say experts.

Providing a safe and confidential method for individuals to report violations of security procedures. Companies also need to investigate any complaints made against staff or contractors.

Opening communication with those who have grievances with the company.

Community activists are far more likely to hold protests or attempt to shut down a store if they see no other way to express themselves. Companies that engage in discussions with the community and employ conflict resolution specialists may be able to explain their actions to the community and create a level of understanding that leads to dialogue when conflicts arise rather than security events.

Providing awareness training to traveling employees. American Eagle’s (AE) model training program has been profiled previously in LP Magazine.

The loss prevention, safety, and security team regularly assesses the risk of international travel and the program has, over time, built out to include risk ratings for travel locations; a traveler tracking system; pre-trip assessments, training, and awareness briefings; a travel safety website; and emergency response procedures in the event a traveling worker runs into trouble. Security training also alerts AE workers to cultural differences that may have ramifications on their safety, including attitudes toward the LGBTQ community and wearing overt religious symbols.

Strategically using your sway with public authorities. If an international retailer plays a significant role in the local economy, it may have some influence with public security forces. This may provide an opportunity to advocate for a more moderate security response in regions controlled by heavy-handed public security forces or advocating for additional security in communities where the lack of public security poses a risk for the company. For sustainable

security to thrive, companies should engage in regular dialogue with public security forces about the protection of the firm’s assets and personnel, as well as those of the surrounding community, say experts.

Security in Sustainability Reports

Unfortunately, as noted earlier, the many good works of LP departments and ways in which their security efforts underpin sustainability efforts are not always captured in retailers’ external promotions of sustainable activities. The extent to which showcased security could be used to polish their images and demonstrate good corporate citizenship is not fully realized. Public-private initiatives to promote supply chain security, for example, are often left out of sustainability reports. The value of robust physical store security to communities, by providing them safe places to shop, is rarely a link reports make. Still, security does get a few mentions. Here are some of the ways in which major retail corporations addressed select security issues in their latest corporate responsibility reports.

Walmart’s identifies the physical safety and security of its work premises and freedom from workplace abuse as key aspects of its dedication to human rights.

Investigations into grievances is also included as a salient human rights issue.

The work of its Emergency Operations Center is also highlighted, which is used “to identify, assess, triage, and respond to natural disasters, including epidemiological issues and security events that affect Walmart operations, associates, and the communities [they] serve.”

Target’s current focus is on “six goals where [they] believe [they] can have the greatest impact,” including helping to forge sustainable cities and communities by making them inclusive, safe, and resilient. Training is also highlighted.

“All team members also participate in a formal performance review process once a year and receive annual training on critical issues, such as safety and security, compliance, ethics and integrity, and information security.” Under its LP MAGAZINE

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“2018 Selected Trainings and Learning Opportunities,” the company lists “information security and awareness: 83,850 hours” and “security at Target: 3,380 hours.” Safety and security are also recognized under the company’s effort to retain talent and ensure privacy and data protection: “As part of that investment, we have built a security program that adapts to today’s evolving threats to create the most secure shopping experience for our guests, both in stores and online.”

Kohl’s promotes joining the Supplier Compliance Audit Network (SCAN).

“SCAN will provide invaluable assistance in helping to standardize supply chain security audits to prevent multiple audits being conducted over the same facility,” according to its report.

Best Buy’s report pays significant attention to its data privacy efforts, including recognizing the risks from IoT devices. “We are working to establish a customer baseline of expectations in the area of security and privacy with respect to IoT devices.” Its work to promote supply chain sustainability is also highlighted though risk assessments and other efforts “to ensure [suppliers] meet [their] expectations for safe workplaces where workers are treated fairly and safely.”

H&M Group directly references its global security policy: “It is our responsibility to make sure our customers and colleagues feel safe. We conduct an annual store audit consisting of safety, loss prevention, and information security.” As a goal, it mentions that it is working with HR to increase safety and security awareness through training and under “Key Facts & Figures” notes: “After completing 9,715 safety and security audits in our stores, we reached a worldwide compliance level of 85 percent.”

GARETT SEIVOLD is senior writer for LP Magazine.

A trained journalist, he has spent the majority of his career writing about security, risk management, supply chain, and loss prevention topics. He can be reached at GarettS@LPportal.com.

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FUTURE OF LP

Using Social Media as a Security and Threat Assessment Tool

By Tom Meehan, CFI Meehan is retail technology editor for LP Magazine as well as chief strategy officer and chief information security officer for CONTROLTEK. Previously, Meehan was director of technology and investigations with Bloomingdale’s, where he was responsible for physical security, internal investigations, systems and data analytics. He currently serves as the chair of the Loss Prevention Research Council’s (LPRC) innovations working group. Meehan recently published is first book titled Evolution of Retail Asset Protection: Protecting Your Profit in a Digital Age. He can be reached at TomM@LPportal.com.

you make decisions about hours of operation and staffing. You can also use the native search function to track activity about your store and potential threats. In this example, simply use the name of your organization with key phrases such as “gun,” “bomb,” and so forth.

How OSINT Can Keep You Safe and Change What You Know

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oday, social media is just about everywhere. Facebook alone has almost 2.5 billion monthly active users. By now, most of us use some sort of social media to keep up with friends and family and to network professionally. With social media, the reach and frequency are unlimited. Its ease and usability allow anyone, from any age group, to report news or information regardless of its accuracy or merit. Just imagine: a large portion of the population walks around with high-definition cameras in their pockets and the ability to broadcast live video in real time to an audience of billions. But social media has many more uses beyond making personal connections.

Social media has revolutionized connectivity because it is so easily accessible: by definition, social media exists on an open public platform. This means that social media can also be used as a tool for open-source intelligence, more commonly referred to as OSINT. OSINT is intelligence collected from publicly available sources and is an effective method of data collection for retailers of any size. OSINT can open a new world of data for retailers, who can then gather data from every public source available and use OSINT tools to narrow the scope of their search.

Leveraging Social Media in Your Investigations So how can your team tap into this world of information and use it to achieve your goals? It’s helpful to remember that thieves like to brag about their achievements. They’ll often share their activities with like-minded friends on social media.

So a cache of stolen goods might just show up in a Facebook post or for resale on eBay. When chronic offenders or accomplices are identified, a security or law enforcement team can begin to monitor their social media activity. That can provide clues to past crimes—and hints about future ones.

You can collect data from social media using platform features that already exist, such as geolocation. With location-based monitoring, you can gather information to help

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It’s helpful to remember that thieves like to brag about their achievements.They’ll often share their activities with like-minded friends on social media. So a cache of stolen goods might just show up in a Facebook post or for resale on eBay. Many social media platforms make their data available through application programming interfaces, or API. An API is simply a set of instructions that allow developers to interact with the platform’s technology. For example, Twitter’s search allows people to access their search function to create their own tools for collecting information. Twitter provides three ways for users to access their data: Twitter Search. This is Twitter’s native search function, and it’s easy and free to use. Simply plug in your search terms, such as “burglaries, Town Name, USA” to get all the tweets related to that subject. The downside is you can only see the last 3,200 tweets related to your search—a lot of information, but not enough to get the whole picture.

Twitter Streaming API. Though it is similar to the Search API, the Streaming API can send you tweets in real time. This is particularly helpful for time-sensitive operations, such as a robbery or another ongoing event. The downside is that you only receive a sample of tweets containing your search terms, anywhere from 1 percent to 40 percent of relevant tweets.

Twitter Firehose. As its name suggests, this function sends you a lot of data. It’s guaranteed to send you 100 percent of tweets that meet your search criteria. This is incredibly helpful for security or law enforcement professionals who want a comprehensive overview of activity about a specific subject.

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computer code that websites use. The Intext search is especially helpful in OSINT as it helps to search for specific text on a page.

According to a report from Thales, retail is the prime cyber-crime target. As I discussed in a previous article about the dark web, criminals can use the dark web to learn about company security policies, which stores are best to steal from, and which EAS tags a company uses, so they can learn how to defeat them. The dark web is a great place to find information about potential threats to your organization, but it can be difficult and even dangerous to your cyber security to access.

My tool of choice today is a paid open-source intelligence service called Echosec. It incorporates Twitter Firehose along with all the social media platforms that offer open-source intelligence. It also offers Beacon, a discovery tool for the dark web. I find Beacon to be an essential tool for dark web investigations because it allows me to search the dark web using keywords and narrow down the results, which you cannot manually do in the dark web because there is no search engine to index its content.

Like many new technologies, these tools can be helpful for both security professionals and criminals. It all depends on what a user does with the data. When collecting personal data, either on your own or with an OSINT tool, you should always consult your legal department to determine the proper protocols for using and storing this information. Few things are more sensitive than customer data—or more damaging should this data be compromised in any way.

But as you might have guessed, the Twitter Firehose is not free.

Access to the Twitter Firehose is handled by GNIP, a social media API aggregation service that Twitter acquired in 2014.

How to Use Other OSINT Tools OSINT existed before social media did, and a vast trove of publicly available information still exists beyond social media.

We all know the information is out there, but few of us have the expertise, time, or patience to ferret out the parts we need.

That’s where OSINT tools come in. Although free tools are available, you get what you pay for. They are still helpful tools for a security or law enforcement team, but remember that you are only getting a small fraction of the relevant data. To get a more comprehensive view of the data you want, you’ll have to pay for it.

According to Infosec, these are the top five tools used by penetration testers and even malware actors: 1. Maltego, a software used for OSINT forensics that collects data from open sources and visualizes that data in a graph format.

2. Recon-Ng, a full-featured OSINT framework written in Python.

3. theHarvester, a tool to gather emails, subdomains, hosts, employee names, open ports, and service banners.

4. Shodan, a search engine that lets you find specific types of Internet of Things (IoT) devices using a variety of filters.

5. Google hacking or Google dorking, a computer hacking technique that uses Google Search and other Google applications to find security holes in the configuration and

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www.losspreventionfoundation.org LP MAGAZINE

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Loss prevention management Loss prevention executives

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LPM EXCELLENCE

LPM Magpie Awards: Applauding Excellence

The LPM “Magpie” Awards offer a means to celebrate industry accomplishments on an ongoing basis, recognizing the loss prevention professionals, teams, solution providers, law enforcement partners, and others that demonstrate a stellar contribution to the profession.

The ability to influence change is a product of drive, creativity, and determination, but it also requires a unique ability to create a shared vision that others will understand, respect, support, and pursue.

Each of the following recipients reflects that standard of excellence, representing the quality and spirit of leadership that makes a difference in our lives, our people, and our programs. Please join us in celebrating the accomplishments of our latest honorees.

Excellence in Leadership

Excellence in Partnerships

“It’s important to understand that change isn’t just inevitable; it’s necessary,” said Hirchert. “Change is what moves us forward and helps us grow. But we still have to do our part.

Be available, step up, fill the void, and make it happen. Take leadership seriously. Make a difference, and have that difference mean something.”

Hirchert has seen his share of change, having been part of the evolution of loss prevention for nearly fifty years. A graduate of Michigan State University, he started his loss prevention career with Montgomery Ward in 1971. By 1975 he held his first director-level position with Red Owl Food/Snyder Drugs and has since held leadership positions with TG&Y Stores, Payless Cashways, Home Quarters Warehouse, and currently as vice president of loss prevention and risk management with the Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM), where he’s served since 1995.

Although his contributions to the industry include serving on the National Retail Federation LP Council and the Home Center Institute’s LP/Safety Council, being a member of ASIS for forty years and a founding member of the LP Foundation, and writing as a contributor during the early years of LP Magazine, Hirchert sees his most important professional success through different eyes.

“I feel my greatest professional accomplishments have been made through the mentorship of the men and women that I have been fortunate enough to work with over the years. Their achievements and successes have met and exceeded both my expectations and their own. That will always be among the things I’m most proud of,” he said.

“Of course, it’s important to embrace the basics of the job, but always remember the job is about people and building relationships of trust. Set goals for your vision of success, but ensure those goals include a positive life balance. That’s what it takes to be a true leader.”

“From my perspective, I feel the most important trait in building business partnerships is trust,” said Schriner. “Without having the trust of those we work with, how are we to establish credibility and long-lasting partnerships? Trust is built on integrity and communication. By having clear lines of respectful communication, we can establish diversity of thought, discover better ways to build out solutions to problems, and deliver better results.”

Schriner started his career in loss prevention during college, joining Kmart in 1999 and later moving to L.S. Ayers and Kohl’s in store-level loss prevention roles. Upon graduation from Indiana University Bloomington he landed with Lowe’s in 2004, taking on positions with increasing responsibility before moving to the corporate offices in 2012 and assuming several different managerial roles in loss prevention and safety. In 2018, Mat became director of operations with the Loss Prevention Foundation, directly involved in advancing the talent in our industry by working with loss prevention and asset protection professionals to obtain their LPQ and LPC certifications.

“If you truly want to build a meaningful career, never stop improving yourself, your teams, and your business” he said. “Education is the most profound tool each of us has in enhancing our value to any organization. By continuing to develop yourself and your teams, you can ensure you are staying ahead of emerging challenges and risks, ultimately improving business outlook and future business opportunities.

