Policing Matters

From reducing the time it takes for a candidate to go through the recruitment process to profiling the unique backgrounds of CHP officers, the nation's largest state police agency is taking a proactive approach to recruiting the next generation of cops.   In this episode of Policing Matters, host Jim Dudley speaks with  Recruitment Officer Caleb Benefiel  about the police recruitment best practice...

Statistically, school shootings are not a regular occurrence, but they are alarming tragedies that we all need to do our best to prevent. Is your agency collaborating with your school district to implement threat assessment programs? Two decades ago, the Orange County Sheriff's Department in Southern California launched its School Mobile Assessment and Resource Team (SMART), a multi-discipline, th...

Are we doing the best job in teaching the current era of law enforcement recruits? Should we change styles and methods of pedagogy to focus on techniques that resonate with Generation Z candidates? These are some of the questions Policing Matters host Jim Dudley and his co-presenter Janay Gasparini, Ph. D., discussed at the recent National Association of Field Training Officers conference in Louis...

Everyone remembers where they were on September 11, 2001. In the aftermath, do you remember the urgency to strengthen our national defenses, plans and intelligence to prevent another such attack on our country, our infrastructure and our cyber systems? Are we doing that today? For law enforcement, fire, EMS and military personnel, there is an excellent opportunity to share your expertise to contri...

There is no national model of police response to active shooter and mass shooting incidents and sometimes we get a less-than-optimum response that invites criticism. It doesn’t help that the public has a dichotomy of expectations from law enforcement: rush in ready to shoot or de-escalate and negotiate, and some agencies are even folding up operations and leaving barricaded suspects if they pose n...

Policing is hard work, but when working in an urban environment, backup is usually relatively close by. Other resources like fire and EMS are only a few minutes away as well.    In rural settings, things are very different. Back-up may be miles away – and we are talking country miles away – so too are other resources. Even a quick trip to book a prisoner or process evidence may take an hour or mor...

"One of the biggest evolutions in field training is that the program molds to the student as adults learn in different ways," says Dan Greene, the executive director of the National Association of Field Training Officers (NAFTO) . As a former FTO and FTO supervisor, Dan knows what FTOs need to become better trainers and educators. At the recent NAFTO conference in Louisville, Kentucky, Policing Ma...

Police officers are often terrific storytellers. Many express an interest in writing a book about their experiences, but life can get in the way and few cops sit down to begin the process. This isn't the case for a guest on this episode of Policing Matters. Jim Calams , a retired member of the Phoenix Police Department and LAPD, recently published “Unwavering Honor,” a book about his career in tho...

Law enforcement officers are exposed to more tragedy and trauma than the general population. What impact does this have on the mental well-being of cops?   In this episode of Policing Matters, host Jim Dudley speaks with Chief Joel Shults, who operates  Street Smart Training  and is the founder of the National  Center for Police Advocacy , about some of the complex issues around officer PTSD and r...

Catalytic converter thefts have soared in recent years, thanks largely to the spiking prices of precious metals contained within them. This sudden rise has created an urgent need for police to find ways to deter thefts. To help law enforcement agencies address the crisis, CARFAX for Police compiled a Catalytic Converter Replacement Report that identifies the most-targeted vehicles nationally, regi...

Following the tragic school shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012, Troy Anderson managed the Connecticut State Police CISM teams that were deployed on-site and tasked with providing interventions and debriefings for the affected members of the State Police, municipal and federal law enforcement partners, first responder staff, support personnel,...

Many of the technologies we have seen in movies about law enforcement in the future are now part of everyday life. "Westworld" featured autonomous cars, while individually focused branding and advertising featured in "Minority Report." In "Blade Runner," retinal scans are used as a means of interview and interrogation.   As life sometimes imitates art, we now have EyeDetect from Converus , an eye...

Digital forensics has been a specialty science in law enforcement for several years now, with emerging technology and investigative revelations happening every year. The science behind digital evidence recovery, be it from a cell phone, computer or even the cloud, takes a skilled investigator who knows what they are doing. In this episode of Policing Matters, host Jim Dudley speaks with Deputy Dir...

