“Fusion Centers and Preventing Threats to the Homeland” is the second in a series of videos to be developed by the Florida Fusion Center, highlighting the numerous functions and successes of fusion centers across the nation.

Protecting the homeland by preventing and mitigating threats is a key function of fusion centers.  This video describes the role fusion centers play in developing partnerships and collaborating across sectors and industries to stay ahead of and mitigate threats, including identifying indicators and behaviors that are a part of the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative.  The video also highlights the importance of collecting, analyzing, and sharing information across jurisdictions and specializations nationwide.

The video is available on the National Criminal Intelligence Resource Center and is intended for use by fusion centers and partners throughout the Fusion Center Network.  It may be downloaded for use in presentations or for other fusion center purposes.

Given that technology can have a dramatic impact on how policing is done, on community relations, and the extent to which police safety is protected, it is imperative that police executives and civilian policymakers have sound empirical evidence about the presence, role, and impact of technology in contemporary policing.

~Excerpt from “Harmonizing Police Technology Acquisitions With Policing Strategy” article

For police agencies, a major technology acquisition can be a change agent that elevates operations while building trust within communities.  But when police technology choices are not sufficiently integrated with a department’s overall policing strategy, inefficiency and disappointed expectations can follow, according to a new study supported by the National Institute of Justice.  Researchers found that a complex and varied set of factors typically drives police technology acquisition decisions—but often the department’s policing philosophy or strategy is not one of them.

The research team made recommendations for developing a better police technology model, including:

• Incorporate evidence-based research to link the technology to the agency’s goals, organizational culture, and policing strategies.

• Include technology considerations in strategic planning.

• Encourage collaboration between agency decision makers and technology experts on technology decisions.

An essential takeaway from the study is that law enforcement agencies should have a robust internal technology evaluation process.

On August 23, 2018, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., ET, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)-funded Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program will host the "Internet Crimes Against Children/iKeepSafe Incident Response Tool for Schools" webinar.  This webinar will discuss a free resource designed to help schools respond to technology-related incidents, including cyberbullying, sexting, hacking, and threats of violence.  The webinar will identify how school officials can use this tool to work with law enforcement and other stakeholders to investigate and develop responses to all types of technology-related incidents.

Discussion of these tragedies provides law enforcement leaders, criminal justice practitioners, academic researchers, and community advocates around the country with an opportunity to challenge and subsequently reimagine the landscape of the criminal justice system.

 ~Excerpt from “Arlington, TX: A Community Policing Story”

The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office has released the resource titled “Arlington, TX: A Community Policing Story—A Guide for Law Enforcement and Community Screenings.”  The guide is designed to assist law enforcement and community groups in facilitating screenings and discussions of the 28-minute film Not in Our Town—Arlington, TX:  A Community Policing Story.  Produced in collaboration with the COPS Office, the film follows the Arlington, Texas, Police Department as it navigates its own series of tragedies: a gang-related death, an officer-involved shooting death of two teens, and the deaths of five officers ambushed in the neighboring city of Dallas, Texas.

This guide provides discussion questions and tips for organizing internal law enforcement agency and community screenings, information about procedural justice and legitimacy, and supplemental resources.  Used together, the film and guide can help agencies work together with personnel and community members to initiate conversations about trust building, procedural justice, and institutional legitimacy to improve relationships between police and the communities they serve.

In June 2018, the Congressional Research Service released the report “Recent Violent Crime Trends in the United States.”  This resource provides an analysis of changes in violent crime since 1960, with a focus on changes from 2014 to 2016 in violent crime and homicide rates in the 48 largest cities in the United States for which violent crime and homicide data were submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program.  The results of the analysis suggest the following:

• At the national level, violent crime and homicide rates increased from 2014 to 2015 and again from 2015 to 2016, but both rates remain near historical lows.

• Violent crime and homicide rates for the 48 largest cities in the United States with available data generally followed national-level trends, with some exceptions.  Some of the largest cities in the United States saw increases in violent crime rates, homicide rates, or both from 2014 to 2015 and/or from 2015 to 2016.  For some of these cities, violent crime or homicide rates were the highest they have been in the past 20 years.

• In smaller communities, violent crime and homicide rates also increased from 2014 to 2015 and again from 2015 to 2016, although not as much as in the largest cities.

The report also provides a review of research on whether increases in violent crime in some cities can be attributed to a “Ferguson effect” and concludes with a discussion about select policy options that Congress could consider for providing assistance to cities experiencing increases in violent crime.