This constant focus on development will also aid in how we contribute to the business and continue to deliver upon the goals and objectives of the enterprise. Personally speaking, I can honestly say that the LPC certification has helped shape my career and how I look at the business holistically.

By working together, we can help shape the retail industry and build a better, safer, customer-focused, and profitable retail of tomorrow.”

Fredric “Fritz” Hirchert, Vice President of Loss Prevention & Risk Management, Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM)

Mat Schriner, LPC, Director of Operations, Loss Prevention Foundation

Nominate Your Peers at Excellence@LPportal.com 28

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Feature 2 INTERVIEW

THE IMPORTANCE OF

MANAGING SHRINK AND WASTE AN INTERVIEW WITH MIKE LAMB OF THE KROGER CO.

By James Lee, LPC, Executive Editor

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THE IMPORTANCE OF MANAGING SHRINK AND WASTE EDITOR’S NOTE: Mike Lamb, LPC, is vice president of asset protection for The Kroger Co. Previously, he held senior loss prevention and safety roles with Walmart and The Home Depot. Lamb is very active in the industry sitting on the boards of advisors for the Loss Prevention Foundation, the Loss Prevention Research Council, the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention, and LP Magazine.

EDITOR: We’re here today in Cincinnati, Ohio, with Mike Lamb, vice president of asset protection with The Kroger Co. Thank you, Mike, for allowing us the privilege of conducting this interview with you today. Let’s start with you introducing our readers to Kroger.

LAMB: First of all, Jim, let me just say I greatly appreciate what the magazine has meant to our industry, and I’m humbled that you would want to conduct an interview with me.

I’ve known Kroger as a grocery retailer for quite a while because there’s a family connection. My brother in law recently retired after thirty-eight years with Kroger. I’ve been married to his sister for thirty-three years, so I’ve had some insights into Kroger as a business during that time. I always admired Kroger in the years that I’ve worked elsewhere, and when the opportunity came for me to discuss their needs and my interest, I was delighted about that.

Now some two-and-a-half-plus years later, I’m with this great company that’s steeped in heritage with a proud past history and even brighter future.

Kroger has been around for a long time originating when Barney Kroger opened the first store in 1883. In many ways, Kroger is a bit unique to other companies I’ve worked for. Their growth has not been wholly organic. There have been a lot of mergers and acquisitions of proud and historic brands, which I think add tremendous value to the company. At the same time, the work asset protection tries to accomplish, at times, can be more challenging to ensure that the very best at what we want to do, we’re able to do across all brands consistently.

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EDITOR: Could you name a few of those brands that our readership might be familiar with?

LAMB: I’ll tell you, even for myself, onboarding with Kroger, I didn’t have the realization of all the banners that Kroger flies. For example, Fred Meyer based in the Portland, Oregon, area with its beautiful store environment and large footprint. Ralphs and Food 4 Less in California. Then as you move east across the country, there is Smith’s, which is based in Salt Lake City, King Soopers in Denver, and so on.

There are some twenty or so banners that make up Kroger, all with a proud history and tremendous market loyalty in those communities throughout the US. It really makes for a unique experience from a retail point of view.

EDITOR: Prior to your move to Kroger, you were the senior AP leader at Walmart and at The Home Depot, two substantial positions with major retailers and now a third. What prompted your decision to make this move at this point in your career?

LAMB: The experiences and learnings that I gained at both The Home Dept and Walmart were invaluable. They are outstanding organizations. I was privileged to have the opportunity to lead the asset protection and safety efforts for Walmart prior to joining Kroger. Honestly, at the time I first began discussions with Kroger, I certainly wasn’t looking for another opportunity. I was proud to be a part of the Walmart group, and proud of the accomplishments that we had made at Walmart, realizing of course there’s room for improvement. But there were a number of reasons that drove the decision to join Kroger.

One, there are things outside of just professional interests that matter to me.

I have a lot of family that is situated in this area. I grew up in a small town just outside of Knoxville, which is roughly a three-hour drive from Cincinnati.

My wife’s family is also situated in the greater East Tennessee area. So it wasn’t just a professional decision.

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On the professional side, I was intrigued by the opportunity at Kroger.

I was particularly impressed by the level of focus that Kroger intended to put on the importance of managing shrink and waste. I was humbled by the fact that they felt I would be a good fit to help lead that initiative. Despite it not being an easy decision, I’ve never looked back.

It’s been a really good one for me. The people, support, and the leadership at Kroger are outstanding. I felt that way coming in as a first impression, and they have validated that for me since I’ve been here.

EDITOR: If I’m not mistaken, I think you’re another one of those senior executives who started his career as a store detective. Is that right?

LAMB: That’s correct. It was a long, long time ago when I was attending the University of Tennessee. I had a close family member that was working for a department store called Miller’s at the time in the Knoxville area. He was selling suits in the men’s department. He asked me if I needed a part-time job to pick up some pocket change while I was going to school. So in January 1979, I joined Miller’s slapping price stickers on cosmetics. It wasn’t long after I had started that a gentleman approached me and asked if I had an interest in working in security. I didn’t know what security was at that point. But my first question was, will it pay me a little bit more per hour? The answer was yes, so that prompted my decision to enter the arena of loss prevention. That was in September of 1979. While I came into this industry quite by accident, I immediately had a passion for it and have been at it ever since.

EDITOR: I know you are a student of leadership and pay attention to outstanding C-level executives. Would you talk a little bit about some of the terrific leadership traits you’ve observed over your career?

LAMB: I do think as human beings we are somewhat creatures of habit. And for me, leadership essentials are qualities

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THE IMPORTANCE OF MANAGING SHRINK AND WASTE that I admire and try to emulate. I can tell you during my time at Home Depot, the CEO during that time was laser focused on the importance of supporting stores. He understood that the success of the business was through the customer experience, principally through great service, in-stock, product knowledge, and speed of checkout. He had a personal touch in the way he led the organization. One of the most significant qualities I thought he possessed was humility, but at the same time a fierce determination and confidence to ensure the company was successful, not for himself, but for all the associates that worked in the organization and for the shareholders of the company.

He would do something that I greatly admired—he would take the time to hand write personal notes to staff members for jobs well done. To know that a CEO for the world’s largest home improvement retailer would dedicate time to pen notes to individuals, I thought was just a remarkable personal touch. A lot of those same great qualities he possessed I also see with Kroger and our CEO, Rodney McMullen. It’s the realization that all things are possible through people who respect and admire the qualities of the leader.

EDITOR: Have you had personal mentors who have helped you with your career?

LAMB: I don’t know that I’ve ever had any mentor on a formal basis, but I have individuals that I call upon for guidance or as a sounding board, both inside and outside of retailing.

The one thing I’ve come to realize, in this profession and perhaps any other, is you should never stop learning. It’s okay, I feel, to maintain a little bit of a “healthy paranoia.” What you did yesterday matters, what you do today is important, but what happens tomorrow is also critically important. As the old cliché goes, there’s not a finish line, and for me it’s really about constantly trying to build on the success you’ve had and learning from the mistakes you’ve made.

Believe me, you will make mistakes, but recognize you won’t make any if you don’t try.

In many ways, Kroger is a bit unique to other companies I’ve worked for. Their growth has not been wholly organic. There have been a lot of mergers and acquisitions of proud and historic brands, which I think add tremendous value to the company.

EDITOR: What are some of the things that you’ve truly enjoyed about this business and other things that you felt less excited about?

LAMB: As you reach the twilight of your career, you don’t reflect on the big meetings, the PowerPoint presentations, the business plans, or the best year or worst year you’ve had. What you remember and never forget are the people you’ve had the opportunity to work with. One of the most significant levels of satisfaction for me in this industry is just the fabulous people that I’ve met and the relationships I’ve created and sustained. When I go to industry events and see the colleagues and friends I’ve worked with now for twenty, thirty, or some cases forty years, it’s like the consummate family business reunion.

The other thing I like about this profession is it’s not easy. When you look at great organizations like Home Depot, Walmart, and Kroger and consider the forensics of problem-solving and delivering LP MAGAZINE

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the expected shrink result, it takes a lot of effort. I’m not minimizing that we’re here to sell product. But when the buyer puts product on a shelf, you almost know instantly, is it a win or is it not a win?

Shrink oftentimes has, as they say, the longer tail. In the initiatives we deploy, you have to have a degree of patience, to know the balance when to stay with something and when you walk away.

I enjoy the complexity of what we do to manage shrink. I think most all AP leaders like that pressure, don’t you think? The buck stops with you as an asset protection leader on delivering that expected shrink result. Either you take pride in that and it compels you to go out and make a difference, or you walk away. I’ve always enjoyed that challenge.

EDITOR: Talk a little bit about some of the changes you’ve made to enhance the Kroger organization in your battle of shrinkage in the almost three years you’ve been here.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF MANAGING SHRINK AND WASTE and engagement focus that has been applied to the ever-important element of managing shrink.

As the old cliché goes, there’s not a finish line, and for me it’s really about constantly trying to build on the success you’ve had and learning from the mistakes you’ve made. Believe me, you will make mistakes, but recognize you won’t make any if you don’t try.

LAMB: Kroger was not lost in its ability to manage shrink. One of the biggest opportunities was looking at all the things we were doing to determine what was working very well and what was not working so well, to take more of a standardized approach. If, for example, something was successful in three or four of our divisions or banners, it would likely be successful across the board.

One of my initial steps when I took the role, which a lot of people have done I’m sure, was to do a SWOT analysis, where you look at the strengths of the AP department, the weaknesses or gaps, the opportunities that may not have been exploited, and the present and future threats that need to be addressed.

With our team, we built a plan to address those things—continue to leverage the strengths, course correct on weaknesses, identify the opportunities, and lastly minimize the threats. As we went through that analysis and built our game plan, we’ve not wavered much. If you dust off what that game plan looked

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like in 2017, and what we said we had to accomplish, some of which were short-term wins and other were longer term wins, I’m very proud of the fact that we’ve not deviated. Certainly, you need to measure and evaluate the plan when it’s necessary, but sticking to a strategy matters, particularly in the area of managing shrink.

I will also say this—I have had unwavering senior leadership support since onboarding at Kroger. Candidly, one of the reasons I decided to join the organization was their belief early on that I could help guide the organization from a shrink management point of view. Now, with that comes pressure because if you’re writing your own plan and your plan is supported, that plan needs to deliver. And I’m very proud of the fact that as of this writing, we have now achieved ten consecutive quarters of year-over-year shrink improvement.

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EDITOR: One of the things I suspect has attributed to that success has been the changes you made in the organization reporting structure. Talk about that.

LAMB: Going back to the SWOT analysis, I felt like we had a tremendous opportunity at Kroger to partner more effectively with our merchants. When you think about a grocery environment, about ordering and production and the things that allow us to have fresh product for the customer, there’s a delicate balance between having too little or having too much. So one of the first things that I did was put in a director of asset protection and merchandising. We were fortunate to identify a very talented gentleman who assumed that role for us. He has carved solid, effective, collaborative relationships with our merchants in a way that matters. And it’s really not just about reducing shrink as much as it is selling more and losing less.

Secondly, as a bit of a data junkie, we added significant resources to our data analytics and reporting team. It’s important in my mind to look at what’s happened previously to suggest what might happen or needs to happen in the future. That group has been very instrumental in developing reports that drive behaviors. A report that doesn’t influence or drive a different behavior is just another piece of paper. That team has been focused on making sure that the value we add to the business through the work they do, not only complements shrink reduction, but it complements the overall business.

An example is, we built a fresh days’ supply report, which is important to the customer because in a grocery environment, obviously, you want the freshest product possible. To the extent you’re over producing, or under producing, either it’s not fresh or you don’t have it for the customer. It’s not only allowed us to better manage shrink in our fresh departments; it’s also

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THE IMPORTANCE OF MANAGING SHRINK AND WASTE been healthy for the business from a customer standpoint.

Those were two areas structurally that we built out, and then we put on a couple of director roles to help support the field. These roles aren’t designed to dictate activity in the field as much as they are to support the divisions through the tactics and the strategy that we’ve established. So that has driven better consistency and standardization in a way that really helped the business in reducing shrink.

EDITOR: You’ve already pointed out a most impressive statistic of having ten straight quarters of shrink reduction. How have the division presidents reacted to those results?

LAMB: I would say very favorably! Our division presidents and their leadership teams in those divisions, truly care about every aspect of the business, including shrink. They have embraced what we’re doing, and I think the results reflect that.

EDITOR: You’ve enhanced or put in new types of technology and specific programs to support your goals. Are there some that you’re most proud of?

LAMB: I forever have been fascinated and interested in how one can leverage technology in a way that simplifies the work within the stores and takes shrink out of the environment. We have continually pressed the envelope to exploit technology in every way possible. It is often test, learn, fail, then succeed, because not everything you try is going to work. But if you don’t try, you’ll never know. So we’ve looked at low-tech initiatives such as public-view monitoring to other higher-tech initiatives that allow for the identification of mis-scans at both staffed and self-checkout registers. We continually assess how to better protect the exit doors because you can protect the item, you can protect the aisle, but in most cases, it’s going out the front door.

