CrimeDex has added the Wireless Loss Prevention Council (WLPC), a network of retail wireless loss prevention professionals, to its repertoire. CrimeDex is a criminal investigation collaboration network that allows law enforcement and business communities to share business-related crime information

In some ways our partnership with WLPC is right on trend in the mobile industry as more people choose collaboration as a weapon against theft. Case in point: the wireless industry’s announcement this month of a new theft prevention database from the FCC and wireless carriers representing 90 percent of subscribers.

Why is collaboration and information sharing so critical in combatting crime today?

Surveillance footage at a Portland, Oregon, gas station convenience store this week captured what an Oregonian reporter is calling a “mob rob”:

A group of 15 to 20 males and females calmly walked into a Chevron in the 9100-block of Southeast Foster Road between 11:15 p.m. and 11:23 p.m. and snatched roughly $200 worth of beef jerky, candy and beer before leaving en masse.

But this unfortunate event is nothing new, deriving from the flash mob phenomenon that began as a creative form of social entertainment and a gorilla style of marketing like this one at the premier of The Ohio State University’s new student union the summer of 2010.

And “mob robberies” may happen more than you think.

Hospital security is a unique challenge – with emergency first-responders, expecting mothers, patients and clinicians of every variety constantly coming and going, hospital security teams are tasked with keeping an always accessible facility secure.

Employee and patient safety are chief concerns for any hospital security director. Modern Healthcare reports “data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration indicates that hospital nurses face more than triple the average chance of being assaulted on the job as an average American worker.”

But then consider the drugs, equipment and radioactive byproducts from some equipment in a hospital – loss prevention takes on a whole new dimension when it’s also linked to nuclear non-proliferation. Unfortunately, a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) indicates that hospitals aren’t always as secure as they need to be.