Research Scientist
University of Florida & LPRC
Read Hayes, PhD is a Research Scientist/Criminologist at the University of Florida, and Director of the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC). The LPRC includes 100 major retail corporations, multiple law enforcement agencies, trade associations, and over 170 protective solution/tech partners working together year-round in the field, in VR, and in sim labs with scientists and practitioners to increase people and place safety by reducing theft, fraud, and violence. Dr. Hayes has authored 4 books and over 320 journal and trade articles.
Tuesday Jun 9
11:00am - 11:30am
Exhibitor Big Ideas Stage
The threat has changed. ORC crews plan like logistics companies, exploit location-specific vulnerabilities, and move across markets faster than traditional incident reporting can track them. The data LP teams have relied on — shrink reports, exception logs, national crime averages — doesn't see any of that coming.
Location intelligence does.
This session brings together leading researchers, data scientists, and practitioners to examine how geospatial analysis is transforming LP from a reactive discipline into a predictive one. Drawing on the LPRC's SaferPlaces initiative, CAP Index crime modeling, and real-world GIS deployments, panelists will explore how spatial data exposes the environmental factors driving store-level risk — factors that never appear in a shrink report but that ORC crews assess before every attack.
Attendees will leave with a framework for evaluating location-specific risk across their portfolio, an understanding of the data infrastructure required to operationalize that intelligence, and examples of retailers already using these tools to get ahead of the threat.