Therefore, we’ve really put a lot of focus on the front end as a key initiative.

One of the things I’m proud of is how we have standardized our way of working. We created something called “every store every time.” Across every Kroger location or banner, the asset protection teams have continuity and standardization with the tasks that we ask them to complete on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It allows us to take key measures of what’s working to continue to ensure we’re doing those things. We implemented a program called “Quick Wins,” which addresses basics of the business, particularly related to malicious loss. That can be anything from ensuring that our non-staffed register lanes were cordoned off to validating that we meet Kroger standards in our back rooms. It’s hard to point to one or two things that have materially moved the direction for shrink; it’s the culmination of a lot of things.

EDITOR: There have been companies in your background that were far more theft focused. I sense at Kroger,

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THE IMPORTANCE OF MANAGING SHRINK AND WASTE you’re more involved in the operational issues and how you can reduce shrink through non-theft areas. Is that accurate?

LAMB: That’s absolutely true. It’s been a learning curve for me, Jim, in many respects. I started my career in apparel, then migrated to home improvement, then mass merchandising, and now more pure, traditional grocery retailing.

What I’ve learned is, you really have to be good at both process improvement and operational rigor as well as mitigating theft risks. With issues like Proposition 47 in California and the number of states that have increased felony thresholds, theft remains a major issue. Effectiveness and efficiency in both areas are very critical in my opinion as you pursue best-in-class shrink results.

EDITOR: Let’s talk a little bit about the big picture of retail loss prevention and your involvement in different aspects of our industry. First, talk about your involvement with the Loss Prevention Foundation and what that’s meant to you and the industry.

LAMB: I couldn’t be happier to be a board member for the Loss Prevention Foundation, because at its core, it is really about accelerating the value and growing the industry of loss prevention and asset protection. The key learnings that I’ve gained from participating and being a foundation member are instrumental to how we shape our strategy and future direction at Kroger. I’m a firm believer in the LPC certification. Recently at Kroger,

One of the things I’m proud of is how we have standardized our way of working. We created something called “every store every time.”

Across every Kroger location or banner, the asset protection teams have continuity and standardization with the tasks that we ask them to complete on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It allows us to take key measures of what’s working to continue to ensure we’re doing those things.

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we have engaged a number of our asset protection team members to continue to extend and broaden their knowledge through that certification process.

I’m very proud to be a part of the foundation and very appreciative for what it’s been able to do for the industry.

EDITOR: You also have a leadership role with the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) and a long relationship with them. Talk about that.

LAMB: It’s been a wonderful relationship working with Read Hayes and the LPRC team that goes back years. It allows us the opportunity to take a scientific, behavioral approach to a lot of the things we try to bring to market that help us mitigate against loss. I can tell you years ago back in my Home Depot days, we were toying with a notion of public-view monitoring. I think at the time, it was really in its infancy. The work we did with the LPRC’s offender research, where you ask the bad guy why he or she steals, and what they see, get, and fear are tremendous enablers as you market for capital dollars for your company. I’m a big fan of the LPRC. They are grounded with tons of credibility, and I’m very pleased to be a part of the organization.

EDITOR: Recently, you’ve jumped in with both feet in your support of the National Association of Shoplifting Prevention (NASP), specifically, as it pertains to their new coalition initiative.

What is the coalition, and why have you been so eager to support it?

LAMB: Well, there are a number of reasons. First, I would begin by saying that as we think about the problem of shoplifting, you have to segment it a bit. The organized retail crime groups and the habitual shoplifters require a different treatment and approach. But as I step back after forty-two years and look at low-level, first-time offenders against the backdrop of a judicial system that is overcrowded, overtaxed, and the many states increasing the felony thresholds, what we’re doing today is

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simply not working. The coalition that now is comprised of a number of major retailers that represent, in my opinion, the collective best thinking on a go-forward strategy.

I recently made a decision to join the advisory committee for NASP, simply because I believe that statistics don’t lie. If you look at the statistics from NASP, and you look at recidivism, which is a problem for retailing, we know the judicial system is not necessarily the answer for first-time offenders. I have a very passionate view of the importance of getting this coalition up on its feet, educating those around us that there’s got to be a better solution that looks at education versus criminal prosecution.

I would also add that NASP is rich with data. They’ve been around for a long, long time. I think they serve as a great underpinning for a program that would allow us to take a different approach. And lastly, I would say—and I’m guilty of this—we put a lot of money in capital expenditures for the purpose of theft detection or prevention. We’ve done very little with education. I think that’s where the transition needs to begin.

EDITOR: The two national associations, both the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and the National Retail Federation (NRF), have been blessed to have your leadership and your participation.

The value that comes from both of those is something that is passed on to young people.

Why have you been so encouraging of those two national associations?

LAMB: First of all, they’re great associations. Secondly, there’s nothing quite like the synergy of having a large group of asset protection and loss prevention professionals assembled together.

The best ideas I have found are seldom my own, and they come from others. And I think one of the significant benefits of both RILA and the NRF is it’s all about advancing our industry through the sharing of ideas. That’s why I’m always willing to present when asked. But let me tell you, I get more from it than I contribute.

EDITOR: The solution providers and vendors are very critical to the success of an asset protection program. You’ve had relationships with many of them. What’s the value of a strong vendor relationship to your overall program?

LAMB: There’s one word that underpins that and its “partnership.”

I think the best-in-class solution providers balance listening, perhaps more so than telling. The solution provider that sits down in a forum where I can convey the challenges I’m facing that may or may not be unique, where we can have a collaborative partnership, benefits both the retailer and the solution provider. I’ve never taken a view that it shouldn’t be a mutually value-added relationship for both parties.

We live in an era in retailing where the volume and velocity of change is almost unimaginable. I think the best-in-class solution providers are not looking at what they did yesterday, but what they are going to have to do tomorrow. Those are the ones that I pay more attention to. We can hang on to some of the things continued on page 36 LP MAGAZINE

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THE IMPORTANCE OF MANAGING SHRINK AND WASTE continued from page 35

that have been around for a while, but most importantly, we have to embrace what’s new. Back to your question about RILA and NRF, the solution providers that attend those sessions, I believe, offer a wonderful opportunity to further explore and understand how they can help our business.

EDITOR: You mentioned how our industry has changed. How has it changed for you personally, and what do you spend your time thinking about today as opposed to what you might have done fifteen years ago?

LAMB: Great question, Jim. There’s a lot of talk about this in retailing today.

It’s “anything, anytime, anywhere” to quote our CEO. And those retailers that are creating avenues to deliver on that are the ones that are going to be most relevant in my opinion. I know our company is laser focused on delivering on that commitment.

EDITOR: You speak about your wife and son from time to time.

Often, we might see Donna arm in arm with you at an event. But we don’t see much of your son.

Speak to what he’s been able to accomplish.

LAMB: He’s an outstanding young man.

He currently resides in New York and works in investment banking. He has a drive and a motivation about him that is only exceeded by his genuine, sincere personality. He’s a young man that people like to be around. He is our pride and joy, and we’re most proud of him for the person he is, the personality that he possesses, and the many things that we probably don’t have time in this interview to go over. He’s our only child, and it has been fun to watch his career development.

EDITOR: You talked about being from Tennessee. We know that you spent a lot of time in Georgia, Arkansas, and now Ohio.

But you now have a second home in Florida. What are the plans for the future?

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I recently made a decision to join the advisory committee for NASP, simply because I believe that statistics don’t lie. If you look at the statistics from NASP, and you look at recidivism, which is a problem for retailing, we know the judicial system is not necessarily the answer for first-time offenders.

LAMB: My wife and I have been property

owners in Florida for quite a few years, dating back to my time with Home Depot when I was based in Tampa. A few years back, we bought a home that ultimately, whenever this asset protection career comes to an end, will likely be where we wind up. Cincinnati has been a great city.

We’ve really enjoyed our time here. It’s been a fabulous place for us to live. But ultimately, the home in Florida is where we’ll be living. I’ve always had a passion for warmer weather. There was an old friend of mine who I used to work with in Florida who told me to “live where you don’t need a coat.” I like that comment and aspire to be in that situation.

EDITOR: Ultimately, when retirement comes, I don’t sense, and certainly the industry hopes, that you will not fade away, but stay involved in the MARCH–APRIL 2020

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thought-leadership of this business. Have you given much thought about how you might stay involved?

LAMB: It would probably be hard not to stay involved to some extent simply because of the passion that I have for this industry and the sense of fulfillment and satisfaction I’ve gained over the years being a part of it. But that’s one of those things you don’t get to until you get to it. I’m having an absolutely fabulous time working for an outstanding company with an outstanding supervisor here at Kroger.

When that day comes, we’ll see. It would be hard to walk away completely. There are too many relationships that I admire so much, and too much of an interest in the business to completely step away. But we’ll see, Jim, one day at a time, right?

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Which LP Certification Is Right for You? DID YOU KNOW When we surveyed more than 50 asset protection leaders,100 percent revealed that LPF certification: Met or exceeded their expectations Validates their understanding of core competencies of the profession Enhances job performance by strengthening their understanding of best practices Establishes a global loss prevention perspective and business approach Provides a benchmark for industry knowledge Improves individual self-pride and sense of accomplishment.

The choices you make today will impact your future.

SM

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Designed to provide benchmark loss prevention education for: Loss prevention managers College students Store managers Operations support roles Anyone interested in a career in loss prevention COURSE CONTENT Course 1: The Retail Environment Course 2: Becoming a Successful Business Person Course 3: Loss Prevention Basics and Tools

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Designed to provide advanced loss prevention education for experienced LP professionals with three years’ experience or more: Loss prevention management Loss prevention executives COURSE CONTENT Course 1: Leadership Principles Course 2: Business Principles Course 3: Loss Prevention Operations Course 4: Safety and Risk Management Course 5: Crisis Management Course 6: Supply Chain Security

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CERTIFICATION Interview with Byron Smith, CFI, LPC

A True Benefit Why did you decide to pursue your LPC certification?

An industry peer who was involved in the program development shared the certification program with me, and after completing my own research, it was an easy decision on my next step.

Was the coursework what you expected?

It was very detailed and easy to follow. Progressing through the sections felt natural and satisfying when completing the section test questions. I liked the structure of the six subject-matter sections and the overall flow.

The level of detail in each section was both helpful and educational.

The coursework did take dedicated time, and my employer at the time felt strongly about continuing education. I was able to place time on my calendar and work on the weekends to accomplish the coursework. The exam was easy to schedule, and I took the allotted time to complete the exam.

How has certification changed your expectations of loss prevention career?

In the last thirty years, the industry has changed dramatically. The Loss Prevention Foundation with its thirteen-year history has been a source for retail loss prevention and asset protection professionals to enhance their marketable skills. I am particularly encouraged by the way the LPF has focused on and attracted former military and new college graduates into the LPQ/LPC programs.

Looking at your own personal background and knowledge, what information in the course helped you the most?

The areas of crisis management and supply chain security were the two areas that intrigued me the most and helped me expand my overall knowledge and understanding.

What benefits have you seen from taking the course?

The LPC designation has been a true benefit for me personally and professionally. The recognition by others as an industry standard continues to elevate the profession. Being an LPC has given me the opportunity to encourage others either already in the industry or those considering the field of loss prevention to become certified.

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Would you recommend certification to others?

Yes, I have recommended the program to many industry members, and at my current organization, I manage our continuing education program for the asset protection department. We have had several dozen team members that have completed the LPQ and LPC course work.

Newly Certified

Following are individuals who recently earned their certifications.

Recent LPC Recipients

If you could offer one key takeaway to someone currently considering getting certified, what would it be?

Invest the time in the program. If you are new to the industry, the LPQ will broaden your views and understanding of the profession. The progression to the LPC will be natural as you take on more responsibility and consider advancing your career.

This certification program is a leader in educating those in the industry and for those considering the field of loss prevention and asset protection. There are other programs, but nothing compares to the Loss Prevention Foundation’s (LPF) certificate program as it elevates the industry and profession globally.

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Smith is a veteran asset protection professional with over twenty-nine years working for various retailers, including Eckerd Drugs, Office Depot, Circuit City, and now 7-Eleven, in regional and corporate loss prevention, distribution and logistics, risk management and business continuity, safety, and corporate security.

He is a board member for the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC), serves on the steering committee for the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) Asset Protection Conference, and is the current chairman of the International Supply Chain Protection Organization (ISCPO). He holds a bachelor’s in political science from Sam Houston State University.

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inc.

Professional development is key to a fulfilling career.

Visit www.LossPreventionFoundation.org to find out more.

SM

Educating an industry, one leader at a time. |

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MANAGEMENT

By Maurizio P. Scrofani, CCSP, LPC

Servant Leadership in Loss Prevention

Scrofani is an LPM contributing writer and well-known supply chain asset protection professional with over twenty-five years of experience in retail and manufacturing, including leadership roles with Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Delonghi, and Toys“R”Us. He was cofounder and president of CargoNet, a supply chain theft prevention and recovery network solution of Verisk Analytics. He can be reached at maurizio@mpsconsultants.com..

