Presents . . .

The PSP Impact

- A Quarterly Snapshot of the PSP Network -

July–September 2021 

Communities of Practice (CoPs) bring together those individuals with common interests and/or professions to share lessons learned and promising practices, address common challenges, refine skills through interactive engagements, and expose members to new methods.

The National Public Safety Partnership (PSP) has established CoPs in the areas of crime analysis, technology, prosecution, public information officers and, most recently, law enforcement leadership.  

Click here to learn more!

The PSP team encourages all active PSP sites to participate in the CoPs.  Please contact info@pspartnership.org if you would like to join or learn more.

CoP Overviews and Upcoming Events

Crime Analysis Community of Practice (CACoP)

The CACoP promotes crime analysis as a core and integrated element of participating agencies.  The CACoP provides opportunities to share strategies and work products and to discuss concepts to turn data into actionable information.  The CACoP leverages the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) varied and customizable array of training and technical assistance to support the crime analysis needs of PSP sites.

Second Wednesday of every month from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., ET 

Law Enforcement Leadership Community of Practice (LELCoP)

The LELCoP provides PSP site leadership with opportunities to hear from other leaders and discuss the unique challenges, responsibilities, and issues they face daily.  The LELCoP provides an environment for PSP site leaders to discuss issues, strategies, and solutions they are engaging in to drive positive change in the field.​

Third Tuesday of every month from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., ET

Prosecution Community of Practice (PCoP)

The PCoP encourages outreach and relationship building among all prosecutors and district attorneys throughout the PSP network.  The PCoP shares best and promising practices and innovative strategies to reduce violent crime, supports collaboration with law enforcement and the community, and supports PSP’s efforts to drive evidence-based prosecution and enhance public safety.

 First Thursday of every month from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., ET

Public Information Officers Community of Practice (PIOCoP)

Public information officers (PIOs) communicate critical information to the public and are frequently viewed as the “face” of an agency.  To support the PIO’s critical role and responsibilities, the PIOCoP facilitates learning and networking opportunities among PSP site PIOs about community engagement strategies, messaging, and media relations.

Quarterly Event:  December, March, June, and September (Time Pending)

Technology Community of Practice (TCoP)

PSP established the TCoP to provide an opportunity for PSP site technology professionals to collaborate and discuss the increasingly critical and expansive role that technology plays in daily crime fighting.  The TCoP shares promising practices and innovative methods to help address law enforcement’s technology-related challenges and needs in procuring, implementing, and leveraging technology to build capacities in areas that are critical to fighting crime. ​

Quarterly Event:  First Monday of December, March, June, and September from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., ET 

Recent CoP Virtual Events 

Many of the CoP virtual events are recorded and posted on the Communities of Practice Web page on the PSP website.  Please log in to the private-access website to view (nationalpublicsafetypartnership.org). 

Prosecution Community of Practice (PCoP) Roundtables

Thursday, July 1, 2021

The PCoP hosted an interactive roundtable focused on building trust between prosecutors and their communities.  Ms. Beth McGarry, former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, led a discussion on the successes and challenges each PSP site is facing regarding building community trust, and PCoP members shared their community engagement efforts and activities.  Resources were provided to support the prosecutors with their trust-building efforts.

Thursday, August 5, 2021 

This PCoP event focused on witness intimidation, and Mr. John Wilkinson, from AEquitas, shared his expertise on the topic and strategies on how to prevent witness intimidation.  Following the presentation, Ms. Beth McGarry moderated a discussion among the roundtable participants regarding how witness intimidation impacts the PSP sites.

Thursday, September 2, 2021 

The PCoP hosted a virtual event focused on innovative juvenile diversion and intervention programs.  The webinar included presentations by Mr. Anthony Pierro from the Ocean County, New Jersey, Prosecutor’s Office and Ms. Stephanie Lombardo from the York County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney’s Office.  The presentations were followed by an interactive discussion moderated by Ms. Beth McGarry, in which participants could ask questions and receive advice and implementation guidance regarding the featured programs.

Feedback (Strategic Site Liaison): "That was phenomenal.  It easily could have gone on for another hour at least." 

Law Enforcement Leadership Community of Practice (LELCoP) Roundtable

Tuesday, July 20, 2021 

The LELCoP hosted a roundtable on the correlation between traffic stops and violent crime levels.  Chief Sylvia Moir (Retired) of the Tempe, Arizona, Police Department moderated the discussion, and PSP site leaders discussed their successes and challenges with traffic stops and summarized the trends/patterns they are observing in their communities regarding traffic stops and levels of violent crime.

Technology Community of Practice (TCoP) Roundtable

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

The TCoP hosted an interactive roundtable focused on current technology initiatives, challenges, and priority issues for the CoP members.  The dialogue was led by Sergeant Patrick Kinney of the Chicago, Illinois, Police Department.  During the session, the TCoP members identified and prioritized topics of interest for future discussions and provided input regarding the frequency and format of future TCoP engagements.

Crime Analysis Community of Practice (CACoP) Roundtable

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

The CACoP hosted an interactive roundtable focused on crime analysis successes and challenges experienced by the PSP sites, and the group discussed priority issues and topics for future roundtable sessions.  The roundtable was led by Mr. John Markovic, BJA Senior Policy Advisor, and Ms. Annie Mitchell, retired supervising crime analyst with the Los Angeles County, California, Sheriff’s Department and current Vice President of Administration for the International Association of Crime Analysts.  

