IACP Division of State Associations of Chiefs of Police News

Free Crime Prevention Training
The Bureau of Justice Assistance has awarded a grant to SACOP for the develop­ment of crime prevention training to be deliv­ered to ten state association conferences by September 31, 2006.

A committee of SACOP members from the Smaller Department Section and the IACP Crime Prevention Committee will develop this training. This committee will design and de­velop a three-hour training session that will demonstrate the necessity of crime prevention as an integral part of agency operations and provide tools to begin the process. The training will illustrate the link between homeland secu­rity and hometown security. The approach is law enforcement-centered and geared to chief executive officers.

This three-hour training session is offered to 10 state associations for use at their conferences. It is offered on a first-come, first-served basis and is free of charge. Five associations have al­ready requested this training. It will be piloted at the SACOP midyear conference (March 4-7, 2006, in Alexandria, Virginia) and will be available for presentation after its debut.

To foster the community partnerships that this training advocates, associations taking ad­vantage of this training will be asked to provide a local or state crime prevention organization booth or material space at no cost. Though the training is law enforcement-designed and- delivered, the state conferences provide a good vehicle for community crime prevention groups to gain exposure and encourage partnerships.

Local Impaired Driving Enforcement Study
Under a grant funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, SACOP undertook a nationwide project to measure the level of local and municipal agen­cies' support for and participation in impaired driving enforcement efforts. While focused primarily on local law enforcement, the ques­tionnaire was also open to state police agen­cies, university police, sheriffs, and others that are involved in traffic enforcement.

Between February 17 and March 28, 2005, SACOP solicited participation from the state associations and their members. A total of 2,076 usable responses were received through the Internet, and every state in the nation is represented. Each state association has re­ceived a report that shows results for that state and shows how the state compares to others in its SACOP region and to the nation as a whole. All state results are posted on the IACP Web site, at (www.theiacp.org), undercurrent projects of the divisions, sections, and committees.

Printed copies that contain data for all 50 states and the SACOP regions are available on request.

Due to the success of the questionnaire and the responses, NHTSA has awarded another grant to SACOP to develop the information from the study and conduct further traffic safe­ty and impaired driving initiatives. The next phase of the project will involve contacting re­sponding agencies to gather more detailed in­formation on identifying successful strategies for sustained DWI enforcement and barriers preventing that enforcement.

Study Reviews Police Recruitment and Retention Challenges
Local police agencies struggling to attract and retain high-quality law enforcement offi­cers should develop long-range planning strate­gies to help meet their future labor needs, ac­cording to a Rand Corporation report. The study says local police agencies are usually fo­cused on near-term objectives, such as daily staffing and mandatory training requirements. But to better adapt to new homeland security duties and a changing labor force, police agen­cies should also develop plans to recruit enough new officers with needed skills, the study says.

Ways to recruit needed officers include reg­ularly surveying young people to gauge inter­est in police work; closely analyzing the skills needed among future officers; and forecasting the personnel needed for future challenges, the report says.

The study says forecasting and planning for police personnel needs could be spearhead­ed at the national level by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or by a national trade organization. Many states also have organiza­tions that could work on planning for police. A central resource for personnel issues would particularly benefit smaller police agencies.

In addition, the Rand study suggests it might be possible for police to conduct surveys on youth demographics and attitudes. Such surveys could help gauge whether young peo­ple are interested in law enforcement careers and whether police need to make changes to attract the best candidates.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, local police agencies have accepted new duties related to homeland security, particular­ly in jurisdictions with likely targets such as airports and seaports. Police also have as­sumed new intelligence duties, such as work­ing with federal law enforcement officials to identify potential terrorist activity.

Meanwhile, police departments are antici­pating a wave of retirements among aging baby boomers and are reexamining the skills needed by recruits as departments adopt more community policing policies, which empha­size communication skills. In addition, police may face increased competition for recruits from an expanding number of federal and private security jobs.

"Police Personnel Challenges after Septem­ber 11: Anticipating Expanded Duties and a Changing Labor Pool" (ISBN: 0-8330-3850-8) is available electronically at (www.rand.org).