W

hat exactly does a great leader do? Are they the standard-bearer, setting direction and providing instruction to others? Or should they facilitate progress, helping the rest of the team achieve their shared goals? The traditional view of a leader is perhaps with the former. But that view is changing. A leader can be the catalyst for improvement in the group—actually acting as someone who provides a service for the rest of the team.

That has led to the phrase “servant leadership.”

Servant leadership isn’t a brand-new concept thought up by management gurus or Harvard Business School. It actually goes back to the days of Confucius. Modern-day servant leadership has roots in the principle that leaders are compelled to make the welfare of their team their top priority. The team then performs to a high level as they are satisfied, comfortable, and feel valued. Someone who has all of these three elements in their life can perform to their optimum level.

Sometimes perceived as a military type of operation, loss prevention may seem that it needs a traditional leader, telling people when to jump and even how high. But loss prevention is surprisingly well suited to servant leadership.

Detecting dysfunctional behavior and dealing with the outcomes can take an emotional toll on team members.

If the outcome is internal shrinkage, then the emotional toll is even greater. With this in mind, being understood as a human being by a servant leader over being seen as an employee helps to improve mood, contentment, and performance.

The servant leader holds “putting others first” as a critical behavior. In loss prevention, this is incredibly empowering as people in the organization look to develop their own effective solutions as part of a collaborative effort rather than waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

Becoming more effective as an organization saves time and money. If a servant leader can inspire others to develop, then they will save both.

What Are the Behaviors of a Servant Leader?

A servant leader displays certain behaviors that provide the perfect environment for a high-performing team to grow: Problem-solving Emotional intelligence (huge in today’s challenging social media world) Putting others first while still always delivering on the mission

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Catalyzing the growth and success of others Leading by example with ethical behaviors Empowering others to make decisions (not micromanaging) Creating value for everyone (inclusive of C-Suite) As you start to look at these behaviors, you can see the kind of impact a servant leader would have on an organization, specifically the loss prevention department.

As we look for examples of servant leaders in life, it is obvious that religious leaders and political figures come to the forefront. Martin Luther King Jr. is a prime example of someone who gave his time to create value for the people who followed him.

Not-for-profit organizations have the same kind of relationship with their leaders in general. But nothing is stopping a for-profit organization from utilizing the power of servant leadership. Loss prevention teams can adopt this style of leadership to boost their productivity and ensure they become effective.

Managing a Reverse Pyramid

In terms of loss prevention, the solutions lie in having a team operating as closely as possible to optimal.

Engaged people have been a common issue in the loss prevention industry. Those who are under stress are often demotivated, but the servant leader displays a level of emotional intelligence that inspires others to bring their A game day after day. The LP function then becomes a powerful driving force throughout the company.

They say that culture eats strategy for breakfast. The culture of empowering people to take responsibility, make improvements, and invest in self-development is infectious.

Some people doubt the legitimacy of this approach, referred to as the “reverse pyramid.” After all, who has ever seen a pyramid stand on its head? But once you see the vast benefits of a servant leader in the loss prevention industry, you will have no doubt in its potential. The best ideas come from the bottom up, from those doing the good work.

If you are lucky enough to meet a servant leader who manages a reverse pyramid, hold onto that unicorn as they are few and far between. And if they are not already in loss prevention, recruit them.

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FEATURE

RUNNING SCARED EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF FEAR OF CRIME ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

By Kenna Carlsen

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t’s no secret that brick-and-mortar stores are feeling the pressure from online shopping—seemingly every week another retailer is announcing major store closures. Consumers’ turn to e-commerce can be attributed to any number of factors: it’s quick, convenient, and has no long lines to wait in or crowds of people to sift through.

It’s also possible that, in some cases, customers simply feel safer avoiding stores altogether. Fear of crime is just one piece of the puzzle, but one that shouldn’t be ignored.

Mark Warr, criminologist and Professor Emeritus at The University of Texas at Austin, said it best: “Consumers’ fear of retail crime can lead to a wide range of avoidance behaviors, including reduced shopping activity, limited nighttime shopping, shortened shopping visits, switching to competitors, or turning to alternative shopping formats, including the internet or catalogs.”

After all, in a world where anything can be purchased online (with free two-day shipping nonetheless), customers need compelling reasons to continue shopping in-store. If they feel unsafe, even if those feelings are unreasonable or unwarranted, they will be less likely to return.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however. By focusing on some key environmental changes, retailers can help reduce the fear of crime felt by their customers and keep them coming back for more.

It’s important, however, to consider the interaction between risk and severity. Crimes are not equally likely—considerable variation exists across different types of victimizations.

Offenses that are both serious and likely to occur tend to evoke the most fear. For example, while homicide is obviously devastating, people generally have a low risk of being murdered.

Burglaries, on the other hand, are both severe and more likely to occur.

As a result, people tend to report being more afraid of being burglarized than murdered.

characteristics, demographics, and backgrounds all play a vital role in shaping fear of crime. Researchers have identified two key factors influencing fear: perceived risk and perceived consequences.

Perceived risk is amongst the strongest predictors of fear. The idea is simple—people who think that they are at a high risk of crime are more likely to be afraid of it. As we will explore later, however, perceived risk and actual risk don’t always align in a way that we would expect.

The perceived consequences of crime also influence fear of crime. Serious offenses such as sexual assault, robbery, or homicide obviously have devastating consequences—the more serious these consequences, the more fearful people tend to be.

How Do People React to Fear?

Fear of crime is often accompanied by a variety of physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences.

Perceived risk is amongst the strongest predictors of fear.

The idea is simple—people who think that they are at a high risk of crime are more likely to be afraid of it. As we will explore later, however, perceived risk and actual risk don’t always align in a way that we would expect.

What Is Fear of Crime?

First, it’s important that we understand what fear of crime is and what it is not. While its definition has long been debated in the criminological literature, it is generally considered to be “an emotional response to the real or perceived threat of crime.”

It would be logical to assume that people in high-crime areas are also those most afraid of crime victimization. However, this isn’t always the case. Individual

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Fear of Crime Consequences Physical

Psychological

■ Increased/lapsed heart rate

■ Feelings of anger or outrage

■ Rapid or labored breathing - nervousness

■ Anxiety

■ Sweating

■ Higher dissatisfaction

■ Involuntary bowel/ bladder releases ■ Inability to move or speak

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■ Distrust or alienation of others ■ Insecurity ■ Depression or trauma

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RUNNING SCARED Reactions are often comparable to those commonly associated with the “fight or flight” mechanism as shown in the “Fear of Crime Consequences” table.

In general, retailers are likely to feel the strongest impact of fear through behavioral responses. These responses are commonly divided into two measurement constructs.

Protective behaviors are those in which the individual takes some form or action for their own protection.

Examples include: Carrying a weapon Carrying mace Taking self-defense classes Installing security devices such as cameras, door bolts, additional lighting, and so forth It’s easy to see how these protective behaviors can have a significant impact on retailers, especially when customers react by carrying weapons.

Keeping everything else constant, where there are more guns, there are more accidental deaths. Furthermore, amid mass shootings across the United States and increasing public pressure, many retailers have begun requesting that customers stop openly carrying weapons. For some, this may make their shopping experience feel more comfortable. For others, leaving their weapons may make them feel vulnerable to attack.

Avoidance behaviors tend to be more passive. Here, individuals tend to react to their fear by restricting what they do or where they go, such as: Avoiding certain stores, chains, or locations Shortening their shopping trips Going out only with others or during certain times Turning to online shopping to avoid shopping in-store Perception of crime is one of the most important factors that leads customers away from shopping centers. Research has shown that women, who tend to be the primary household shoppers, are more likely to engage in these avoidance-type behaviors than men. This can lead to

Women consistently report being more afraid of crime than men, despite men being significantly more likely to be victimized. A number of theories have been developed by scholars in an attempt to explain this “gender-fear paradox.” any number of negative consequences for retailers. Customers may choose to avoid certain stores or locations, they may shorten their shopping trips, or they may turn to online-based shopping to avoid physical stores altogether.

Understanding and Diagnosing Fear

The Loss Prevention Research Council operates through a framework referred to as “Precision LP,” defined as using evidence-based actions while accounting for specific differences between environments. Different stores and locations naturally face different issues. The use of a problem-oriented approach helps to identify and target those specific issues, which ultimately streamlines the solution process, saving retailers precious time and money.

Community surveys, focus groups, and customer intercepts are useful tools for understanding consumer fear of crime concerns. Data should be collected before an intervention to better understand specific customer concerns. After some action is taken, data should be collected a second time to assess how well that solution is working. Communication is key as these concerns are addressed. People LP MAGAZINE

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will not become less fearful until they know that their concerns are being adequately addressed, and maintaining an open dialogue can help build trust over time.

Drawing on problem-oriented policing, the SARA. method can also be a useful tool for systematically diagnosing and assessing fear of crime concerns: Scanning (step 1). Determine whether fear of crime is a problem, and identify which populations are most impacted.

Analysis (step 2). Understand the causes of fear.

Response (step 3). Responses to fear of crime should be tailored and targeted toward those specific fear of crime issues.

Assessment (step 4). Once responses are implemented, determine if they are working to reduce fear.

Who Is Most Afraid of Crime?

It is important that retailers also understand which populations are most afraid of crime in order to effectively tailor the responses to it.

Fear is subjective. Some feel more vulnerable to attack than others, risk factors are seen differently, and reactions to fear will vary.

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Gender-Fear Paradox Explanations Women’s Heightened Fear of Crime

Men’s Lack of Fear of Crime

Vulnerability

Women feel physically vulnerable to victimization because of their size or strength.

Socialization

Men either underreport or neutralize their fear in response to societal expectations regarding masculinity.

Socialization

Women are taught that they are more vulnerable to attack, that they need to avoid certain situations/people, or that they need to rely on men for protection.

Altruism

Men do not feel as much personal fear of crime but do feel fearful for the safety of others (especially women).

Shadow of Sexual Assault

Women’s fear stems from an overarching fear of sexual assault; women see sexual assault as co- occurring with other offenses, such as theft or robbery.

Situational Fear

Men feel fear in more narrow and specific contexts, such as in a strange city or an unfamiliar location.

However, research also reveals broad patterns that can help us better understand those populations most afraid of becoming the victim of a criminal offense.

Gender and Fear First, gender is considered to be the strongest predictor of fear of crime. Women consistently report being more afraid of crime than men, despite men being significantly more likely to be victimized. A number of theories have been developed by scholars in an attempt to explain this “gender-fear paradox.”

Age and Fear The relationship between age and fear is not as well developed; however, as research measures continue to improve, the trends become clearer. Early fear of crime

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research originally found that the elderly are more afraid of crime.

Scholars pointed to vulnerability and health concerns as the primary explanations. Specifically, it was argued that older individuals may feel more vulnerable, powerless to ward off potential attacks, or unable to recover due to declining health.

As measures have improved over the years, evidence is revealing that younger individuals may actually be more afraid, although fear of crime in the youth is much less understood.

Scholars theorize that vulnerability again plays a key role, where younger people, especially adolescents, may feel smaller and weaker and therefore unable to defend themselves against an offender. Parental attachment and supervision have also been linked to fear, where those who are closely supervised (such as the case of MARCH–APRIL 2020

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“helicopter parenting”) tend to feel more afraid of crime.

Race and Fear Historically, minorities tend to be more afraid of crime than white people. Scholars most often attribute these differences to social vulnerability.

African Americans are more likely to be the victims of crime, offenders of crime, and to live in areas where crime occurs. Their true risk of crime tends to be higher; therefore, it makes sense that they tend to be more fearful.

Language and cultural barriers may also contribute to the fear felt by immigrant populations.

Gender, age, race, and a multitude of other microlevel characteristics interact to affect fear of crime levels.

However, understanding these patterns and trends is vital to implementing meaningful and effective change.

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What Makes Some Places Feel Unsafe?

If given another option, people tend to avoid areas where they think there is more crime. It has been theorized that certain incivilities tend to serve as a cue to danger. Social incivilities include the real or perceived presence of homelessness, prostitution, drug users, gangs, or other vagrant populations. Physical incivilities are characteristics that signal disorder in that area, such as bars on windows, graffiti, trash or litter, or abandoned or rundown buildings.

In a 2008 study entitled Fear of Crime on Shopping Intentions: An Examination, researchers sought to qualitatively and quantitatively explore the impact of fear of crime on consumer shopping behaviors.

In the qualitative examination, nine individuals from a neighboring community were recruited and asked to participate on a focus group designed to identify the

factors impacting their fear of crime in a nearby shopping district.

The participants identified the following causes: Perceived crime Selling or use of drugs Solicitation Vagrancy Street vendors Vacant building Improper street lighting Lack of cleanliness Presence of loitering Next, 143 community residents were asked to complete a survey to determine the quantitative strength of which factors impact fear of crime.

Three were significantly linked to fear in statistical analysis: cleanliness, sufficient lighting, and vagrancy.

Human psychology also plays a large role in the types of environments that make individuals feel safe. Prospect-refuge theory, for example, posits that people tend to feel safer where they have

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the capacity to observe (prospect) without being seen (refuge).

