Retail industry leaders from 47 corporations across the nation recently convened at the University of Florida to delve into strategies to combat the growing challenges from theft, fraud, and violence in retail spaces.
The event, Integrate Summit held Feb. 29 at UF's Reitz Union and hosted by the Loss Prevention Research Council, focused on the threat of an active shooter incident.
For more than 20 years, some of the country's largest retailers have looked to the LPRC and its affiliated UF researchers to help stop crime in their stores through research-based trial and testing. While their efforts initially focused on shoplifting and shrink losses, recent attention has shifted toward preventing violent crimes in retail spaces.
"LPRC is the vanguard of asset protection in the retail industry," said Dave Johnston, vice president of asset protection and retail operations for the National Retail Federation.
Each year, the LPRC board of advisors meet in February to finalize and approve the research priorities for the coming year, said Read Hayes, director and founder of the LPRC and a research scientist at UF's Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.
"We reviewed how various technology solutions integrate with mapping and shared intelligence to identify criminal acts, including detecting crime attempts before they become physical," Hayes said.
More than 150 emergency, law enforcement, technology, and retail corporate executives, including some who have firsthand experience in handling mass shooting situations, reviewed a pre-recorded, highly realistic armed assailant exercise staged just weeks earlier in a UF building.
"The exercise helps us determine things we can do to build better partnerships among our peers as well as with law enforcement and to look forward to how technology can help us prevent, mitigate, and even recover faster," Johnston said.