Public Information Officers Community of Practice (PIOCoP) Roundtable

Thursday, August 12, 2021

The PIOCoP hosted a roundtable focused on current communication strategies that law enforcement agencies are implementing, as well as successes and challenges that public information officers are experiencing during these unprecedented times.
Ms. Laura McElroy, media veteran and communications strategist of the McElroy Media Group, led the discussion.

National Domestic Communications Assistance Center (NDCAC) Event

Hosted by the Technology Community of Practice (TCoP) Roundtable

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

PSP sponsored the National Domestic Communications Assistance Center’s (NDCAC) presentation on “Resources for Law Enforcement in the Digital Age.”  This Web event, hosted by the TCoP, was made available to PSP site personnel, partner agencies, and law enforcement agency recipients of BJA training and technical assistance services.  The interactive training provided participants with information about NDCAC services, resources, and technologies to help enhance their criminal investigative techniques.  The event built awareness for the wide array of services, tools, and training opportunities that NDCAC provides to local, state, federal, tribal, and campus law enforcement agencies. 

-Virtual Peer Exchanges and Webinars-

The PSP team is committed to the continued delivery of virtual engagements, such as webinars and collaborative virtual peer exchanges (VPEs), to support law enforcement agencies and PSP partners during these unprecedented times.  By employing the use of Web-based technologies to host webinars and VPEs, PSP sites and their law enforcement partners can communicate and collaborate more frequently and in a more cost-effective and interactive way.  VPEs promote exposure to evidence-based investigation and prosecutorial strategies among a wider and more diverse audience.

The following virtual engagements, held between July and September 2021, cover a variety of topics aimed at reducing violent crime and enhancing public safety in PSP sites and other state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies.

Interested in participating in a VPE or need additional information?  Contact the PSP team at info@pspartnership.org.

-Virtual Academy-

PSP, in collaboration with leading law enforcement experts and practitioners, has developed interactive, virtual courses on law enforcement topics identified to be of great importance and shared interest to PSP network-wide and beyond.

These courses are available nationwide to requesting law enforcement professionals as part of the PSP Virtual Academy.  All the courses within the Virtual Academy are self-paced, and students can access the platform using computers, smartphones, and tablets.  Upon completion, students are given an opportunity to print and save a completion certificate.  This can then be shared with their training staff or placed in their training records.

Over the summer months, which are typically the busiest for law enforcement agencies, the PSP Virtual Academy continued to provide self-paced and relevant training to PSP sites.  The Amarillo, Texas, Police Department PSP site enrolled 342 members of its personnel in three virtual courses—“Law Enforcement Guide to Crime Guns,” “Crime Scene Excellence,” and “Leadership Strategies:  Building Effective Leaders to Impact Violence Reduction.”  Over the course of the last eight weeks, nearly all of the 342 Amarillo Police Department personnel members who were enrolled in the courses were able to successfully complete the courses while expending minimal staff time and resources.  Training an entire department on any topic can sometimes take months, if not an entire year, to cycle shifts through and schedule coverage for personnel to attend training sessions.  The Amarillo Police Department highlighted the benefits of the Virtual Academy and the efficiency it provides to train personnel on critical emerging issues in a cost-effective and timely manner. 

In addition, under the leadership of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Chief of Police Wendell Franklin, the Tulsa Police Department PSP site has begun the process of enrolling its entire command and supervisory staff into the Virtual Academy course “Leadership Strategies:  Building Effective Leaders to Impact Violence Reduction.”  The Tulsa Police Department submitted customized content additions to the course, which allowed the content to be more directly and meaningful to the Tulsa leadership.  Chief Franklin recorded short messaging videos to share his vision on leadership within the department.  The department also highlighted its own mission statement for its personnel to consider as they navigate the leadership course.  The Tulsa leadership will begin navigating the Virtual Academy leadership course in the coming weeks. 

AVAILABLE COURSES

Law Enforcement Guide to Crime Guns 

Crime Scene Excellence 

Leadership Strategies:  Building Effective Leaders to Impact Violence Reduction 

COMING SOON! 

Navigating NIBIN Leads via the GETS System—provides a simple method to triage these leads (October 2021) 

GunStat:  A Data-Driven Approach to Address Gun Violence (October 2021) 

Foundations of Constitutional Policing (January 2022) 

Understanding Privately Made Firearms:  A Law Enforcement Guide to Ghost Guns (January 2022)  

Visit the PSP Virtual Academy page to learn more:

Featured Toolkit:   Juvenile Resources

Recognizing that August was National Back to School Month, the PSP team is featuring the “Juvenile Resources” Public Safety Clearinghouse toolkit, consisting of various federal resources focusing on juvenile justice and prevention of youth violence.

The Public Safety Clearinghouse is a public online tool that serves as a one-stop shop for violence reduction and public safety resources from DOJ program components and other federal entities.  The Clearinghouse functions as an online catalog for users to browse, search, and ultimately build a custom toolkit of resources that can be downloaded in one package and shared with others for future access.

Designed for maximum functionality on your smartphone or tablet, the Public Safety Clearinghouse mobile app offers a convenient, single point of access to DOJ violence reduction and public safety resources for the criminal justice field.  Download the Public Safety Clearinghouse mobile app today by clicking on the Apple or Android links or by visiting your mobile app store.

If you have questions or would like to add any DOJ-sponsored resources to the Clearinghouse, please contact info@pspartnership.org.

-Contact Us-

We want to hear from you!  Do you have a success story or information that you would like to feature in future editions of The PSP Impact?

Please contact info@pspartnership.org for suggestions on items to spotlight.

This project was supported by Grant No. 2016-DG-BX-K006 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance.  The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART).  Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.