However, places with higher prospect and refuge are also areas where criminals can hide and wait for potential victims In a study testing this model on a college campus, results indicated that fear of crime was highest in areas were there is more refuge for potential offenders and lower prospect for escape. Thus, factors such as overgrown or excessive landscaping, visual barriers (such as walls or shrubs), poor lighting, or confining areas may increase overall fear.

Reducing Crime through Environmental Design

As explored throughout this article, the factors that affect fear of crime are varied. Many of these factors cannot be easily changed, such as individual characteristics, neighborhood crime rates, or

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Feature 3 RUNNING SCARED store location. However, many simple solutions can help reduce consumer fear.

Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is a widely used approach for reducing crime by manipulating the physical environment. Many of the factors influencing fear of crime can be addressed through the use of CPTED. The parking lot is a retailer’s first line of defense and oftentimes where consumers make the decision about whether to shop at that location.

Perhaps the easiest way to make it feel more welcoming is by installing sufficient lighting and ensuring that customers have a clear line of sight to the store. Overgrown trees or bushes should be trimmed, and physical barriers blocking their view (such as high walls or excessive signage on window-fronts) should be removed.

Cleanliness has also been linked with feelings of fear, where areas marked by more physical disorder tend to inspire more fear of crime. Trash bins should be provided to reduce litter in and around the store, and employees should regularly maintain store upkeep.

Graffiti-resistant paint can also be used on stores where vandalism is a problem.

Changes can also be made internally to make customers feel safer in-store.

Maintaining adequate staffing at all hours may reduce fear of crime, as evidence shows that having others in proximity may alleviate fear.

People tend to feel safer in familiar environments; therefore, maintaining consistent branding and store layouts across different locations may also help customers feel more at ease.

Reducing Vagrancy

Controlling vagrancy in or around the store is comparatively more challenging. Zero-tolerance policies, along with corresponding signage, should be in place against loitering, panhandling, keeping personal items in carts, and so forth. For those stores that maintain ownership of the parking lot, security can also be used as a way

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Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is a widely used approach for reducing crime by manipulating the physical environment. to both deter crime and increase the surveillance over legitimate customers.

Precision LP means recognizing factors that draw undesirable populations into or around the store. For example, automatic water shutoffs may be useful in situations where homeless individuals are using them to bathe. Charging stations should be monitored or removed if offenders are using them to charge their phones while shoplifting in the store. Recognizing factors drawing vagrancy to the store location is key to implementing meaningful change.

Environmental changes can also help manage vagrancy. For example, hostile architecture has been used in cities to discourage loitering. Examples include designing benches with open slats, arm rests, or individual bucket seats to discourage lounging or sleeping. Installation of motion-activated lighting can also serve as a deterrent for loitering. Removing potential shelter, such as awnings, overhangs, or tree canopies can also discourage improper use.

The Bottom Line

Fear of crime is complicated, but realistic options are available to retailers to make their customers feel safer shopping in-store. Using the Precision LP framework, we MARCH–APRIL 2020

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recommend that local teams talk with shoppers and conduct visual audits to better understand those store characteristics impacting the fear of crime. Using this information, solutions should always be tailored to the causes. Precision LP not only increases the chances of making meaningful change, but also can save retailers the time and money of implementing unrelated solutions.

Fear of crime may have many customers running scared. However, there are evidence-based solutions to make them feel more secure. Most people are still shopping in-store, and it’s up to us to ensure that they have a safe, comfortable, and worthwhile experience to keep them coming back.

KENNA CARLSEN received her master’s degree in criminology, law and society from the University of Florida in 2019. She currently serves as research team leader with the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) where she supervises a team of researchers as they plan, coordinate, and execute studies addressing retail’s most pressing issues.

Carlsen also facilitates four working groups at the LPRC—Violent Crime, Organized Retail Crime, Retail Fraud, and the upcoming Workplace Performance Working Group. She can be reached at kenna@lpresearch.org.

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Evidence Based EVIDENCE-BASED LP

Addressing Both Red and Green Customers in Zones 4 and 5 I t’s really getting tight, and there’s just not a lot of room for error with intense pressure from rapidly evolving selling formats, evaporating consequence for offenders, increasing victimization, and always needing to safeguard people and places to survive. InVue’s Jeff Grant referred to this as asset protection and loss prevention’s challenge against the Upside Down (from the TV show Stranger Things) and what we call the “red shopper,” those that harm and otherwise disrupt our businesses by stealing, defrauding, and violently victimizing us and our people.

Retail LP professionals have long defied normal competitive norms by working together at conferences, by phone, during organized retail crime (ORC) investigations, and in the field, and this continues. But our call is for us to use science and seek even more collective action to suppress theft, fraud, and violence. Peter Chie, Bloomingdale’s vice president of asset protection, made this topic the focus at the Loss Prevention Research Council’s (LPRC) 2020 Kick-off Summit in New York in January.

Chie argued that asset protection needs to start out in zone 5 (beyond our parking lots), escalate in zone 4 (the parking lot itself), and continue inward. But going beyond the interior space means shared resources and action are critical. Good, consistent protective action is a little complicated and expensive. At least two things need to happen: law enforcement agencies and their communities should develop partnerships, and retailers and retail property managers should work together with researchers to dial in more effective protection and should share needed zone 5 through zone 4 investments.

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© 2020 Loss Prevention Research Council

a comprehensive strategy, spell this approach out simply, tease out prioritized actions, and start to roll. Walmart’s Gary Smith leads the LPRC INNOVATE Advisory Panel and is helping us articulate that very plan. We cannot and will not miss this opportunity to work collectively in an evidence-informed way to better safeguard people and other assets. And that means new studies have just commenced.

Our team trusts that law enforcement and LP practitioners need a well-thought-out and tested platform to make a difference, which means tying together tactical actions enhanced by evolving technologies.

The good news is we keep combining these tools with the attract-and-delight customer tools. Immediate needs include: 1. Targeting and AP Treatment Response-Mapping Technologies. We need to identify our precise aiming points and measure how our efforts change dynamics to improve outcomes. We need to see what’s going on and graphically share that with our partners. Geographic information systems, remote sensing, and data-mapping applications allow practitioners to portray event, ORC, and other intelligence data, and use crime analysis tools like risk-terrain modeling to understand what’s driving problems at some places but not others and to more

Both red and green shoppers (those we want to work and shop with us) form plans and make decisions throughout their activity spaces or in the community at large. And our mission is to better understand and affect their perceptions and behavior to enhance sales and user experience. The question is how and with what to do all this well and cost effectively. Peter Chie and his colleagues from another sixty-seven retail chains, seventy-nine solution companies, and many more believe we must form MARCH–APRIL 2020

Dr. Hayes is director of the Loss Prevention Research Council and coordinator of the Loss Prevention Research Team at the University of Florida. He can be reached at 321-303-6193 or via email at rhayes@lpresearch.org.

At least two things need to happen: law enforcement agencies and their communities should develop partnerships, and retailers and retail property managers should work together with researchers to dial in more effective protection and should share needed zone 5 through zone 4 investments.

Tactics and Tech

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by Read Hayes, PhD, CPP

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precisely schedule audits and AP store visits. In-store, near-store, across-market mapping technology identifies meaningful clusters and opportunities.

2. Smartphone Apps for Connected Stores/Teams. In-store employees must be better connected with critical situations, hazard alerts, inventory outs and location, customer service issues, and each other. Apps help us look up information, order needed items, assess service levels, and so much more.

3. Web Reporting and Social Media Sharing. Most people have access to computers to shop, submit anonymous tips to local police departments, and share their perceptions. The same goes for social media apps.

Retailers are rapidly moving to leverage all types of social connections to learn more about both green and red shopper sentiments and intentions to better serve and protect. But much more could be done to detect, define, deter, and document potential and actual crime events and problems using similar digital customer analytics.

4. Shared and Individual Countermeasures. As previously mentioned, group and solo crime and loss control measures need to be refined to maximize intended effects while minimizing negative side effects. That’s where research and development (R&D) comes in handy. Shared community sensors, more powerful edge and cloud computing, and better action tools are needed.

I keep stressing that how we do things is much more important than what we do. A hidden or tiny camera might help document but is unlikely to deter. Proper LP treatment dosing is vital to make an impact. Security personnel can be positioned, adorned, equipped, and tasked in a lot of ways, as can deterrent technology.

Thinking out how an intervention actually works to affect behavior and then trialing options does take a little effort, but the results can be more than worth it.

Proper LP treatment dosing is vital to make an impact.

Security personnel can be positioned, adorned, equipped, and tasked in a lot of ways, as can deterrent technology. Thinking out how an intervention actually works to affect behavior and then trialing options does take a little effort, but the results can be more than worth it. anti-robbery signage, and other robbery deterrents. Some of the results include: Among offenders interviewed, 85 percent reported targeting specific retail types, and 30 percent specifically said wireless stores.

Time-delay safes have some deterrent effect on offenders with 70 percent of those we interviewed reporting they would be less likely to rob a known TDS store.

Time-delay safes would cause some offenders to alter their behavior, including taking less valuable merchandise not protected by the safes.

Other deterrents mentioned by these robbery offenders included staffing, parking lot guards/patrol cars, and more technology, which are all generating a lot more R&D questions for our teams.

Bear in mind, this research (and all research) should be considered exploratory rather than confirmatory since it adds to the photograph rather than completing it.

Research in Action

LPRC Update

Research at the University of Florida and the LPRC takes all forms. Our team supports many LP teams as they, in turn, empower their enterprises. These members need insights and improvement testing to support corporate goals. We talk to criminal offenders, shoppers, and employees; we map data; we statistically analyze large datasets; and we conduct randomized field experiments.

Multimethod research brings issues alive and allows us to better understand and address dynamics.

Reducing Robberies with Technology, one of three dozen studies we recently completed, looked at how we might shape anti-robbery countermeasures, particularly time-delay safes (TDS). We looked at before- and after-TDS-deployment datasets, talked to offenders, and reviewed the anti-robbery research literature to paint a more complete picture. In our in-depth qualitative interviewing with self-admitted commercial robbers (N=20), we explored the characteristics of a robber, the effectiveness of time-delay safes, the effectiveness of LP MAGAZINE

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LPRC continues to grow with almost seventy member retailers representing almost 120,000 stores worldwide.

We’re also excited to announce continuing membership growth, including more than seventy-eight solutions partners and several significant tech companies reaching out to help us grow artificial intelligence and deep learning, computer vision, power computing, and several more connected community and store initiatives.

Our LPRC INNOVATE labs have expanded to include the Ideation Lab, Simulation Lab, Activation Lab, and Engagement Lab. These labs are being linked to actual stores and can be connected to corporate offices and labs to augment retailer R&D. We look forward to working with over 400 asset protection and loss prevention executives on the beautiful University of Florida campus at LPRC IMPACT during the first week in October 2020. Please set your travel to participate in this truly unique experience. |

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CYBER SECURITY

Another Phish in the Sea M

By Garett Seivold Seivold is senior writer for LP Magazine. A trained journalist, he has spent the majority of his career writing about security, risk management, supply chain, and loss prevention topics. He can be reached at GarettS@LPportal.com.

ore than 850 Wawa convenience stores and gas pumps had malware in payment processors that potentially compromised customers’ credit and debit card numbers, expiration dates, and cardholder names, the company announced. Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens wrote that Wawa’s security team discovered the malware on December 10, 2019, and contained it two days later—but that the data breach began in March 2019. It was only a matter of days before at least six lawsuits—seeking class-action status—were filed.

It’s been a bad year for data breaches, according to a new report by Risk Based Security. “Whether it’s a phishing campaign that ultimately provides malicious actors with a toehold into systems or misconfigured databases and services that leave millions of sensitive records freely available on the Internet, it seems to be human nature coupled with weak controls that contributed heavily to the number and severity of breaches we’ve seen this year,” wrote Inga Goddijn, executive vice president at Risk Based Security.

The announcement by Pennsylvania-based Wawa did not identify how hackers infected their payment systems. Experts say it’s typical for attackers to access computer systems with “phishing” emails that dupe employees into downloading malware. “Hackers don’t attack computer code. Hackers attack user gullibility,” Michael Levy, former chief of computer crimes at the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Phishing attacks are on the rise, according to State of the Phish, a new report by Wombat Security Technologies. “The threat of phishing attacks is real.” the report states. “Not only are more organizations reporting being the victim of phishing attacks, but [also] the number they are experiencing has gone up. Attackers are becoming more sophisticated and varied in their approach, using multiple threat vectors.”

Phishing emails that mimic expected work emails are particularly effective, warned the firm. One simulated phishing email test, with a subject line of “Urgent Email Password Change,” garnered a 28 percent click rate. “Users were most likely to click on attachments and messages they expected to see in their work inboxes, like an HR document or a shipping confirmation,” according to the company’s report.

Among the types of emails employees should be made particularly aware of include: Technical emails, in which malicious links are disguised in error reports and bounced email notifications. A “Delivery Status Notification Failure” is a popular example, according to the firm.

Corporate emails scams that are designed to look like official corporate communications, such as benefit enrollment messages,

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invoices, and communications about confidential human resources documents.

