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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 9:16 pm
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Results for law enforcement agencies
3 results foundAuthor: Burress, George W. Title: Homeland Security in Small Law Enforcement Jurisdictions: Preparedness, Efficacy, and Proximity to Big-City Peers Summary: Over the last decade, local law enforcement agencies have developed a more robust capacity to respond to homeland security incidents. This trend was initiated in response to the 9/11 terror attacks, though myriad other criminal events (shootings on college campuses) and non-criminal incidents (weather-related disasters) have contributed to this rallying cry. The main focus of the current discussion is on the need for agencies to develop an “all hazards” approach to homeland security that will increase prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery to a broad range of critical events, whether related to terrorism or not. Much of the dialog and attention has been focused on the largest agencies and metropolitan areas in the country, yet smaller jurisdictions also play a key role in developing and sustaining a homeland security network. It is the smallest agencies that are perhaps the least understood actors in the advances of the past decade. While training and funding opportunities have been extended to departments of all sizes, far less is known about the extent to which homeland security innovations have diffused into these small organizations, which represent the majority of all American law enforcement agencies. Prior work by this study’s authors in the state of Illinois suggests that smaller jurisdictions were not as prepared as their larger counterparts. This research suggested, but did not directly assess, the extent to which intragroup variation among small agencies was possibly a function of proximity. Were small agencies that were “closer” to large peers (in terms of physical distance and/or level of interaction) taking more preparatory measures and did they perceive they were more capable of an effective response to a homeland security event? The study described in this report sought to address these and related research questions. A stratified national sampling strategy was used to identify small municipal agencies (employing 25 or fewer full-time sworn officers) positioned across a variety of metropolitan and non-metropolitan contexts. Agency respondents (typically the chief executive officer) were asked to report a number of data points for their organization: assessments of the risk the jurisdiction would experience terrorist or non-terrorist homeland security incidents; preparedness measures taken by the agency; perceived efficacy of the agency’s response capacity across various salient domains (i.e., communication networks, policies, staffing, training, etc.); extent to which the responding agency monitors and emulates peers and best practices in the field; and, level of interactions between respondents and the nearest large municipal agency (employing 250+ full-time sworn officers). Project findings would tend to support organizational theory expectations regarding the diffusion of homeland security innovation. Agencies that perceived a greater risk of experiencing terrorism-related events reported greater levels of preparedness. Likewise, agencies that were more integrated into professional networks and paid more attention to respected peers and trends in the policing profession had engaged in more preparedness activities. Confirming the relevance of proximity to large agencies, respondents who engaged in more interactions with their closest large agency peer reported greater levels of preparedness. Agency size and position in more metropolitan areas also contributed to the level of reported preparedness. In addition, agencies that reported engaging in more preparatory measures perceived a greater level of efficacy should a homeland security incident occur. The results confirm that, while small agencies have been found less prepared in contrast to their larger peers, intragroup variation exists. While this variation is partially a function of the proximity between small jurisdictions and their larger peers, it also is influenced by the extent to which small agencies are connected to broader trends, practices, and peers within the profession. The results hold important implications for how future homeland security innovations might effectively be diffused into the smallest agencies in America’s policing system. This is a vital issue considering that over three-quarters of municipal agencies meet the definition of small used in this study. Details: Carbondale, IL: Dept. of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Southern Illinois University, 2012. 111p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 29, 2012 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/239466.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/239466.pdf Shelf Number: 126490 Keywords: Homeland Security (U.S.)Law Enforcement AgenciesTerrorism |
Author: Saunders, Jessica Title: Feasibility of a Survey Panel of Criminal Justice Agencies For Small, Rural, Tribal, and Border Law Enforcement, Courts, and Institutional and Community Corrections Agencies Summary: Given the potential for technology to improve the work and outcomes of small, rural, tribal, and border (SRTB) criminal justice agencies, the collection of information on how technology is currently used in the field would enable a better understanding of how best to provide support to these agencies. This report describes a feasibility study conducted by the Justice Innovation Center (JIC) to establish a survey panel of SRTB criminal justice agency representatives. The JIC survey panel would send out a short questionnaire each month to representatives to collect rapid feedback about what technology is being used in the field, how and why it was selected, the challenges and barriers departments face when using it, and where it is viewed as effective. Such a panel would enable researchers and policymakers to rapidly solicit practitioners' views on various topics of interest and thus collect up-to-date information on priorities and challenges in the field. To determine whether this idea is feasible, the JIC conducted several tasks across multiple phases. First, we used a convenience sample of agencies that we had interviewed for a previous assessment of SRTB technology needs to conduct a few months of surveys. Next, we developed and tested an online platform to collect and analyze data. Finally, we conducted an experiment to compare different recruitment methods to inform our future panel enrollment efforts. This report summarizes each of these research activities and provides an assessment of future directions for a survey panel. Key Findings The response rates achieved in our three pilot email surveys