Articles

Critical Thinking: A Core Task of Public Safety Employees

John G. Peters, Jr., Ph.D. ©2022. A.R.R. Critical thinking skills enable law enforcement personnel to analyze information and process it wisely in order to help determine the value of that information and make a decision. There are too many documented instances of a suspect telling an officer, “I can’t breathe,” only to hear the officer say, “If you’re talking, you’re breathing.” Another example is a handcuffed suspect who tells an officer, “These handcuffs are too tight,” only to be told…


Stopping School Shootings – Lessons Learned from Parkland, Oxford, Uvalde, and the Federal Commission on School Safety (FCSS)

Published by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, this report highlights FCSS recommendations made after the shooting which occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. Three of the FCSS’s most important recommendations included the need for: Effective multidisciplinary threat-assessment teams which work together to assess reports of potential threats.A free flow of information regarding threats and threatening behavior among various stakeholders of schools.A hands-on role by professional law enforcement in evaluating and responding…


Resources Available for Responding to Mass Violence

Published by the Bureau of Justice’s National Training and Technical Assistance Center, these broad resources are available to agencies and communities as they assess their situational readiness and develop comprehensive emergency response plans. The resources include several helpful tools to guide response to the immediate, short-term and ongoing needs of victims and responders in mass-casualty incidents. There are also federal funding sources to support response and recovery.  To view the list of resources, visit https://tinyurl.com/yc4mzyb4


Are You Shooting Too Fast?

Ralph Mroz “Not possible,” you say? In fact, I think you can, due to confusion between static square range competition-influenced training and training for the real world of the street. Before you start sending hate mail, let me clearly say that I’ve come to believe that people training for the real world have a lot more to learn from competitive shooters than I had ever believed possible prior to several years ago. But, shooting at speed is one area where…


New Report on Emergent Technologies and Extremists: The DWeb as a New Internet Reality

Published by the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, this report focuses on the pros and cons of the Decentralized Web (DWeb) with regards to right-wing extremists and the Islamic State (IS) and their likelihood to exploit it. Specifically, the report addresses the following: What is the DWeb?Review of current literature on content moderation and online extremism.How do extremists exploit the DWeb?How could extremists exploit the DWeb?Policy considerations for policymakers and technology companies. Visit https://tinyurl.com/2m84pzzs to read the full report.


Midyear Violent Crime Report

Published by the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), this midyear report contains data from various agencies throughout the US and Canada comparing topics such as homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault incidents. Most notably, from 2021–2022, incidents of robbery in major US cities increased from 53,212 to 60,175 and aggravated assault from 152,760 to 156,735. Major cities in Canada saw an increase in all reported categories from 2021–2022. The full report can be downloaded at https://tinyurl.com/38cpmdwd


Federal Agencies Release Joint Study on Workplace Violence

Published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, this report provides the latest findings on fatal and nonfatal crimes which occurred in the workplace or away from work over work-related issues. Findings are presented for 13 indicators of workplace violence, using data from five federal data collections. The study found that, over a 27 year period from 1992 to 2019, nearly 18,000 persons were killed at work, on duty, or in violence which was work-related, using data from the Bureau of…


THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE September/October 2022

SERGEANT JAMES POST ARE THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE RUNNING FLAT? Break out the donuts, boys, and I don’t mean Krispy Kremes. I’m talking about the donut spares in your trunks.  Due to too many reasons, for only the second time in history, American police departments are running on three flat tires and fumes from a tank of unleaded gas and some are considering drastic changes in their service delivery. Our police are underfunded, understaffed and are certainly an endangered species…


The Importance and Benefits of Traffic Enforcement

Dr. Stephenie Slahor What priority does traffic enforcement have in your agency compared to other activities involving life, property and community service? A low priority might reflect a statement such as, “We’re too busy with other work.” Maybe, it is the lament of, “We don’t have enough staff to do traffic.” Perhaps your current employment scene is seeing the retirement or resignations of too many staff. Or, perhaps there’s a perception that traffic enforcement will lessen the harmony between the…


FBI Releases 2021 Statistics on Law Enforcement Officers Killed in the Line of Duty

Published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), this report provides the 2021 statistics on the law enforcement officers killed in line-of-duty incidents. Of these, 73 officers died as a result of felonious acts and 56 officers died in accidents. Comprehensive data tables about these incidents and brief narratives describing the fatal attacks were released recently in the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) portion on the FBI’s Law Enforcement Data Explorer.  A copy of the full report can…