In late 2023, the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) partnered with the Loss Prevention Foundation and LPM to distribute the ORC Across the States Survey to multi-store loss prevention managers and ORC investigators nationwide. Together, we worked to distribute the survey directly to the appropriate parties on our respective email lists. The LPRC also asked leaders throughout the industry to distribute the survey to members of their teams.
In the end, there were over 500 responses, but only 355 of these respondents completed more than the first section of the survey, which focused on the respondents’ professional information, such as their role, experience, and the states they served. Because of this, the analyses are based on the 355 responses for which useful data was available.
Nevertheless, one of the first questions we asked aimed at understanding whether the respondents’ roles were dedicated specifically to combatting organized retail crime; 58 percent of respondents did not hold an ORC role, while 147 did.
Next, we explored the respondents’ roles further and asked them to select the role that best describes their position. As Table 1 shows, the largest group of respondents were multi-store LP managers at various levels of their respective organizations, although a considerable number of anti-ORC professionals responded to the survey.
Within the “other” category, there were individuals who served in investigations analysis and support, leaders of ORC associations, and managers and investigators who, for various reasons, did not believe the categories sufficiently applied to their role. For example, some investigators indicated they were investigators over multiple sites, and some LP managers indicated their role included safety.
We also asked the respondents about the retail sector in which they worked. As Table 2 shows, we received an overwhelming response from home improvement and garden retailers. In fact, 43 percent of the respondents served in this sector. The next best- represented sectors were department stores (11 percent), followed by grocery and supermarkets (7.9 percent), and off-price retailers (7.3 percent). At least 23 retail sectors were represented, and 12 respondents reported belonging to “other” sectors that were not listed.
One of the most important objectives of this survey was to map retail crime issues throughout the states. Therefore, we asked how many states each of the respondents served. The largest group of respondents reported serving stores in only one state (47.6 percent), followed by practitioners who served two to ten states (40.3 percent), 11–40 states (7.6 percent), and 41–50 states (4.5 percent).
Throughout the survey, we framed questions regarding the states the respondents served. To conduct the analysis, we asked the respondents who served one or two to ten states to identify all of the states they served. Those who reported serving 11–40 states were asked to select all of the US Census divisions they served, and those who served more than 40 states were treated as national-level practitioners. Table 3 includes the number of practitioners who served each of the states, among those that said they served one to ten states.
At the beginning of the survey, we also asked the respondents to report how many years of experience they have in loss prevention and related professions. Five reported zero to one years; 23 reported two to five years; 58 reported six to ten years; 122 reported 11 to 20 years; and 142 reported 21 or more years of experience. The results show that over 70 percent reported 11 or more years of experience, indicating that most respondents were experienced professionals.
The full results of the ORC Across the States study are being issued in a series of reports on the LPM site. The LPRC would like to thank Sensormatic for their generous support of this survey. Watch the LPM site for upcoming articles detailing the fascinating results of this survey, including: what hot products are being stolen from grocery, home improvement, and sporting goods retailers; how ORC is changing; violence and ORC; job stress; and more!