There is a structure underneath every loss prevention program. Most leaders inherit it. Few examine it. Khris Hamlin spends his career looking at that structure across the largest retailers in the country at the same time. As Vice President of Asset Protection and Retail Technology at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, he sits in one of the only seats in the industry with that view.

Recorded three weeks after RAP 2026 in Phoenix, this conversation moves from the patterns the public reporting hasn't named yet, to the Washington work about to land at the store level, to the technology deployments that actually changed outcomes in 2026, without naming a single vendor. We close on the human boundary around AI that retail hasn't drawn yet, and what Khris thinks the next five years actually ask of the people doing this work.

For LP/AP leaders, retail operators, and anyone trying to read where this work is going next.

Chris Ochs answered the question through a different lens.

The retail theft arrest rate is roughly 1 in 48. In Part 1, Jason Davies of Sekura Global described a downstream chain that no longer holds — cases built, cases handed off, cases that go nowhere. This week, SAFR's Chris Ochs reframes the conversation one layer earlier. The most consequential intervention may not be downstream at all. It may be at the door.

His argument is structural. DUI checkpoints do not produce their public-safety value through arrests; they produce it through the drivers who never arrive. Apply that logic to the retail entrance, and twenty years of loss-prevention doctrine begins to look as though it was calibrated to the wrong outcome.

Jim Cords takes the argument seriously before he tests it. Deflection works on the population that is deflectable. The 327 individuals behind 6,600 NYPD arrests in a single year — and the comparable cohorts surfaced in the Manhattan Institute and Seattle data — are a different population, with a different relationship to consequence. The casual offender and the chronic offender are two distinct problems, and a strategy calibrated to one will under-serve the other.

Don Carr sits with the disagreement on tape. He says plainly that his architectural instincts run closer to Chris's than to Jim's, then walks through where he parts from Chris anyway. The conversation arrives not at a resolution but at a sharper version of the question. Door-layer deflection, funded prosecution capacity, and cross-incident pattern recognition are three different architectures answering three different populations, and the industry has not yet decided which gets built first.

One point holds underneath the disagreement. No system should escalate a human being into a confrontation. The floor associate is rarely the right human. The action belongs elsewhere.

Featured: Chris Ochs, SAFR. Referenced from Part 1: Jason Davies, Sekura Global. Hosts: Don Carr and Jim Cords. Don Carr holds a commercial position in the architectural layer discussed; listeners should weigh his contributions accordingly. CitySafe is independently produced.

Stay aware. Stay well. Stay CitySafe.

From the floor of RILA RAP 2026 in Phoenix.

15 years of better cameras. 15 years of better analytics. 15 years of faster alerts. And the retail theft arrest rate is still roughly 1 in 48.

DJ Carr took that question to the people building the technology. In Part 1, he sits down with Jason Davies of Sekura Global, whose answer points past hardware tagging at the same structural problem detection alone cannot solve.

Then DJ and Jim Cords debate where they diverge. Jim brings 28 years across FBI, DHS, and OIG. He'd start with funded enforcement. DJ brings private-sector roots in ground-level security and several years as a systems architect. He'd start with the data layer. They do not resolve it.

They agree on one thing. A system that knows and cannot act is not a security system. It is an evidence system with no consumer.

Part 2 drops next week with Chris Ochs of SAFR.

Loss. Liability. Law.

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Against All Odds:  A Memoir of Grace Redemption and Gratitude 

From addiction to innovation, from prison cells to boardrooms—this is the true story of a man who lost everything and came back to build a legacy that saves lives.

Born in Sacramento in 1981, DJ’s early life was a storm of childhood trauma, addiction, crime, and chaos. By his teens, he was smoking crack cocaine, altering legal documents to survive, and spiraling into a life of arrests, relapses, and broken relationships. By his twenties, he'd cycled in and out of jails, burned bridges across state lines, and faced a prison sentence that could’ve ended his story for good.

But it didn’t.

