The Office of Community Oriented Police Services publishes materials for law enforcement and community stakeholders collaboratively addressing crime and disorder challenges. These free publications provide best-practice approaches and access to collective knowledge from the field.

Its newest release, Law Enforcement Dog Encounters Training (LEDET): A Toolkit for Law Enforcement, is designed to help law enforcement officers deal with dog encounters. Use of force by law enforcement officers, deadly or otherwise, has become a major issue before the public. As human cases have become more visible, so have cases in which law enforcement officers have used deadly force against companion dogs. The purpose of this toolkit is to provide law enforcement agencies and officers with the information, tools, and resources necessary to handle dog encounters.

The American Indian Justice Conference (taking place on December 5–6, 2019, in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico) is a free event that will provide training to tribal communities to enhance their response to alcohol and drug abuse, enable them to recognize how trauma impacts drug and alcohol abuse in tribal communities, and identify current trends and best practices for tribal justice systems to strengthen multidisciplinary approaches to healing and justice.

The conference, supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, will feature five multidisciplinary tracks:  Alcohol and Substance Abuse; Courts and Traditional Justice; Probation, Reentry, and Policing; Strategic Planning; and Addressing Violent Crime in Native Communities.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has released a publication entitled “Digital Evidence Task Force Executive Primer.” This provides law enforcement executives what they need to understand the complexities of digital evidence, consider what policy changes they may need to adopt, and how they can work with their communities and policymakers to succeed in an ever-changing environment. The document covers policy considerations, the problems associated with “going dark,” and education and outreach. 

A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) study of lone offender terrorist attacks in the United States takes an unprecedented look at the backgrounds, behavioral characteristics, and circumstances surrounding 52 attacks since 1972, as well as the singular perpetrators and the bystanders who often see clues but rarely act on them.

The “Lone Offender Terrorism Report,” produced by the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime and Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), analyzed domestic attacks between 1972 and 2015. Within BAU, researchers reviewed a trove of data and contextual investigative information in FBI case files and police records—as well as academic research and media accounts—to develop a richer picture of the varied circumstances surrounding dozens of lone offender attacks.

Many communities are focusing on the small number of people who frequently cycle in and out of emergency rooms, shelters, crisis services, and the justice system—a population that disproportionately contributes to the high utilization of resources. In Part Two of a series on collecting and using data, Stepping Up and the Data-Driven Justice Project—supported by the National Association of Counties (NACo)—will host a no-cost webinar featuring counties that have implemented policies and practices that identify frequent utilizers of these systems and use this information to connect people with appropriate treatment and services.

Date: Thursday, December 5, 2019
Time: 2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m., ET