Articles

65 Law Enforcement Line of Duty Deaths in First Half of 2017

Traffic-related Incidents Are Leading Cause of Officer Fatalities, Increasing 24 Percent Recently, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund issued a new report with preliminary data through June 30, 2017, revealing that 65 law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty in 2017 – a 30 percent increase over the same period last year (50). Of these 65 officers, 26 were killed in traffic-related incidents, 23 were killed by gunfire and 16 died due to other causes…


DEA Resource Guide on Drugs

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has released the 2017 edition of Drugs of Abuse, A DEA Resource Guide. The guide is designed to be a reliable resource on the most commonly abused and misused drugs in the United States. The guide provides science-based information about the harms and consequences of drug use, describing a drug’s effects on the body and mind, overdose potential, origin, and legal status. The 2017 edition updates the 2015 Drugs of Abuse publication with the most…


Resources to Keep the Nation’s Schools Safe

Visit SchoolSafetyInfo.org, the Justice Technology Information Center’s school safety Web site, to download the latest volume in the Sharing Ideas and Resources to Keep Our Nation’s Schools Safe! series. Volume 5 includes all articles posted to www.schoolsafetyinfo.org from June 2016 through June 2017. You can learn about programs as diverse as a successful youth court program in North Carolina, an easy to replicate reverse checkout procedure used in rural Alabama and new best practices for school resource officers from the…


Good News, Bad News, And Really Good News

Sergeant James Post GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS AND REALLY GOOD NEWS Okay, I’m one of those guys who likes to get the bad news out of the way first. Then, I have something good to look forward to after I’ve had the rug pulled out from under me. Unless you’ve been on the International Space Station for the last six months, you know that the bad news comes from Ford® Motor Company. Yes, the folks who gave us the Edsel,…


Grant Resources and Guidance for Law Enforcement

Stephenie Slahor You have a project or need, but not enough money to fund it. Does that sound familiar?  A federal, state, local, corporate, private or foundation grant might finance training, equipment, a project, or a process. To follow are ideas for researching grant applications and sources. It is strongly advised that you do your “homework” because you likely won’t be the only one applying for that grant money. Your application must stand out from the crowd and that’s where…


Capture! Not Combat

Lt. John Domingo and John G. Peters, Jr., Ph.D., CTC, CLS ©2017, the authors. A.R.R. When confronting a wildly out of control suspect who is high on drugs or is afflicted with mental illness, the “gold standard” progression for Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) has been to capture, control, restrain, and transport. It is undeniable that the raging person must first be captured, usually by one or more LEOs, before the other phases can take place. However, for decades, LEOs have…


Vehicle Pursuit Technology

Bill Siuru, Ph.D., PE Living in the Los Angeles area, hardly a week goes by that I don’t view a high-speed police chase being covered on television. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that about 360 people are killed annually and many more are seriously injured as the result of police pursuits. This number includes suspects, police officers and bystanders alike. Currently, spike strips manually laid across the road by officers are commonly used to terminate a high-speed…


The Use of Textalyzer Technology to Curb Distracted Driving

Hannah R. Heishman; Tod W. Burke, Ph.D.; and Stephen S. Owen, Ph.D. On June 16, 2011, Evan Lieberman, a 19-year-old university student, was a passenger in a car driven by an acquaintance while on the way to a summer job. The vehicle was involved in a head-on collision which resulted in fatal injuries to Lieberman. The driver stated that the accident occurred when he fell asleep while driving. Lieberman’s father subsequently filed a civil lawsuit to acquire the driver’s phone…


Automated License Plate Recognition: An Insider’s Look

Rebecca Waters What are some of the newest, extensive uses of this technology and how can they be best utilized? Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) systems – made up of a camera or cameras, a processor and character recognition software – at their most basic are designed to capture license plate images, transform them into characters and compare the results to a database of license plates which are of interest to law enforcement. We asked six industry experts to fill…


Odor Crusher™ Can Make Your Job Easier

Odor Crusher™ Can Make Your Job Easier Bill Siuru, Ph.D., PE Not only can law enforcement be a dangerous job, it can also be a smelly one. Clothes, body armor and tactical gear can smell of sweat, mildew, smoke, and other unpleasant odors.  Also, police vehicles can be “scent-laden” after a day’s shift or after transporting a drunk or a homeless person who hasn’t taken a shower in a while. Or, how about canine units which carry a dog in…