Full Circle is a raw, unflinching memoir of one man’s journey from darkness to purpose. With gripping honesty and unexpected moments of humor and grace, DJ recounts how he rebuilt his life, found sobriety through AA, repaired family bonds, and eventually launched a technology company that helps fight organized retail crime and human trafficking.

This isn’t just a redemption story—it’s a blueprint for anyone who’s ever wondered if change is possible.

For those who have hit bottom. For those still in the struggle. For families who’ve almost given up.

It’s never too late to rewrite your ending.

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 Join Don and Jim for a look inside how Safescope’s race- and gender-agnostic feature‑matching engine builds court‑ready digital incident records in real time. From matching face scans to room bookings, to assembling timestamps, audio recorded and transcribed statements, images of the scene, geotag data and transaction logs — learn how Safescope automates evidence collection and shares seamlessly with detectives and prosecutors. No bias, all integrity.

https://safescope.io/case-study/

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In this episode of The CitySafe Podcast, Jim and Don take you deep inside the technology that’s redefining the fight against organized retail crime and human trafficking.

Meet SafeScope—a groundbreaking platform that doesn’t just capture crime, it connects the dots. With race- and gender-agnostic feature matching, real-time geotagging, and built-in audio reporting, SafeScope instantly creates court-ready evidence packages that get to law enforcement and prosecutors faster than ever before.

But this isn’t just about stopping theft—it’s about aiding in the rescuing of lives, helping in the disruption of criminal networks, and giving communities a powerful new tool in the fight for safety.

Whether you’re in retail, hospitality, law enforcement, or just care about your city—this is the episode you don’t want to miss.

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Organized retail crime isn’t what it used to be—and that should worry all of us. In this episode, Don and Jim expose the new face of ORC: coordinated crews, encrypted comms, online fencing, and criminal networks that go far beyond shoplifting.

They break down the anatomy of a modern-day booster operation, explain how stolen goods are laundered through e-commerce, and highlight how law enforcement and retailers are teaming up to fight back. You'll also hear what communities—and you—can do to push back against this growing threat.

Whether you’re in loss prevention, law enforcement, or just want to understand why your local store keeps locking up deodorant, this is a must-listen.

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How SafeScope is changing the rules of justice—one incident at a time.

In this follow-up to our explosive SafeScope deep dive, Jim and Don break down what happens after the camera catches the crime—and why SafeScope is revolutionizing the way evidence is built, shared, and used.

You’ll learn how SafeScope turns retail incidents into real-time, court-ready evidence packages, why its race- and gender-agnostic system matters more than ever, and how it’s eliminating the bottlenecks that stall investigations and delay justice.

Whether you’re in law enforcement, retail, public safety—or just want to understand how communities can fight back smarter—this episode delivers bold insights, ethical clarity, and a vision for what justice looks like in the data age.

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Repeat trespassers. Vandalism. Property owners demanding answers. If you’re a boots-on-the-ground security company, you know this story too well. In this hard-hitting episode, Don and Jim pull back the curtain on one of the biggest challenges in private security: habitual trespassing and recurring property damage—and why traditional patrol methods just don’t cut it anymore.

They dive into the real-world tactics that work, and how SafeScope is changing the game with AI-powered feature matching and evidence packaging SafeScope empowers guards, protects clients, and builds court-ready documentation in real time.

Whether you’re managing a single site or scaling an entire team, this episode shows you how to go from reactive to data-driven and proactive, with tools that don’t just log problems—they help you solve them.

 Field-proven insights

 Evidence packaging and sharing

 Real-time intelligence you can act on

Don’t just patrol the property—obtain real-time results and exceptional outcomes.

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In this episode, we dive into the future of security operations with SCOPEx — a next-generation web and mobile platform integrating AI, GPS tracking, real-time incident reporting, and smart payroll. Discover how SCOPEx combines SafeScope and PlateScope technologies with CSA360-inspired dispatch systems to revolutionize guard management, patrol verification, and compliance reporting. Whether you're in security, tech development, or operations, this deep dive offers a blueprint for building smarter, safer, and more responsive security infrastructures.