Increased specificity in phishing attacks has been noted in recent annual reports by Verizon Enterprise Solutions.

“Attackers are getting more specific and focused,” according to Mike Denning, vice president of global security. “In the past, attackers used a tactic often known as ‘spray-and-pray’ where they would attack very broadly with the hope of hitting something. The specifics of the targeting are now getting much more refined.” Hackers’ increasingly target high-level individuals with access to privileged information, such as a company’s CFO, head of HR, or board members. Between 70 and 90 percent of malware samples are now unique to a specific organization, notes the company’s Data Breach Investigations Report.

When an attack is highly targeted and customized to a particular organization, it becomes harder to identify and can be difficult to recognize as something suspicious, note analysts in Deloitte & Touche’s Cyber Risk Services division.

Their advice is to assume that some of these attacks are going to be successful, plan accordingly, and be prepared to react quickly and effectively to minimize the business impact of successful hacks.

In addition to social engineering awareness training of employees, security teams at large organizations can also take proactive steps to assess vulnerability and address deficiencies, according to Nathan Drier, a security consultant and ethical hacker at Trustwave.

Conduct basic tests of security defenses.

Pretend to be from a trusted third-party vendor and send an email asking end users to open an attached file or visit a particular “malicious” website.

Send out an email telling employees that IT has upgraded them to a newer version of their external webmail service. (People who log in thus provide hackers with usernames and passwords.)

Drop “infected” USB thumb drives on the ground where employees park. Track how many are used.

Check for the ability to access location dumpsters and take samples for analysis. Vendor information, passwords, usernames, proprietary lists, network information, and other valuable data can sometimes end up there.

Call your organization and express an interest in a particular job and see if you can get asked to send in a resume. Send it in and see if recipients open the attached “malware” file.

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FEATURE

THE EVOLUTION OF INTERVIEWING MOVING FROM THIRD-DEGREE INTERROGATIONS TO NONCONFRONTATIONAL INTERVIEWS

By Tony Paixão, CFI, CFE

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THE EVOLUTION OF INTERVIEWING

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merican political writer Norman Cousins said, “History is a vast early warning system.” History is certainly fascinating. It has a way of enlightening our understanding of the now while at the same time giving us motivation and hope for what can transpire tomorrow. Having a historical perspective in and of itself won’t allow for positive change to manifest.

It takes knowledge along with a collective understanding and agreement that things need to change in order to make it happen. Then comes the hard part—change.

I’m a firm believer that no matter what your professional pursuit, it’s imperative for you and those with whom you interact to have a working knowledge of why you do what you do and the specific way you do it.

Understanding the evolution of your profession will allow you to operate from a position of contextual intellect rather than one of blind action.

I’m going to take you on an abridged journey through the (recent) history of interview and interrogation techniques used in the United States.

A multitude of books and articles are floating around the Internet (and if you dare to venture, in actual libraries) that will provide you with a considerably more extensive, unabridged, historical overview of interview and interrogation techniques. My goal isn’t to bring you back to the beginning; it’s to shine a light on how our current methodologies and practices have evolved into what we use today and, if I’m lucky, spark your desire to use the past as a springboard for improving what we do tomorrow.

The Dawn of a New Era

Close your eyes and picture this: It’s 1930. You’ve just been arrested for a crime, and two extremely intimidating detectives are walking you into a cold, dark, soundproof interrogation room. What comes next more closely resembles something you might find on a medieval museum tour rather than what we deem acceptable practices in 2020.

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The Wickersham Commission was a group formed by President Herbert Hoover that was tasked with examining the US criminal justice system under prohibition.

The report revealed the systemic, nationwide use of “third-degree” interrogation tactics by the police, including physical and psychological torture. Leveraging these methods was likely done with the “best of intentions”—the goal being to get a confession.

These tactics were exposed on the national platform in 1931 with the release of the Wickersham Commission report. The Wickersham Commission was a group formed by President Herbert Hoover that was tasked with examining the US criminal justice system under prohibition. The report revealed the systemic, nationwide use of “third-degree” interrogation tactics by the police, including physical and psychological torture. Leveraging these methods was likely done with the “best of intentions”—the goal being to get a confession.

The report’s exposure of these practices didn’t, on its face, enact MARCH–APRIL 2020

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immediate change. What it did do, however, was open the eyes of the public and judicial system to the reality that change was imminent. Physical coercion would no longer be accepted in the American criminal justice system.

Or so we thought.

In the years that followed, a cascade of case law, set off with Brown v.

Mississippi (1936), outlawed the use of third-degree tactics, ensuring the rights of all citizens would be safeguarded from unethical interrogation practices.

(Again, so we thought.) It didn’t happen overnight, but the landscape of what the courts deemed to be acceptable interrogation techniques evolved by leaps and bounds in the following decades. Now that physical means were no longer in play, the strategy evolved to leveraging emotional connections to acquire information from subjects.

Removing physical coercion was a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t the total solution to the problem. Cases continued to surface where confessions were deemed involuntary due to the use of overt threats, psychological coercion, and a litany of other questionable tactics. As a result, in 1964, the US Supreme Court ruled in Escobedo v.

Illinois that all criminal defendants had the right to an attorney during a police interrogation. Four years later, in 1968, the courts ruled in favor of the defendants in Miranda v. Arizona, extending additional safeguards to the subjects of criminal inquiries.

So Defendants Have Rights. Now What?

With the 1970s and 1980s came a wave of commonly accepted accusatorial interrogation practices. Specifically, in 1982, Wicklander-Zulawski came on the scene with a new and unconventional approach to the accusatorial interrogation. When Doug Wicklander and Dave Zulawski created the “introductory statement,” they differentiated themselves and the brand from other training providers by offering a nonconfrontational

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THE EVOLUTION OF INTERVIEWING technique to both the private and public sectors.

While both the confrontational and nonconfrontational techniques were void of physical coercion, there was still possible risk if they were misused to obtain a confession from the accused no matter the cost. (Enter: false confessions.)

Though they’ve been around since the dawn of conversations, through the 1980s and early 1990s, false confessions were beginning to find a place in the international spotlight.

England and Wales specifically had experienced a handful of high-visibility cases that were overturned as a result.

In response, the UK joined forces to develop an effective method for interrogating subjects without the presence of an accusation. Thus, the birth of the investigative interview model known as the PEACE method (planning and preparation, engage and explain, account, closure, evaluate) came to be. This method is still used today throughout the UK, along with a handful of other countries around the globe.

The PEACE method isn’t the only type of “investigative interview” out there, however. Many methodologies in existence today find their roots in leveraging fact-finding strategies, rather than accusatorial techniques.

One of the primary investigative interview methods used in the US (and around the globe) is known as the cognitive interview (CI). Introduced in the mid-1980s by Ronald Fisher and R. Edward Geiselman, this method intended to blend fact-finding interview strategies with a cognitive psychological perspective for enhancing the efficacy of memory retrieval. In layman’s terms—it is a method of communicating that helps the subject remember things they otherwise couldn’t have on their own.

Since the 1990s, training in the US has leveraged the traditional aforementioned accusatorial methods in conjunction with a handful of more progressive investigative interviewing techniques. When it comes to choosing the most appropriate accusatorial

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the use of DNA testing to corroborate evidence in the criminal justice system shined a long-overdue light on the severity of the false confession epidemic right here in the US. This realization only further reinforced the need to shift away from confession-driven, confrontational interrogation practices to those rooted in truth-seeking, nonconfrontational, fact-finding techniques.

And then September 11, 2001, happened. method, the two primary options available are the confrontational approach and the nonconfrontational approach. As you may have guessed, WZ tends to be partial toward nonconfrontational.

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the use of DNA testing to corroborate evidence in the criminal justice system shined a long-overdue light on the severity of the false confession epidemic right here in the US. This realization only further LP MAGAZINE

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reinforced the need to shift away from confession-driven, confrontational interrogation practices to those rooted in truth-seeking, nonconfrontational, fact-finding techniques. And then September 11, 2001, happened.

Immediately following the attacks on 9/11, President George W. Bush approved the PATRIOT Act. This opened the door to the eventual implementation of what came to be known as “enhanced interrogation techniques.” These “techniques” utilized both physical and psychological torture in the hopes of extracting actionable intelligence from suspected terrorists.

So what was the big deal, outside of the obvious moral and ethical issues?

They didn’t (entirely) work.

Fast forward to 2009 when, based on the findings from an exhaustive government-led investigation, President Obama created the task force that eventually led to the establishment of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, otherwise known as the HIG. The role of the HIG is twofold. First, they conduct ethical interrogations to collect actionable intelligence on high-value targets. Second, they research current interrogation methodologies and develop evidence-based, effective approaches to be shared with the public.

This Brings Us to Today

The interview and interrogation landscape of 2020 America is one of contention, reflection, and most importantly change. The interrogator’s focus is shifting away from being confession-oriented and moving toward where it should have been from day one: finding the truth. We’re accomplishing this by providing a suite of nonconfrontational interview methodologies to choose from, dependent on the nature of the interaction. Being tied to one singular accusatory method can lead the interviewer to possibly leverage a technique that may not be the most appropriate option for the case at hand. Outfitting interviewers with as many tools as possible to get to the truth is the goal.

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THE EVOLUTION OF INTERVIEWING It’s not as easy as merely “providing options.” This task requires forging partnerships between academics, training institutions, law enforcement agencies, the private sector, and beyond.

In doing so, we improve upon our current methodologies while creating new techniques aimed at reducing the occurrence of false confessions and increasing the likelihood of obtaining truthful ones.

What the future holds for the interview and interrogation landscape is up to all of us. As practitioners in this industry, we must continuously push the status quo and ask the question, “How can we do better?”

Improvement and intentional evolution come from being educated on what brought us to where we are today while having the foresight to anticipate what may be coming around the corner tomorrow. In the last few years, with the upsurge in digital communication and the viral spread of content, the general public has been exposed to the tragic reality of what can happen should an individual be subjected to interrogation techniques that don’t appropriately meet the situation at hand.

I like to believe that we’re all in this for the same reason—to do the right thing. This is only possible by offering training that meets current demands, is rooted in evidence-based best practices, and is delivered in a manner that stresses the necessary safeguards that need to be implemented before ever engaging in the interaction in the first place.

In the not-so-distant future, we will see targeted efforts to increase awareness from both a “top-down” and a “bottom-up” approach.

It’s imperative to educate the decision-makers on the importance of implementing a robust interview training curriculum to outfit their teams with the resources they need to complete their jobs. We will also see increased attention targeting those individuals who are new to the industry, both at the college and academy levels. Getting grassroots exposure to best practices and

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As the increase in visibility and awareness continues to grow within interview/interrogation training, we can expect to see a proportionate influx of new providers to hit the scene, each offering the next “best and brightest” tools to get the job done.

As with anything, the impetus will lie squarely on the consumer to ensure they are educated, aware, and understand what programs best meet the needs of their respective organizations. developing an understanding of how to effectively communicate will pay dividends for the coming generations.

The training options available to the consumer will also continue to evolve.

Virtual education will not only provide new and innovative ways to train current consumers, but also act as a venue for introducing training to those who may never have been previously reached. Education is the first step.

Implementation follows suit.

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effective in obtaining the truth. We will continue to research and implement a suite of interview methodologies to provide a proper perspective for the dynamic range of scenarios our consumer base finds themselves in.

From trauma interviewing, to tactical field interviews, to fact-finding and accusatorial—the variety of methods both researched and taught to the public will continue to grow and evolve. The surge toward all interviews and interrogations being recorded, both in the public and private sectors, will continue to move forward, eventually becoming legally mandated (at least for the public sector).

As the increase in visibility and awareness continues to grow within interview/interrogation training, we can expect to see a proportionate influx of new providers to hit the scene, each offering the next “best and brightest” tools to get the job done. As with anything, the impetus will lie squarely on the consumer to ensure they are educated, aware, and understand what programs best meet the needs of their respective organizations.

As for WZ, we will continue to lead the way as thought leaders. We will challenge ourselves to reflect on historical standards, question current practices, and innovate to provide the next wave of professionals with the most effective training available to get the job done. Stagnation breeds complacency. We will keep our eyes focused squarely on what lies ahead while being purposeful not to lose sight of the history that paved our way here.

TONY PAIXÃO, CFE, CFI, is a certified forensic interviewer, speaker and consultant for WicklanderZulawski & Associates.

(WZ) and has served in a variety of roles both in the public and private sectors. He is also an active member of the International Association of Interviewers (IAI). Paixão has conducted investigations and interrogations for hundreds of cases ranging from retail fraud to homicide to sexual assault and employee relations matters.

He can be reached at tpaixao@w-z.com.

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ASK THE EXPERT

Sponsored Content

Key Control Should Control Access and Costs

W

ith all the programs that loss prevention is responsible for, key systems tend to be a forgotten or overlooked asset that can cost retailers more than they expect or even realize. Despite obvious security concerns, the importance of maintaining a secure key system can also go ignored because of excessive costs and time investments that are often involved in regaining control of a system that tends to become out of control again shortly thereafter. But if the security of a key system is always kept in check, retailers could prevent some losses before opportunities arise, especially when it comes to internal theft. We asked one solution provider for her take on the importance of realizing and addressing these costs.

