The role of law enforcement

Assess the role of law enforcement and corrections in the future. What does the role of state and local police or corrections look like in five year? What about in ten years?

I believe that from out readings the use of technology will continue to grow in the field of law enforcement and corrections. Has the cost comes down on technology that was created for other fields like space exploration and civil engineering and medicine and become more common place I think they will have additional applications that will be discovered. Currently the use of facial recognition software, scanners and computers were all technology designed for other occupations but found their way into law enforcement.

From what I read computer networks will become more inter-connected linking many more databases with each other. From my understanding that networks pose a security risk because if one system is hacked, all the systems are exposed to the breech. There is a entire field of occupation just in computer security. I think that field will be embraced by more local and state agencies has other jurisdictions come under attack from cyber criminals.

One problem is data based policing where “reams of data particularly data focused on the time, distribution, and geography of past events into a database and ferret out patterns that would not be apparent to the human eye or brain.”(Greengard2012) while this seems like an easy fix to predict crime trends it seems like the information coming back is vague, giving only general locations where crime could occur. This does nothing to locate the offenders and seems to direct police to areas that have already been hit. Perhaps the system would been to be paired with something more real time, I am not sure.

The paper called USA: the next big thing the authors talk about what could be in the future of law enforcement in the next ten years. The new idea is intelligence led policing where police tactics and community-based contact can be used to gather intelligence. The article also talked about problem-oriented policing where the idea is address problems in the community before they become big problems, and COMSTAT was used to compile data to map out crime trends. I do not know how well they work; no one seems to, but those systems are expensive. I would think handheld devices like iPad with wifi would become more useful then laptops on the streets.

Have a good day.

Greengard, S. (2012). Policing the Future. Retrieved from https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/3/146249-policing-the-future/fulltext

Joph, C., Colleen, K., & Connie, K. (2010). The USA: The next big thing. Retrieved from https://web-a-ebscohost-com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=924164ad-967a-416b-aa91-ef7351006f3f%40sdc-v-sessmgr03&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwJnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=54595183&db=tsh