Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council

Published by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), this article highlights findings from two NIJ-funded projects related to the reconstruction phase of explosives investigations. The first project, funded in fiscal year 2017, examines the application of a new analytical tool for explosives traces: gas chromatography-vacuum UV spectroscopy (GC-VUV). The second project, funded in fiscal year 2018, looks at whether isotopic signatures of the residues at a blast site can link an explosive charge to its manufacturing source. Both projects help expand the toolkit investigators have for developing leads from these challenging crime scenes.

Published by the Justice Clearing House (JCH) and hosted by the American Society for Evidence-Based Policing (ASEBP), this webinar will describe the Washington State University police fatigue management training experiment funded by the National Institute of Justice and conducted at the Seattle, Washington, Police Department and the Portland, Oregon, Bureau of Police. Presenters will discuss the study’s methodology, results, and implications. Attendees will gain insight into how to help officers manage their fatigue and improve their sleep and will leave with an understanding of how to implement training such as this in their own departments.

Date: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Time: 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m., ET

Funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and hosted by the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), this course introduces the information and techniques law enforcement personnel need to safely and methodically collect and preserve digital evidence at a crime scene in a forensically sound manner. Topics include recognizing potential sources of digital evidence, planning and executing a digital evidence-based seizure, and the preservation, collection, documentation, and transfer of digital evidence.

Key concepts covered in this course include the following:

• Preparation for incident response
• Identification of relevant sources of digital evidence
• Proper collection of digital evidence
• Legal and valid preservation of digital evidence

Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., ET

The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) recently released a solicitation for applications to fund research centering on victim services and effective criminal justice reform in the stalking, dating violence, sexual assault, and domestic violence arena. This initiative is designed to promote and evaluate effective policing and prosecution responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. The EIP Initiative encourages law enforcement agencies and/or prosecutors’ offices to expand and improve their capacity to effectively investigate and/or prosecute domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.  With this enhanced capacity, agencies and prosecutors can better support victim safety and autonomy, hold offenders accountable, and promote agency trust within the surrounding community.

JustGrants Application Due Date: Thursday, May 2, 2024
Time: 8:59 p.m., ET

Published by the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office, this publication is intended to present police leaders with a framework for institutionalizing community engagement strategies to improve their personnel’s willingness to increase proactive, positive interactions with the community. It draws on discussions from law enforcement focus groups at every rank from 14 police departments, sheriffs’ offices, and state police organizations, synthesizing the results into three themes: (1) defining expectations for proactive community engagement; (2) engaging leaders in proactive community engagement; and (3) establishing proactive community engagement accountability. To illustrate how these concepts can be applied, the final section presents how a specific proactive community engagement strategy—community walks—can be holistically implemented in a neighborhood experiencing high victimization.