How can anyone be sure that keys are not duplicated without authorization?

Policies and procedures are a good place to start, but if a key holder wants to take a key to the local hardware store or locksmith to have it copied without permission, it’s likely that they’ll just do it. The best way to maintain control over how many keys are in circulation is through restricted keys. These keys cannot be duplicated because the key blanks that are needed to make a copy do not exist on the open market. I’ve had some people ask me if keys stamped with “DO NOT DUPLICATE” are the same as restricted keys. The answer is no. That stamp is simply a request, and it does not prohibit any willing locksmith, hardware store employee, or automated key copying kiosk from simply ignoring that request and copying a key anyway.

How are typical key-system costs affecting retail operating expenses?

Key-system costs are often listed as miscellaneous expenses or even part of facilities’ budgets, so they fly under the loss prevention radar. What is typically mixed into profit and loss statements as miscellaneous expenses can be easily overlooked. But this is actually hidden loss that’s not being accounted for and often dubbed an unavoidable cost of doing business. I would suggest that key system expenses get their own budget line for just a year, to be tracked. At the end of the year, retailers will be amazed at how much they are spending on key-system expenses that can be better managed and drastically reduced just by paying attention to them.

How often should retailers audit keys and key holders, and what is the best way to do that?

I recommend auditing keys and key holders at least quarterly. Moreover, audits should follow a frequency that is in line with the employee turnover rate. The best way to audit is through a blind process where each key holder gets an email or text message requiring that they respond with a list of the unique identifiers on each of the keys they are in control of. Assuming these unique identifiers are kept track of upon the issuance of each key, auditors can cross check that keys are in the possession of the appropriate key holders at any time.

How can key systems affect loss?

Most retailers have a policy around keys not being provided to unauthorized individuals as well as policies

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Doyle is the vice president of sales and marketing at InstaKey Security Systems where she is responsible for consulting and educating leadership in loss prevention on mechanical key system best practices. Her tenure at InstaKey has spanned nearly two decades, and during that time she has had the privilege and satisfaction of supporting the advancement of loss prevention one key system at a time. Doyle has been recognized by the International Association of Interviewers as a “remarkable woman” with regard to her commitment to the industry, and she’s received the LPM Magpie Award for Excellence in Partnerships.

against leaving keys in areas where they can be taken or borrowed. But there’s not typically enough accountability placed on key holders as most retailers have no method of keeping track of keys. Even if they do, key holders are rarely audited after keys are issued, if at all. Even more alarming, most retailers have key systems with keys that can be duplicated without authorization. So despite issuing keys to authorized personnel, retailers can never really know who has keys and what those keys might open. This leaves many opportunities for internal theft, which is a leading cause of shrink. Employee theft equates to more than $16 billion in retail loss annually.

Why is key control important outside of keeping access controlled?

Keeping control of a key system isn’t just about keeping store perimeters and areas inside of a store secure. It’s about controlling costs as well. A key system that isn’t well controlled will result in the need to rekey locks or swap out cores frequently, and this can be very expensive each time it is needed, especially if we’re talking about a master key system. The goal in controlling these costs should revolve around reducing the number of rekeys or core swaps needed.

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Interview with Cita Doyle, LPQ

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Store Violence: How Focus Groups Can Generate Solutions, Build Support, and Demonstrate Concern

By Garett Seivold

By Loss Prevention Media Staff

The magazine website, LossPreventionMedia.com, offers readers daily breaking news, industry surveys, videos, press releases, case studies, and original articles from LPM writers and loss prevention contributors. The website is updated daily with the latest information included in our daily e-newsletter. Sign up at LossPreventionMedia.com/subscribe for free to add your email address to receive our newsletter and other digital offerings.

This column highlights some of the content readers will find on the magazine website and newsletter.

A

national quick-service restaurant has become the subject of a class action that alleges it failed to take steps to prevent customer-facing staff from violence. The lawsuit is indicative of several workforce trends, including heightened attention on the risks faced by retail associates, increasing sensitivity to harassment faced by female employees, and a growing willingness of employees to vocalize complaints about a perceived lack of support from company management. In response, it’s clear that retail organizations benefit from prevention programs that have employee support and provide them the tools they think they need to stay safe.

Enter the focus group?

Using employee focus groups is a proven way to gain employee support for security programs and can help spur new solutions for companies that feel they’ve hit the wall on violence prevention.

Companies may repeatedly assess risk and implement all security measures that seem reasonable, but unless security planners meet with the workers the store is trying to protect, to discuss how you’re trying to protect them, it’s unlikely to have a full picture of possible—and impossible—protection measures.

Focus groups or stakeholder subcommittees can be an invaluable part of continuously improving a retailer’s security operation.

Security managers or consultants understand prevention best practices, but employees better understand nuances of their jobs and how security measures fit into them than anyone else can.

Using focus groups allows security teams to leverage employees’ and managers’ expertise to full effect, providing insight into whether store security strategies and policies are relevant, feasible, and comprehensive.

The focus group model has been used successfully in the health-care sector for years, including one study that concluded that focus groups are a good way to test assumptions about violence prevention and to encourage support and build consensus for measures to prevent violence in hospital emergency departments (“Using Action Research to Plan a Violence Prevention Program for Emergency Departments,” Journal of Emergency Nursing). The project yielded several valuable lessons for any retail operation that embarks on the use of focus groups to develop or implement strategies to make stores safer for employees.

1. Identify key areas of agreement between different groups of employees. Regarding measures needed to prevent or mitigate violence, a security team’s expertise will give rise to the strategies it believes is necessary. However, to prioritize security activities,

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2.

3.

4.

5.

it is helpful to also consider the strategies that managers, store associates, and even customers all agree are important. For example, a focus group with all three stakeholders might identify that consistency in following policies helps to reduce conflict and frustration among customers. Or all three groups might agree that store associates aren’t skilled in conflict resolution and aggression management techniques. If there is consensus among all stakeholders, security teams have a good indication of issues that demand high priority.

Understand the practicality of security procedures. Focus groups with different groups of participants may help to identify when a security procedure or policy may be undercut by other issues, such as staffing or available technology. When focus groups identify barriers to following security procedures in this way, it informs the security team that the store must either (a) develop alternative countermeasures or (b) make it possible for employees to follow existing security procedures.

Get support for security’s efforts. One complaint a focus group may raise is that policy does not allow security staff to proactively intervene in situations that seem to be turning dangerous. Another might be that reduction in security personnel increases risk and puts more security burden on store associates. It is typical for focus groups on workplace violence to result in support for additional resources to be allocated to security to adequately handle violent persons. A security department’s ability to garner the resources it needs for protection is greatly enhanced when line workers have a forum in which to express such sentiments to management.

Raise security as a priority. One common focus group outcome is to identify disconnects, such as between desires for a safe work environment and management priorities. For example, employees may voice the opinion that stores are more focused on maintaining a positive public image than addressing employee safety or say that reports of harassment by customers aren’t taken seriously. Providing a forum for raising such concerns can build grassroots support for making security a bigger priority, which can go a long way in forging a stronger security culture within an organization.

Identify specific measures workers think would be most helpful. Even though they are not security experts, store associates contend with difficult customers, aggressive shoplifters, continued on page 60

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continued from page 58

and potentially violent individuals every day, making them uniquely positioned to suggest useful security procedures or devices. For example, while security leaders may be wondering if investing in gunshot detection devices is a good idea, store personnel may recommend more basic practices that they think would make a difference but which may be overlooked, such as simpler methods to make security incident reports and for feedback on reported incidents. Of course, focus groups will invariably come up with suggestions that may not be practical to implement, but it is common for focus groups to generate ideas that are easier to enact and less costly.

the assembled vessel and the dockyard, but the ship is composed of uncountable parts made elsewhere, under the control of other organizations. If an attacker can’t easily compromise the final ship, they can focus up the chain, compromising components that become part of the ship. This analogy plays out for other applications too—any large system built out of components is only as strong as the security of the weakest component supplier.

Security Costs Money Therefore, it’s not enough to allow suppliers to compete on price or customer satisfaction. Security costs money. If we just procure everything from the lowest bidder, we will get the (lack of) security we’re paying for.

Security is like quality—you can’t just Securing the Supply Chain assume that a supplier delivering a good against Cyber Disruption outcome today will do so tomorrow. The

By Mike Lloyd, PhD, CTO, RedSeal supply chain has had to face the challenge of repeatable quality through standards and Supply chains have existed as long as audits. Organizations establish baselines we’ve had commerce. We have proof of extensive supply networks even 3,300 years of what it takes to make a quality, reliable product, then build their supply chains ago with the discovery of a late bronze age around those who can meet the standard.

Uluburun shipwreck.

The time has come for comparable efforts The rise of the Internet started a around cyber security and digital resilience revolution in these time-honored structures, across the supply chain. bringing rapid change through improved Unfortunately, while the approach to communication. This produced major quality is a good guide to what is needed, benefits—supply chains often became the details in cyber security are quite a bit shallower but wider, with increased different. When an organization specializes specialization and more participants in the in making a thing or providing a service, global exchange. Many of these changes they know all about that thing or service improved efficiency and agility and, for and what constitutes high or low quality. those skilled at adapting, presented new ways to outpace competitors. This all sounds In effect, each player in the supply chain is the expert when it comes to how to achieve great, but from a security perspective, it quality. Their customers may know more also created serious new headaches. Supply about what specs or quality levels they want chains have become complex and fragile, and prone to disruption from cyber attacks. to get, but the supplier knows the details of how to meet the bar, where to optimize, and Just like a physical chain, a supply what works. chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

On the other hand, security problems Today’s issues are about networks of interdependence. We extract major economic are abstract, complex, and often divorced benefits from modern supply chains because from the details of the core mission of the organization. Malware, and defense each organization can focus on its core mission or specialty. This narrowing of focus against malware, is not core competence for any typical organization (except the is very effective, allowing each organization few companies whose sole focus is making to be the best at whatever it does—making counter-measures). Common attacks that widgets, transporting them, or adding trick well-meaning people into doing value by assembling parts made by other specialists. But this same narrowing of focus foolish things online are based on human psychology and are not unique to any one on just one aspect of a system means the company. This is why it can be challenging system as a whole becomes fragile.

For example, the person responsible for a for specialized, optimized, efficient large ship can do an amazing job protecting companies occupying a niche in a supply

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chain to also achieve high levels of security— it’s simply not their core competence.

So how can this be addressed? The supply chain needs to be resilient against cyber attacks, without all the individual companies becoming world-class experts on the evolving cyber-threat landscape. Having every company hire an expert just isn’t practical—there aren’t enough such people, even if all the companies could afford to pay them. Instead, we need to focus on measurable standards and automation to validate compliance.

Publishing more security advice hasn’t worked out well for the last twenty years.

There are far too many guidebooks on what it takes to be secure. The core challenge is not that we have a problem figuring out how to make secure systems. The problem is that doing the basics, consistently and at scale, is extremely hard. This challenge is only amplified when spread across a modern, complex supply chain.

New Security Standards The Department of Homeland Security has established the Information and Communications Technology (ITC) Supply Chain Task Force for critical infrastructure, and the Department of Defense has published a draft of their Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. Both of these are attacking the problem head on, essentially requiring that any participant in these vital supply chains must demonstrate their ability to follow basic security practices.

This is a move in the right direction but won’t come cheap.

The real challenge for all supply chains is to figure out how each company in the chain can demonstrate they follow fundamental best practices without having to embed a cyber expert in each company. This is where computers and machine reasoning can help.

We can teach software what the rules are and how to tell a solid security infrastructure from one with as many holes as Swiss cheese. With this automated assessment, the whole supply chain can mitigate those holes and step up to a higher level of resilience against cyber attacks.

By now, we’ve learned a lot about how to make supply chains that are resilient to natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and fires. To achieve the same resilience in an increasingly online world requires moving beyond questionnaires and checklists to using technology to monitor all the technology our supply chains now depend on.

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PEOPLE ON THE MOVE Michelle Wagner was

Adam Estep was recently

Patrick Finnigan was

Chris Pierson is now

Joshua Vote, CFI was

Monique McGregor is now

Christian Hardman was

Jeremy Browning was promoted to district AP manager at Kroger.

promoted to regional AP manager SSC/DC at 99 Cents Only Stores.

promoted to manager of protection systems at Big Lots Stores.

promoted to regional manager of AP at Abercrombie & Fitch.

senior LP manager at Canada Goose (Canada).

Richard Sim is now a

now head of security UKIN at CEVA Logistics (United Kingdom).

regional PP manager at adidas (United Arab Emirates).

Craig Leyers has been

promoted to president, and Patrick Ritter is now corporate chief of staff at ADS Security.

Brent Peters is now a regional AP specialist at Advance Auto Parts.

Ali Hamoud was promoted

to regional LP manager at Al Tayer Group (Kuwait).

