This study reports on strategic planning activities supporting the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in the area of information technology, collecting and analyzing data on law enforcement needs and identifying potential solutions through technology assessment studies, extensive outreach and liaison activities, and subject matter expert panels.
Privacy is a growing concern in the United States and around the world. The spread of the Internet and the seemingly boundaryless options for collecting, saving, sharing, and comparing information trigger consumer worries. Online practices of business and government agencies may present new ways to compromise privacy, and e-commerce and technologies that make a wide range of personal information available to anyone with a Web browser only begin to hint at the possibilities for inappropriate or unwarranted intrusion into our personal lives. Engaging Privacy and Information Technology in a Digital Age presents a comprehensive and multidisciplinary examination of privacy in the information age. It explores such important concepts as how the threats to privacy evolving, how can privacy be protected and how society can balance the interests of individuals, businesses and government in ways that promote privacy reasonably and effectively? This book seeks to raise awareness of the web of connectedness among the actions one takes and the privacy policies that are enacted, and provides a variety of tools and concepts with which debates over privacy can be more fruitfully engaged. Engaging Privacy and Information Technology in a Digital Age focuses on three major components affecting notions, perceptions, and expectations of privacy: technological change, societal shifts, and circumstantial discontinuities. This book will be of special interest to anyone interested in understanding why privacy issues are often so intractable.
"This report describes the results of the Law Enforcement Futuring Workshop, which was held at RAND's Washington Office in Arlington, Virginia, from July 22 to 25, 2014. The objective of this workshop was to identify high-priority technology needs for law enforcement based on consideration of current and future trends in society, technology, and law enforcement over a ten- to 20-year time period. During the workshop, participants developed sets of future scenarios, constructed pathways from the present to alternative futures, and considered how law enforcement use of technology might affect these pathways. They then identified technology needs (including training and changes in policies or practice) that, if addressed, could enable pathways to desirable futures or prevent or mitigate the effects of pathways to undesirable futures. On the final days of the workshop, the technology needs were prioritized using a Delphi method. The output of this workshop described in the report included ten future scenarios and 30 technology needs. The technology needs fell into three general categories--technology-related knowledge and practice, information sharing and use, and technology research and development--and were placed into three priority tiers"--Back cover.
Under the American federal system, most law is cast as state statutes and local ordinances; accordingly, most law enforcement is the responsibility of state and local agencies. Federal law and federal law enforcement come into play only where there is rationale for it, consistent with the Constitution. Within this framework, a clear role has been identified for federal support of state and local agencies. This report provides findings of a study of technology in use or needed by law enforcement agencies at the state and local level, for the purpose of informing federal policymakers as they consider technology-related support for these agencies. In addition, it seeks to characterize the obstacles that exist to technology adoption by law enforcement agencies and to characterize the perceived effects of federal assistance programs intended to facilitate the process. The study findings are based on a nationwide Law Enforcement Technology Survey and a similar Forensics Technology Survey (FTS) conducted in late spring and early summer2000, interviews conducted throughout the year, focus groups conducted in autumn 2000, and review of an extensive, largely nonacademic literature. Companion reports: Schwabe, William, Needs and Prospects for Crime-Fighting Technology: The Federal Role in Assisting State and Local Law Enforcement, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1999. Davis, Lois M., William Schwabe, and Ronald Fricker, Challenges and Choices for Crime-Fighting Technology: Results from Two Nationwide Surveys, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2001.
This report describes the results of a National Institute of Justice (NIJ)-sponsored research effort to identify and prioritize criminal justice needs related to digital evidence collection, management, analysis, and use. With digital devices becoming ubiquitous, digital evidence is increasingly important to the investigation and prosecution of many types of crimes. These devices often contain information about crimes committed, movement of suspects, and criminal associates. However, there are significant challenges to successfully using digital evidence in prosecutions, including inexperience of patrol officers and detectives in preserving and collecting digital evidence, lack of familiarity with digital evidence on the part of court officials, and an overwhelming volume of work for digital evidence examiners. Through structured interaction with police digital forensic experts, prosecuting attorneys, a privacy advocate, and industry representatives, the effort identified and prioritized specific needs to improve utilization of digital evidence in criminal justice. Several top-tier needs emerged from the analysis, including education of prosecutors and judges regarding digital evidence opportunities and challenges; training for patrol officers and investigators to promote better collection and preservation of digital evidence; tools for detectives to triage analysis of digital evidence in the field; development of regional models to make digital evidence analysis capability available to small departments; and training to address concerns about maintaining the currency of training and technology available to digital forensic examiners.
This intelligence guide was prepared in response to requests from law enforcement executives for guidance in intelligence functions in a post-September 11 world. It will help law enforcement agencies develop or enhance their intelligence capacity and enable them to fight terrorism and other crimes while preserving community policing relationships. The world of law enforcement intelligence has changed dramatically since September 11, 2001. State, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies have been tasked with a variety of new responsibilities; intelligence is just one. In addition, the intelligence discipline has evolved significantly in recent years. As these various trends have merged, increasing numbers of American law enforcement agencies have begun to explore, and sometimes embrace, the intelligence function. This guide is intended to help them in this process. The guide is directed primarily toward state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies of all sizes that need to develop or reinvigorate their intelligence function. Rather than being a manual to teach a person how to be an intelligence analyst, it is directed toward that manager, supervisor, or officer who is assigned to create an intelligence function. It is intended to provide ideas, definitions, concepts, policies, and resources. It is a primera place to start on a new managerial journey. Every law enforcement agency in the United States, regardless of agency size, must have the capacity to understand the implications of information collection, analysis, and intelligence sharing. Each agency must have an organized mechanism to receive and manage intelligence as well as a mechanism to report and share critical information with other law enforcement agencies. In addition, it is essential that law enforcement agencies develop lines of communication and information-sharing protocols with the private sector, particularly those related to the critical infrastructure, as well as with those private entities that are potential targets of terrorists and criminal enterprises. Not every agency has the staff or resources to create a formal intelligence unit, nor is it necessary in smaller agencies. This document will provide common language and processes to develop and employ an intelligence capacity in SLTLE agencies across the United States as well as articulate a uniform understanding of concepts, issues, and terminology for law enforcement intelligence (LEI). While terrorism issues are currently most pervasive in the current discussion of LEI, the principles of intelligence discussed in this document apply beyond terrorism and include organized crime and entrepreneurial crime of all forms. Drug trafficking and the associated crime of money laundering, for example, continue to be a significant challenge for law enforcement. Transnational computer crime, particularly Internet fraud, identity theft cartels, and global black marketeering of stolen and counterfeit goods, are entrepreneurial crime problems that are increasingly being relegated to SLTLE agencies to investigate simply because of the volume of criminal incidents. Similarly, local law enforcement is being increasingly drawn into human trafficking and illegal immigration enterprises and the often associated crimes related to counterfeiting of official documents, such as passports, visas, driver's licenses, Social Security cards, and credit cards. All require an intelligence capacity for SLTLE, as does the continuation of historical organized crime activities such as auto theft, cargo theft, and virtually any other scheme that can produce profit for an organized criminal entity. To be effective, the law enforcement community must interpret intelligence-related language in a consistent manner. In addition, common standards, policies, and practices will help expedite intelligence sharing while at the same time protecting the privacy of citizens and preserving hard-won community policing relationships.~
This research report analyses the impact of information technology on policing, using the QPS as a case study. It examines the extent to which the implementation of information technology has modified the accountability structure and the occupational culture of policing and whether information technology has significantly altered police practices at the street, supervisory and management levels.
