Law & Order

Crisis Intervention Team

The somewhat surprising aspect of this apparently touchy-feely approach is that fewer people go to jail, fewer people go to mental hospitals, fewer officers and subjects are injured, there are fewer repeat arrests, fewer people prosecuted (or otherwise enter the judicial system) and more people are identified to get the appropriate mental health care. CIT officers are taught to recognize the various psychiatric syndromes, the biologic basis for severe mental illness, de-escalation of crisis ...

Segway Personal Transporter

Previously called the Human Transporter (HT), the name change was made because the PT is a more approachable and easy to remember term, and it works better in international markets. On both domestic and international fronts, we are seeing strong momentum in the police and security sector, and we expect it to continue for the foreseeable future," said Klee Kleber, vice president of marketing, Segway Inc. "The patrol and community policing capabilities of the Segway PT have now been proved by ...

T3 Series Personal Mobility Unit

The flagship T3 Series is being hailed as the next generation law enforcement tool and is being marketed to law enforcement and security for community policing, campus police, airport officers, parking control and park and beach patrols. Designed for more effective community policing, the T3 has been proved to improve police response time as well as reducing physical fatigue in officers. Designed for community policing programs, this intuitive new vehicle will prove the capability of T3 Mot...

Social Marketing for Neo-Nazi Rally

Under the direction and leadership of Orlando Police Chief Michael J. McCoy, the police department used a public information and social marketing strategy to mobilize community volunteers from the targeted minority community. Through a highly active social marketing campaign, Operation Be Cool spread a message of dignity and restraint through the pulpit at local minority churches, in media conferences, on local radio shows, and by distributing fliers throughout the affected minority communit...

Do Officers Value Their Degrees?

From high to low ratings (on a mean scale from 4 to 1), the areas are: understanding of the law, understanding of the criminal justice system, communication skills, critical thinking skills, administrative skills, human relations skills, and patrol/investigation procedures. At the definite and substantial value levels, managers outpaced entry-level officers as indicated by the following percentage comparisons (management/officer): understanding of the law (96/91), communication skills (94/86...

Proven Steps for Recruiting Women

Various agencies and groups have developed self-assessment guides to evaluate an agency's general work environment and policies, i.e., an agency's recruitment strategies and hiring practices, physical fitness test standards, academy training, field training program, the promotional process, overall employee morale and the department's sexual harassment policies. The FBI and the San Antonio Web sites contain specific information on the value of female agents and officers, the physical fitness...

Practical Approaches to Employee Retention

Realistic Job Previews are currently in use by a wide variety of law enforcement agencies across the United States and around the world including: the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department; Lakeland, FL Police; Idaho State Police; Vancouver, BC Police Service and the Western Australian Police Service.

On The Job

New Liability with Mentally Ill

Law enforcement has a growing liability in how to handle calls involving the mentally ill. In a number of cases, the police use of lethal force ended up being the only correct answer.

News

Study Finds Repeat Dui Offenders Have High Mental Illness Rates

The study found almost 60% of those with two or more DUI convictions reported experiencing major depression, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder over their lifetime.

Driver Simulation Technology From Mpri Enhances Curriculum

"Law enforcement officials have unique needs and are exposed to a range of dangerous and risky situations not commonly encountered by the average driver," said Terry Tucker, MPRI senior vice president.

Isu Study Finds Morphing Eyewitness Composites Better at Catching Criminals

[...] prior research has found that facial composites of criminal suspects built by individual eyewitness accounts often produce poor likenesses of the actual perpetrators.

Doj Announces Over $1 Million in Awards

Open Channels

Rallying Education and Training

Seeing that the problem was perceived to be a lack of interoperable radio equipment, the federal government provided significant amounts of grant funding to public safety agencies so that they could buy interoperability equipment.

Training

War Stories As a Training Tool

Effective storytelling uses many methods to engage, involve and inspire officers, using language that is more authentic (everyday language as opposed to "legalese" or "police speak") and a form that the officers find interesting, gripping, or fun. Telling war stories are great, but a formal training setting cannot turn into "The Best of Officer Smith" storytelling marathon, or a one-up competition involving class participants in dueling war stories.

Product Spotlight

Icop Surveillance Technology

According to the IACP's report titled, "The Impact of Video Evidence on Modern Policing," the speed and versatility of digital recording are too beneficial for law enforcement officials to ignore. The report provides background information such as history and survey agency information, as well as the benefits and impact of department videos including: officer safety; agency liability and internal control; training and education; community perception; judicial process; officer performance and...

Captain

A Better Recruiting Approach

Addressing the critical need to hire police officers to replace the ever-increasing number of retiring baby boomers is a challenging issue for police chiefs and recruiting supervisors. How do police departments package a law enforcement career to be more alluring to potential applicants? A search of several major city police recruitment Web sites reveals an approach that either emphasizes or exclusively promotes the basic needs of money and benefits, and the appeal of the excitement of a pol...

Media Relations

The Death of an Officer

With the family support group, families of slain officers may join if they wish and offer themselves as support to other families going through the same things they went through.

Segway Personal Transporter

Segway Patrol Training Program

In the arena of shopping center public afety, IPC International Corp (IPC) Bannockbum, IL is an industry leader in the area of shopping center security, an area in which the Segway Personal Transporter (PT) has become very popular. According to IPC, they were looking for a transportation option that would increase the visibility of the officers as well as "a mode of transportation that was more maneuverable and center-friendly than a golf cart for patrol duties inside and outside shopping ma...

Special Report

Negligent Hiring... Passing Around the Bad Apple

The courts have taken the position that if suspicious factors such as short-term residencies, gaps in employment, or admissions of criminal convictions are revealed in the employment application or in interviews with the applicant, the employer should make further inquiries into the applicant's background-including his criminal record if available. Law enforcement agencies primarily rely on three screening tools in screening job applicants: an application, the interview and the background ch...

Up Close

Automatic License Plate Recognition Systems

An ALPR-equipped patrol vehicle traveling at 60 mph closing a distance of 50 feet with a stolen vehicle in the opposing lane traveling at 60 mph will have imaged the other vehicle's front plate, processed it, performed OCR, checked the plate number against 300,000 NCIC records of stolen vehicles and license plates, and returned an audible alert before the gap between the two vehicles closes. Even with the undeniable gains ALPR systems offer in the areas of officer productivity and the future...

Automatic License Plate Recognition Systems

Visionair Introduces Eyenet Alpr Query Breakthrough

Among the world's most accurate and versatile ALPR software on the market today, EyeNet ALPR technology scans the video imagery picked up by a patrol car's video camera and automatically reads license plate numbers up to thousands of plates per hour.