Jason Coren, CFI was

promoted to director, global transportation, workplace health and safety; Dustin Diamond is now program manager, national LP, Retail Stores; Dayna Howard, CPP was promoted to director, American operations security and LP; and Simon Rogers was promoted to security and risk program manager at Amazon.

Jim Connolly is now SVP

of business development at American Integrated Security Group (AISG).

John Clay is now a

fraud investigator at American Signature.

Denice Escate is now

a senior director, operations, and Kathleen Garner is now director of business development at Appriss Retail.

Simon Gray is now senior manager of LP at Arcadia Group Ltd. (United Kingdom).

Derek Rowley is now a

regional loss control manager at Asbury Automotive Group.

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promoted to director of LP analytics and fraud at Dunkin’ Brands.

promoted to supervisor of global AP, and Jeffery McGuire was promoted to senior investigator at eBay.

Ann-Marie McLeavy is

Robinson Araújo was

promoted to regional coordinator of LP, security, and inventory control at Etna Furniture and Decoration (Brazil).

Joe Gibney, LPC was

promoted to senior manager, AP operations, USA & Canada, and Tony Cucchiaro was promoted to senior analyst, AP investigations at Chico’s.

John Cornett is now a field market auditor at Family Dollar.

Ethan Highers was

Kazuya Ohara, LPC is

promoted to regional AP manager at CKE Restaurants.

now director of digital operations at Foot Locker.

Michael Stoop, CPP, CFI is

William Crist was

now LP investigations manager at Cosentino’s Food Stores.

promoted to AP regional representative at Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona.

Brendan “Ben” Dugan, CFI was promoted to

senior manager of ORC; Brandon Kiick was promoted to manager of AP for CVS/Caremark and Omnicare, Southwest territory; Jerilyn Riendeau, LPC was promoted to investigations advisor; Emmett Donovan is now a multidistrict AP leader; and Michael Fallon Jr. and Todd Budovsky are now district AP leaders at CVS Health.

Karen Osorio is now country security manager–USA at H&M. William Wilson, Jr. was

promoted to assistant VP of operations for LP and security at Half Price Books.

Rich Green is now an

Lidia Giner Rodrigo was

area LP manager at Harbor Freight Tools.

promoted to safety and risk prevention manager at Desigual (Spain).

Brian Morrison, CFI was promoted to senior director of AP operations, Michael Oren, CFI, CCEP

is now senior manager of corporate AP, and Steven Turner CFI is now a regional LP manager at Dollar General.

David Homolka was

promoted to SVP of human resources, retail store operations, and contact center operations at Duluth Trading Company.

MARCH–APRIL 2020

Debbie Wilson, CFI is now a regional LP and safety manager at Goodwill Industries of Middle Georgia and the CSRA.

Aaron Foote, MS, BS, TLO was promoted to

district AP manager at The Home Depot.

Yvonne Rouse was

named president at the International Organization of Black Security Executives (IOBSE).

Adam Ruiz was promoted to senior manager of investigations at JCPenney.

Phil Clement was

named CMO at Johnson Controls.

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a multi-unit LP manager at Kohl’s.

Débora Felix was

promoted to LP supervisor for store development at Lojas Americanas (Brazil).

Andrea Soucy was promoted to regional AP manager, and Caitlyn Niewiadomski was promoted to district AP manager at Lord & Taylor.

Rob Ruiz, CFI was

promoted to director of AP for US retail;

Monika Espinoza, CFI, LPQ was promoted to

regional operations manager; Daniel Cruz, CFI was promoted to regional director of AP; and Michael Veliz, CFI, Satesh Singh, and Timothy Wade are now regional AP managers at Louis Vuitton.

Art Barraza, LPC is now

director of LP at Lovesac.

Laura DuBard is now a

supply chain regional AP and safety manager, and Dale Graul was promoted to district AP manager at Lowe’s Companies.

Joe Kennedy is now a

regional director for AP process and strategy at Lowe’s Canada.

John Matas, CFE, CFCI was

promoted to corporate principal for fraud and profit protection; Wallace Parks, Chase Seitz, and Jamie Van Dusen were promoted to national principals of operations and AP; James Dougher, CFI was promoted to director of AP; Adam Wolfe was promoted to director, omnichannel selling innovation and strategy; Joey Seabolt and Donald Abba II were promoted to senior managers of operations and AP; Joe Kinsey was promoted to central director of investigations; Israel

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Herrera was promoted

to senior organized retail crime investigator; and Anthony Clark was promoted to senior investigator at Macy’s.

Derrek Hamilton and Jason Lee are now district AP

managers at Mariano’s.

Justin Wisener was

promoted to e-commerce fraud investigation supervisor, and Vianey Martin is now a regional LP and safety manager for distribution at Michaels.

James Eastwood

is now director of regional marketing at Milestone Systems.

Jason E. Bonafiglia is

now a regional LP manager at Mobilelink.

Joaquín Campaña Hernández is now national

manager of protection and loss control at Monaca (Venesuela).

Ashlea Lewis was

promoted to regional retail operations manager at Myer (Australia).

Silvia Torres is now a LP specialist at Nebraska Furniture Mart.

Cassandra Lenderman is

now director of global LP operations, Joe Haffey was promoted to LP operations, Wanda Jefferson, CFI was promoted to NA program innovation manager, and Karen Torres Zenil, LPC is now a district LP manager (Mexico) at Nike.

Andrew Marrero and Chris Kelly (Canada) were

promoted to regional LP managers, and

Joshua Bailly, Paul Silva, Robert Henle, Claudia Melano, LPQ, and Andrew Nelson were promoted

to district LP managers at Nordstrom.

Kiara Coates, Bert Brandi, Brittney Hultgren, and Sean Tireman are now

Joshua Frazier

was promoted to environmental health and safety manager at S.T. Wooten Corporation.

area LP managers at Nordstrom Rack.

Shannon Hunter is now VP of merchandising operations and sustainability at Office Depot.

Michelle Asselin-Jarry

Michael McNeely is

an area AP coordinator at Stein Mart.

was promoted to AP area manager at Staples Canada.

Cassandra Murrell is now

now a LP supervisor at Penske Logistics.

were promoted to district LP supervisors;

Michael Mulholland, CPCI

is now a district LP investigator; and Conrad Nelson, CFI, LPC is now an ORC investigator for the Marmaxx national task force at The TJX Companies.

Victor Gomes, CFE, LPC is now a field AP

manager at T-Mobile.

Jake Fazio is now senior corporate security tech, and Wendy C. Grover, MBA was promoted to AP operations manager of global supply chain and logistics at Target.

Jose Gomez is now

Danilo Rocha is now a LP specialist at RD (Brazil).

Thomas Floystrop is now

Udit Sharma is now an area LP manager at Reliance Industries (India).

Gary Fraser was promoted to VP of sales, and Eric Keller and Lucas Burroughs

Mark Crowley is now

Britney Sawyer-Ryan is now

director of client relations at Protos Security.

Paul Jones, LPC is now VP

of AP at Ralph Lauren.

Bobby Singh, Maria Del Toro, and Filiberto Arroyo were

promoted to regional AP leaders, Sydney Munsey, Matt Dowling, Michael Ibarra, CFI, and Mike Esterak, LPC are now senior leaders of investigations, and Carlos Perez is now a district AP manager at Rite Aid. Bill Davis was promoted

to regional LP director,

an LP and safety leader at Team Fox Domino’s.

group head of LP and risk management at Theo Paphitis Retail Group (United Kingdom).

TJX announced the following changes: Katie Carver, CFI, Chris Barkis, CFI, and Brad Buckley were promoted to assistant VP directors of LP; Travis Bolin was promoted to assistant VP director, investigations and safety; Christopher Breton, CFI

Burkely Bitaraf was

promoted to manager of investigations, and Tim Jevitz Jr. and Chris Austin, LPC are now area LP managers at Ross Stores.

Kenny Teixeira was

promoted to senior manager of AP, and Marcus Collins was promoted to AP operations manager at Save a Lot. Paul Frydman was

named COO, and David Guido was name VP of sales at Scorpion Security Products.

Gil Fennell, III and Ben Smith

were promoted to LP divisional investigators at Shoe Carnival.

was promoted to global investigations and safety specialist; Aaron Metoyer, John Pabst, and Tim Corse, LPC are now regional LP managers; Jeremy Henderson was promoted to manager of safety and investigations; Elizabeth Ocasio, Joseph Lappine, Carlo S. Sesta, Courtney Cunningham, Andrew Phipps, LPC, Scott Sullivan, CPP, PCI, Philip Johnson, Joshua Hamilton, MA, and Jada Curtis, LPC were promoted to managers of field investigations; April Waldram and Samantha Ashcraft were promoted to district LP managers; Maurice Montgomery and

an area LP manager at Ulta Beauty.

Steve Molina was promoted

to director of supply chain security at Under Armour.

are now national accounts managers at Vector Security Networks.

Kathlene Basile is now a regional LP manager at VF Corporation (Canada).

Jon Pollard, LPC was promoted to AP operations manager, John Danahy was promoted to senior manager, consumer fraud, George Savage was promoted to regional director of AP, and Lee Mendrala and Lindsay Peterson were promoted to market AP managers at Walmart.

Patrick Smith, CFI was

promoted to senior LP advisor at Wawa.

Hutch Hillebert is now a regional AP and safety manager at Whole Foods Market.

Alan Abreu is now a

regional LP manager supply chain at Williams-Sonoma.

Zach Fereday is now AP

at Wireless Vision.

Erik Robles, LPC, CORCI

To stay up-to-date on the latest career moves as they happen, sign up for LP Insider, the magazine’s daily e-newsletter, or visit the Professional Development page on the magazine’s website, LossPreventionMedia.com. Information for People on the Move is provided by the Loss Prevention Foundation, Loss Prevention Recruiters, Jennings Executive Recruiting, and readers like you. To inform us of a promotion or new hire, email us at peopleonthemove@LPportal.com.

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PARTING WORDS

What’s Golf Got to Do with It?

Jim Lee, LPC Executive Editor

P

suspect, and they had the goods. You improved your lie a little bit and scored with the apprehension. You win.

You may also be in an employee interrogation, and the subject is admitting to anything and everything.

You haven’t had a big case in a long time, and you say to yourself “jackpot.” You get an admission from the employee far in excess of what they could have stolen. You improved your lie a little and scored big. You win. Or did you? It is entirely up to you.

eople in the LP community who know me will not be the least bit surprised that I am writing a column that has something to do with golf. I have a reputation for playing a lot of golf. Let me say right up front that I do not play enough. The sport of golf has been a source of pleasure to me. I have had the opportunity to play golf at some really beautiful places and, more importantly, with some really beautiful people. For the most part, my golf has been with other LP professionals or those in the industry.

So what’s golf got to do with it? Here’s my take on it.

Golf is a game of personal integrity and self-improvement.

So much of what the LP professional faces in his or her career also revolves around personal integrity and a commitment to self-improvement.

Self-Improvement

Integrity Golf is the only game I know of where you call a penalty or foul on yourself. If you violate a rule, it is your responsibility to give yourself a penalty. No one blows a whistle or throws a flag or sends you to the penalty box.

It is also your responsibility to report all the facts when making an apprehension. Sometimes you just plain mess up, and you have a bad stop. Many times it is just you and the customer when you realize that they do not have the merchandise. That’s when you have a choice. You can call a foul on yourself, report the incident, and suffer the consequences. Or you don’t report the foul. You can hide the infraction and run the risk no one saw what happened and hope no one will ever complain. It is entirely up to you to abide by the rules or not.

Golf is a game where you are not allowed to move your ball, improve your lie, or advance it closer to the hole unless you take a stroke penalty. However, sometimes your ball ends up in some long grass, behind a tree, or in a divot. If no one is looking, you could move it a few inches and make it easier to hit. You can get a better score and maybe even win your match by just improving your lie a little.

You may also be able to get a better score on apprehensions if you do not follow all the steps of your apprehension standards. Maybe you lost sight of the suspect for a few moments, or you really did not see them drop the merchandise into the bag. But you stopped the

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Golf is a game, not unlike any other endeavor, where the more you practice, the better you can get. If you are really serious about getting better, you can take lessons. You can even invest in the newest technology, which may allow you to hit the ball farther and straighter. Practice, training, and technology can make you a better player. The same is true in your career in loss prevention.

You can get better at apprehensions, interviews, auditing, speaking with management, and writing reports the more you do it. Experience is the best teacher to improvement. Practicing your LP profession is taking action, being assertive, and preparing yourself for the various outcomes.

Want to get even better? Take some lessons. Read everything you can get your hands on. Take interviewing classes. Take a presentation class. Beg your supervisor to attend a convention. Then practice some more with your new training.

Lastly, you may not be the buyer of new technology or systems, but you are likely to be the user. If your company has a new CCTV application, audit program, or exception-reporting system, learn everything you can about it. Become an LP techie expert. You will get better with practice, lessons, and new technology.

You don’t have to take up golf to get better in your profession, but you should realize that loss prevention is a career that requires personal integrity and affords you the opportunity for self-improvement. It is entirely up to you.

In the meantime, call me, and we’ll go tee it up.

LOSSPREVENTIONMEDIA.COM

3/19/20 12:52 PM

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