NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At the conclusion of a two-day Regional Information Sharing Summit hosted by the New Jersey State Police, the New York Police Department and many other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies spanning the I-95 Corridor, law enforcement leaders concluded that existing information technology continues to provide public safety advantages while emerging technologies hold incredible promise for future capabilities to prevent and effectively intervene against violent and serious crime and the networks that perpetrate such crime.
During the Summit, a new national partnership among the IJIS Institute, the National Police Foundation, and the Center on Policing at Rutgers University was announced, offering a unique and customized training program for federal, state and local law enforcement executives, managers and staff who are seeking or implementing emerging and enhanced technologies in their agencies.
The public safety community is often overwhelmed by the amount and sophistication of new technologies available to agencies, with developers and marketers promising the best and most advanced technologies available. Yet no formal training program to prepare executives for the process of sorting through the available technologies, selecting the most appropriate solutions, and effectively implementing the solution within the agency’s existing environment and consistent with community norms and expectations is available specifically for law enforcement and public safety.
“The exploding introduction of new technologies in policing makes it very difficult for police executives to know what a given technology can do to improve operations and what pitfalls should be avoided,” said Ashwini Jarral, Executive Director of the IJIS institute. “This training program offers practical advice on selecting and managing technology implementation.”
The partnership will launch with an inaugural seminar entitled “The Promises & Perils of Law Enforcement Information Technologies.” The two-day executive seminar offers case-studies on current and emerging information technologies and the benefits and challenges that such technologies may bring. The seminar will emphasize lessons learned in harnessing the benefits of such technologies and mitigating the risks through proven strategies and strong project management and planning.
“Police executives and other staff overseeing the selection and implementation of new technologies in law enforcement can learn from the valuable lessons of others, including their successes and failures,” said Tom O’Reilly of the Center on Policing at Rutgers University.
Seminar topics include the discussion of justifying the adoption of new technologies, developing community support and acceptance, privacy concerns and safeguarding strategies, managing the acquisition of technology, measuring benefits, risk management, developing policies on the use of data, and more. Participants will also learn about the current and coming state of the art of police information technology.
The sponsoring partners will also be offering a course for senior managers responsible for implementing information technologies in law enforcement concentrating on best practices for managing implementation of advanced technologies. A third course will be offered for project managers. Additional courses on related topics are being considered. Technologies discussed include CAD & RMS Systems, Predictive Policing Solutions, Body Worn Cameras, License Plate Readers, Gunshot Detection and other Sensor Technologies, Early Intervention Systems, Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence, Communications technologies including NG911 and FirstNet-related capabilities.
The seminar aims to enhance skills among law enforcement decision makers and planners that will enable them to independently consider what technology is actually needed versus desired, understanding solution and project scope and rightsizing and the implications this may have for cost, complexity and the likelihood of success, understanding basic information technologies and concepts and thinking forward about how the solutions may impact agency operations and the community perceptions, including privacy and civil liberty impacts.
“As has been said before, we cannot allow technology to happen to us and this is particularly true in policing and public safety where the needs are great, but the risks may in some cases be even greater,” said Jim Burch, Interim President of the National Police Foundation. “Selecting and implementing new technology in law enforcement deserves and requires unique considerations, not the least of which is the impact on officers and the community.”
Additional courses in Emerging Law Enforcement Information Technology and Law Enforcement Technology Project Management will be offered in 2019. Those completing the courses will receive a certificate and continuing education credits from Rutgers.
Agencies interested in receiving more information on this training initiative can sign up here.
Background:
The IJIS Institute is a nonprofit alliance working to promote and enable technology in the public sector and expand the use of information to maximize safety, efficiency, and productivity. IJIS has members and associates working within and across several major public-sector domains as our areas of focus: Criminal Justice (Law Enforcement, Corrections, Courts), Public Safety (Fire, EMS, Emergency Management), Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and Transportation. The IJIS Institute brings together the innovative thinking of the private sector and the practitioners, national practice associations, and academic organizations that are working to solve public sector information and technology challenges. Founded in 2001 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the IJIS Institute includes member companies and individual associates from government, nonprofit, and educational institutions from across the United States. For more information, visit our website at: http://www.ijis.org/ and follow us on Twitter @ijisinstitute.
The Center on Policing (COP), formerly known as the Police Institute, was founded by Dr. George Kelling in 2001. Our Center is composed of individuals with a broad range of experience in the public safety arena. The COP’s mission is to integrate research and evidence-based best practices into police operations, violence reduction, problem-solving, community policing, education, training, and the development of criminal justice policy and practice. The center will achieve its goals by focusing on the following three areas: Research, Technology, and Education & Technical Assistance.
The National Police Foundation is a U.S.-based, non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing policing through innovation and science. For nearly 50 years, the Police Foundation has conducted research, provided training and technical assistance, and has led the way in promoting and sharing evidence-based practices and innovation among law enforcement in the U.S. and internationally. The National Police Foundation is conducting research on the perceptions of police officers regarding available and needed technologies and their impacts and has recently completed a study on law enforcement units and operations related to unmanned aerial systems. In recent years, the National Police Foundation has initiated efforts to engage law enforcement agencies in assessing the privacy impacts of surveillance systems, promoted the use of open data and transparency in law enforcement, and examined the potential impacts of autonomous vehicles and robotics in policing. For more information on the National Police Foundation, please visit www.policefoundation.org or contact the Foundation at info@policefoundation.org.