CAD Standard Endorsed
The IJIS Institute announced that its board of directors, on behalf of the 140 member and affiliated companies of the IJIS Institute, has endorsed the functional specifications for computer-aided dispatching systems that was de­veloped by the Law Enforcement Information Technology Standards Council.

The Law Enforcement Information Technol­ogy Standards Council (LEITSC) is funded by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs, whose mission is to foster the growth of strategic planning and implementation of in­tegrated justice systems. LEITSC is composed of four of the nation's leading law enforcement or­ganizations: the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the Nation­al Sheriffs' Association, and the Police Executive Research Forum. Together, participants from these organizations represent the law enforce­ment community as a whole on information technology standards related issues.

In announcing the industry endorsement, Paul Wormeli, executive director of the institute said that "this new standard will have a very positive impact on improving the quality and ca­pability of computer aided dispatching software throughout the country. As industry and practi­tioner organizations take advantage of the stan­dard to develop approaches for implementing CAD systems, there will be a vast improvement in communicating and setting expectations for what a good CAD system should offer."

The publication is written to help agencies define their requirements and to help compa­nies who create CAD software to understand what the basic capability of a CAD system should be, including the need to accommodate variations in dispatching operations and size. It is not intended to be a request for proposal without the agency examining the functionali­ty referenced in the standard to determine its own particular needs. Wormeli added that "companies will use this standard to improve their product planning and management."

This first publication by LEITSC, available at (www.leitsc.org), was created under the direction of a functional standards committee working with input from both industry and practitioner organizations to ensure a realistic and useful set of standards. The IJIS Institute served as a subcontractor to LEITSC to draft materials that were then reviewed and modified by the practitioners on the functional steering commit­tee. URL Integration, a member of the IJIS Institute, used its computer-based requirements modeling tool to assemble the draft materials. Each of the participating organizations in LEITSC were then asked to vet the document through their respective committees to ensure a common agreement and the widest possible support for the standard.

The recently finished work was reviewed by the IJIS Institute Law Enforcement Informa­tion Technology Standards Advisory Commit­tee (LEITSAC), chaired by Neil Kurlander of Asychrony, a retired chief of police in Mary­land Heights, Missouri, who made the recom­mendation to the board of directors regarding the endorsement of the standard.

LEITSAC has completed its review of the records management system specification and will make appropriate recommendations for its endorsement to the board. The next step is to develop the technical standards for exchanges embodied in the functional standards reports.

For more information about Law Enforce­ment Information Technology Standards Council, visit the Web site, at (www.leitsc.org), call Heather Ruzbasan at 800-THE-IACP exten­sion 275, or send a message to her at (ruzbasan@theiacp.org) or call. For more infor­mation about the IJIS Institute, call Paul Wormeli at 703-726-3697, or write to him at (paul.wormeli@ijis.org).

Interpol's Stolen Travel Document Database
Leaders of the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Eco­nomic Cooperation grouping have endorsed the use of Interpol's stolen travel documents database to help prevent terrorists and other dangerous international criminals from circu­lating freely around the world, making it the latest major international body to do so. APEC's member countries account for more than a third of the world's population (2.6 bil­lion people) and approximately 40 percent of world trade.

Interpol's global stolen travel documents database has grown from a few thousand en­tries just three years ago to more than 8.5 mil­lion today. The number of stolen passports that have been identified by law enforcement offi­cers in the field through accessing Interpol's database jumped from 27 in 2002 to more than 700 in 2005.

Interpol and its 184 member countries have identified a clear link between terrorist activi­ties and the use of lost or stolen travel docu­ments. Interpol recognizing that both a global database and a global strategy are needed to prevent terrorists from crossing borders illegal­ly created its global database in 2002 to allow police and customs officials to prevent danger­ous international criminals from using fraudu­lent, stolen or lost passports, visas, or other travel documents. Police and customs officers using Interpol's global police communications system, known as I-24/7, can access instanta­neously an array of databases, international wanted persons notices, and other crucial crim­inal information.

For more information, write to the Interpol Communications and Publications Office by e-mail at (press@interpol.int), call APEC spokesperson Christopher Hawkins at +61-433-810-844, or write to him at (ch@apec.org). ■

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