The Center for Task Force Training™ (CenTF) is proud to continue its 2018 webinar series.  These no-cost webinars cover key strategies that are critical to task force operations in today’s law enforcement environment. 

The next webinar in the series is titled Challenges in Combating the Opioid Epidemic.  This webinar will address the challenges facing multijurisdictional task forces and their communities as they fight growing opioid trafficking and abuse.  The discussion will include best practices for organizing and maintaining an opioid task force, building effective partnerships between law enforcement and the community, and how to identify and partner with other public safety efforts to combat the opioid epidemic.

Date:  October 29, 2018

Time:  2:00 p.m., ET

The California High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area recently released a report on the impact that the legalization of marijuana for medical use has had in California, as well as the impacts of legalizing marijuana for recreational use.  The report details the increased use of marijuana by teens and young adults, the increase in drivers testing positive for marijuana who are involved in a fatal car crash, and other issues that California is seeing as it relates to marijuana.

With support from our state and local partners, our federal prosecutors and agents have delivered—and I am grateful to them and the fabulous state and local officers who worked so hard to make these achievements possible.  And we are seeing results.  Violent crime and homicides, which jumped in 2015 and 2016, both dropped in 2017 and will drop again in 2018.  There can be no doubt that good law enforcement policies can make our communities safer.

~Attorney General Jeff Sessions, U.S. Department of Justice

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged the largest number of violent crime and firearm defendants in its history.  According to data from the Executive Office of United States Attorneys (EOUSA), the number of defendants charged with criminal felony offenses increased by nearly 15 percent from more than 71,200 defendants in FY 2017 to more than 81,800 in FY 2018. 

In FY 2018, DOJ charged the largest number of violent crime defendants since EOUSA started to track this category more than 25 years ago (more than 16,800)—surpassing by nearly 15 percent the previous record set last year.  During this same period, DOJ charged more than 15,300 defendants with federal firearms offenses, which is 17 percent more than the previous record.

The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) provides innovative leadership to federal, state, local, and tribal justice systems by disseminating state-of-the art knowledge and practices across America and providing grants for the implementation of these crime-fighting strategies. Because most of the responsibility for crime control and prevention falls to law enforcement officers in states, cities, and neighborhoods, the federal government can be effective in these areas only to the extent that it can enter into partnerships with these officers.  To this end, OJP recently released a video describing its available resources, which are dedicated to giving law enforcement professionals the tools they need to do their jobs safely and effectively.

The National Network of Fusion Centers Final Report documents the results of the annual Fusion Center Assessment. The assessment provides a comprehensive picture of the performance of the National Network of Fusion Centers, measures the effectiveness of Federal Emergency Management Agency grant funding, and guides partners to focus on mission areas with the greatest potential benefit.