of SRTB criminal justice agencies were broadly comparable to those observed in other email-based surveys. They were somewhat lower than response rates reported by high-profile panel surveys of individuals and households (such as the RAND American Life Panel) and somewhat lower than some panel surveys of professionals and organizations (such as the RAND Educator Panels). The deployment of a web-based survey demonstrated that it was possible to use a technological solution that could automate numerous tasks and improve privacy arrangements without any concomitant losses in respondent engagement. The test of three methods to recruit panel participants yielded very poor results. The most successful method, email, resulted in a response rate of 7 percent, with even lower rates achieved via mail and phone. These low values capture only the percentage of respondents who agreed to join the panel, without any guarantee that they would respond to any subsequent panel surveys. To address these challenges, appropriate incentives for respondents may merit exploration. Recruitment activities for any future SRTB panel must either pursue a probability sampling strategy or not. The option of probability sampling is hampered by the fact that there are currently no readily available sampling frames for small, rural, and border courts and community corrections agencies. Recommendations Developing a panel of just one agency type may be desirable for two reasons: (1) to prove its utility to other agency types, thereby improving the likelihood that others will enroll; and (2) to concentrate efforts so that we can develop a valid real sampling frame and focus our resources. SRTB agencies are hard-to-reach groups, so focusing on a subset of the population will enable us to concentrate resources for recruitment on fewer potential respondents. We recommend starting with law enforcement or institutional corrections for two reasons: (1) there are already sampling frames of law enforcement agencies and jails to work from; and (2) surveys and censuses from these agencies are resource-intensive and infrequent, and it takes years for results to be released. Current issues in both local law enforcement and jails are in the forefront of the national news, but there are few opportunities to get information from a population-level sample with any sort of timely turnaround. Quick access to a representative panel from these agencies would be very useful in understanding how to most effectively support them. For a panel survey of this type to have maximum impact, it might be worthwhile to expand the scope of the survey to include all sizes of the different agency types for contrast. Currently, the majority of research is conducted in either large or medium-sized agencies, so having them in the survey for comparison with the small agencies would be very beneficial to put research results in perspective. This avenue could have wider applications beyond the SRTB audiences. Details: Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2017. 67p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 18, 2017 at: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2029.html Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2029.html Shelf Number: 147388 Keywords: Criminal Justice Administration Criminal Justice Agencies Information Technology Law Enforcement AgenciesNative Americans Rural Areas |
Author: Wilson, Jeremy M. Title: A Multi-Site Assessment of Police Consolidation: Final Summary Overview Summary: The United States is unique for its number of police agencies: nearly 18,000, including more than 12,000 local law enforcement agencies and more than 3,000 county sheriff's offices. Given this high number of agencies, scholars and policymakers have suggested for nearly a century that consolidation of agencies could yield efficiencies in the delivery of law enforcement services, as well as help to reduce corruption, improve services, and reduce crime. Consolidation has become increasingly common in some places (e.g., Los Angeles County, California, since the 1950s) and times (e.g., following the "Great Recession" of 2008 and early 2009). Yet there has been little systematic evidence on consolidation and its effects. Research on police consolidation has been scant, outdated, and limited to few settings. Much of it has been done by consultants seeking to bolster the case for municipalities seeking to undertake consolidation. The limited rigorous research on the topic has yielded mixed findings. To develop practical resources for policymakers and practitioners, we used a multi-method approach to examine the implementation and effectiveness of three models of police consolidation: merger of agencies, regionalization under which two or more agencies join to provide services in a broader area, and contracting by municipalities with other organizations for police services. Specifically, we conducted field visits, surveys of residents and police officers, and analysis of crime data in four communities that had consolidated their police services. These were - Compton, California, a city of 95,000 residents, which since 2001 had contracted with the Los Angeles County Sheriff for police services - Lakes Area, Minnesota, a police jurisdiction with 9,000 residents, formed by the 2004 merger of the police departments in the neighboring cities of Chisago and Lindstrom - Pontiac, Michigan, a city of 60,000 residents, which since 2011 has contracted with the Oakland County Sheriff for police services - York Area, Pennsylvania, a police jurisdiction of 60,000 residents, initially formed by the 2000 regionalization of police services in Windsor and York Townships, and which provides contract police services to several neighboring boroughs. We selected these communities because of their variety in size, model of consolidation, region of the country, and rates of crime, because their chiefs promised (and provided) support for the project, and because their consolidations were recent enough that institutional knowledge about the process and administrative data prior to the consolidation still existed and yet the consolidation was old enough that adequate post-consolidation data exist. To date, we have drafted four articles for academic journals based on this research. These include one article on the effects of consolidation on community crime, one article on attitudes of residents toward consolidation, and two articles on attitudes of police personnel toward consolidation. We review each of these below. Details: West Lansing: Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice, 2019. 12p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 18, 2019 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/252503.pdf Year: 2019 Country: United States URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/252503.pdf Shelf Number: 154636 Keywords: Law Enforcement AgenciesPolice Agencies Police Consolidation |