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Speaker 1: Interesting picture is emerging around retail crime. Speaking Mark Mitchell,

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Speaker 1: overall reported incidents are plateauing, but there is a fourteen

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Speaker 1: percent rise and threatening or intimidating behavior, and eleven percent

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Speaker 1: jump and serious and violent behavior. It's more brazen and organized.

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Speaker 1: Apparently this data comes to us from a raw I

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Speaker 1: hope I'm saying that right, the retail crime reporting software. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the co founder and bosses Phil Thompson said, we'll find out,

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Speaker 1: Phil am I saying that right.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Mike. It's Aura Aura.

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Speaker 1: As in the ring. Sure, yeah, yeah, the Aura Ring.

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Speaker 1: Haven't you got Anura ring? Everyone's got Anura.

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Speaker 2: Ring with Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Now that what I've taken from your stats is

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Speaker 1: that this is the hard core. So, in other words,

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Speaker 1: all the opportunists, the people who just take their starlet

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Speaker 1: and smash it into a window, they've gone now because

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Speaker 1: the government's cracked down, what's left of the hard core?

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Speaker 1: Is that fair or not?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. We're seeing you repeat affenders are still

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Speaker 2: causing the majority of crime and retail stores, and those

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Speaker 2: people are four times more likely to be violent or

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Speaker 2: aggressive in carrying out those offenses as well. So it's

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Speaker 2: concerning because this is our frontline retail workers who are

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Speaker 2: being abused and threatened with weapons day and day out.

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Speaker 1: What's your breakdown in terms if you've got one in

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Speaker 1: terms of industry, geographic location, that you've got any patterns

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Speaker 1: there or not.

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Speaker 2: Unfortunately, it's right across every retail store. You know, this

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Speaker 2: is just what our retail workers have to deal with

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Speaker 2: every day. And now we're talking about our kids, families

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Speaker 2: and friends who are actually working in these stores. It's

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Speaker 2: not the faithless supermarket giants or retail conglomerates. It's actually

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Speaker 2: our frontline retail workers who are being threatened with weapons.

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Speaker 1: Are we in a sort of a stuck position now

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Speaker 1: because part of the answer was you know, you'd have

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Speaker 1: an alarm or you have a body cam or whatever

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Speaker 1: the case may be. Are these the sort of people

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Speaker 1: with their knives and stuff that don't really care about

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Speaker 1: that stuff?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, retails and placed to doing a great job at

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Speaker 2: really focusing on those repeat defenders and retail crime generally.

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Speaker 2: But you're right, it's people who are using this now

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Speaker 2: to tactic to get out of stores. And you know,

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Speaker 2: one of the most recent examples, you know, someone when

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Speaker 2: they stop said I'm just going to reach into my

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Speaker 2: bag and pull out a knife, you know, and you

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Speaker 2: don't want that when you're dealing with that as a

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Speaker 2: security god, a retail worker. But you know, this is

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Speaker 2: a trend we're seeing globally as well around violence.

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Speaker 1: I'm also assuming the police are rounding them up. And

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Speaker 1: the last time we had this major discussion post COVID

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Speaker 1: is of course, you know, the police resources were an issue,

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Speaker 1: and you know, rounding them up and doing something with

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Speaker 1: them judicially was an issue. Is Is it a small

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Speaker 1: number of people getting smaller or not?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look, there is the highlights I suppose is that

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Speaker 2: retailers are capturing this information and reporting it through to

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Speaker 2: the police and so there are is action being taken.

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Speaker 2: And to your point, it is, you know a small

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Speaker 2: number of people who are doing this, but unfortunately they're

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Speaker 2: doing this as their full time job, often going store

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Speaker 2: to store and like I said, using violence now as

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Speaker 2: a tactic.

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Speaker 1: Okay, good on your film. Nice to talk to you,

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Speaker 1: appreciate it. Phil Thompson, who's aura and co founder. I

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Speaker 1: would for more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live

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