Managing police officers is a difficult task since the job is so multi-faceted and often fast-paced. We ask officers to do so many things, and in the process to be smart, thoughtful, judicious, efficient and thorough. Some people make assumptions that an officer has complete control over their environment. Of course, this is not true. Officers can be well trained, yet may be challenged in dealing...

Since the D.C. Council voted in 2020 to cut the police budget by $15 million, there has been a 28% increase in violent crime, a 55% increase in robberies, an 18% increase in carjackings and, as of 2021, the highest number of homicides in nearly two decades. On April 15, 2022, Salah Czapary published an  op-ed  in The Washington Post titled "No one asked for fewer DC police doing more work." Salah...

We are at a crossroads in policing. What are the long-term effects on law enforcement of defunding, COVID-19, the recruitment crisis, and public perception? What about AI? Technology? Less lethal weapons? How do all these things impact officer safety and morale? Wouldn’t it be great to get a glimpse into the future to give assurance to our veteran officers and their families to stay the course and...

In this episode of Policing Matters, host Jim Dudley sits down with Troy Anderson, the executive director of officer safety and wellness at NLEOMF to discuss officer safety trends nationwide. Each year, in preparation for Police1's coverage of National Police Week, we speak with someone from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), the organization that built and continues to...

Sergeant Dalton Webb is a 17-year veteran of the Fort Worth Police Department and founder of Fort Worth's Real-Time Crime Center, which he began when he was an officer assigned to the intelligence section. Since then, the Fort Worth RTCC has grown into a 24/7 operation with 16 sworn officers and is the information and intelligence hub of the Fort Worth Police Department. Sergeant Webb is now a nat...

Relationships are difficult to maintain in the best of times. Add the stress of current times, including the economy and the pandemic, and you have a recipe for stressed-out relationships. And if one or both partners are in law enforcement presents a whole array of additional issues. Do law enforcement couples have a higher rate of divorce than the general public? Are there tried and true ways of...

Retired Long Beach Police Department Sgt. Jason Lehman's mission is to reduce violence between peace officers and community through education. In this episode of Policing Matters, he chats with host Jim Dudley about how education and effective communication can improve both officer and community safety. This episode of the Policing Matters Podcast is sponsored by the Master of Science in Law Enfor...

We are all leaders and we are all followers. Whether your police career plan is to stay on patrol or to promote to sergeant or above, there are daily practices you can adopt to improve your leadership skills. In this episode of Policing Matters, host Jim Dudley speaks with retired Police Captain Andy Borrello on how to develop a toolkit of effective leadership traits.

In this episode of Policing Matters, host Jim Dudley speaks with retired Assistant Chief Jonni Redick , leader, mentor and author of The Survival Guide to Law Enforcement Promotional Preparation ,” about how officers can prepare for promotion and how law enforcement agencies can (and must) build leadership pipelines.  This episode of the Policing Matters Podcast is sponsored by the Master of Scien...

So many factors are involved before the use of force by a police officer. Officers are training in de-escalation and defensive tactics, and then there are the behaviors exhibited by the subject that officers must respond to. In the aftermath, the critics come out from internal and external review boards, the public, elected officials, the media and even other law officers. Certainly, some use-of-f...

It is no surprise that most respondents to Police1’s second annual State of the Industry survey indicated that communication is key to being a good supervisor. Along with that, the 2,376 respondents indicated that they want law enforcement leaders who: Care about their officers; Have technical knowledge of the job; Ensure equal distribution of workload among all their officers; Acknowledge the eff...

Ask any new cop what they want to be doing after they do their time in patrol. Some will say to go to narcotics, or K-9, or maybe to promote up the ranks. Chances are a lot will say they want to be a detective, but not just any kind of detective, they want to work homicide. However, is it really all it’s cracked up to be? This week's Policing Matters guest will answer that question and provide a g...