Criminal Justice Technology in the News

Law Enforcement News

How Can Police Presence in Schools Help With Prevention?
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Gazette, (Vol. 80, No. 2, 2018)
This article presents a panel interview with four RCMP officers who talk about the pros and cons of school policing, and how it can impact students' actions.
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California Testing Digital License Plates
Officer.com, (05/31/2018), Tony Bizjak for the Sacramento Bee
California has launched a pilot program that allows drivers to buy digital license plates. The digital plates eliminate the need for registration stickers and can be used to track the car if it is stolen. The plates will retail for $699, and privacy concerns have already been raised.
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AT&T Presents an 'It Can Wait' Virtual Reality Simulator to New York Police Troop A
Niagara Frontier Publications, (06/05/2018)
AT&T has donated an "It Can Wait" 3-D virtual reality simulator to the New York State Police Troop A in Batavia. The VR can be used across Western New York for public safety education and programing. Troop A covers Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Niagara, Orleans and Wyoming counties.
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Police Shine Spotlight on Homeless Pets
ArkLaTex.com, (06/06/2018), Heather Wright
The Texarkana (Texas) Police Department is using its Facebook page to spotlight pets from the Animal Care & Adoption Center. Dubbed "Too Cute Tuesday," the project attempts to put a human face on the police department and encourages local residents to think of the shelter first when they're looking for a pet.
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‘Facebook of Suspects' Now Up and Running in Lancaster County; Police Expect Increase in Safety
Fox 43, (06/06/2018)
Fifteen police departments and the District Attorney's Office County Detective division in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County now share data via the CODY COBRA.net bridge system. The bridge allows them to view each other's Records Management Systems (RMS), greatly expanding investigative capabilities.
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Corrections News

Some Maine Jails Have Used Naloxone on Inmates
Miami Herald, (06/05/2018), Marina Villeneuve for the Associated Press
A 2017 Maine state law allows certified corrections officers, for the first time, to administer naloxone. Previously only police officers and medical professionals could administer the drug. Correctional officers at jails in Androscoggin, York and Somerset counties in Maine have already used naloxone spray to revive overdosing inmates.
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Students Use VR to Help Former Inmates
VR Focus, (05/28/2018), Rebecca Hills-Duty
Students in the Education Justice Project at the University of Illinois have designed a virtual reality program to help soon-to-be-released prisoners get used to the technology of the modern-day world. Scenarios help inmates deal with tasks such as using public transportation, buying self-serve gasoline or ordering food at a self-serve kiosk. The tasks were selected by polling former inmates about what caused them the most difficulty after release.
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In Prison, ‘Reimagining Justice' — and a Governor's Legacy
The CT Mirror, (05/31/2018), Mark Pazniokas
In Connecticut's Cheshire Correctional Institution, the 16-month-old T.R.U.E. Program provides a therapeutic community for inmates ages 18 to 25. Specially trained corrections officers and inmate mentors lead a program based on education and life skills that keep inmates busy with tasks throughout the day. All officers volunteered for the program, which has a goal of developing a model for a prison that is safer for staff and productive for inmates.
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S.C. Prisons' Switch to Electronic Medical Records Expected to Improve Inmates' Care, Save Money
The Post and Courier, (06/03/2018), Mary Katherine Wildeman
A pilot electronic records program launched in two facilities in 2017 is expected to go statewide in South Carolina correctional facilities before the end of this year. The system has been using a combination of paper records and an outdated system developed during the 1980s to keep track of the health records of approximately 20,000 inmates.
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Body Scanners Halt Inmate Overdoses at Berks County Facility
The Morning Call, (06/03/2018), Pamela Lehman
This article looks at the use of an extremely sophisticated body scanner at the Wernersville Community Corrections Center in Berks County, Pa. The device, which comes with a $100,000 price tag, seems to have eliminated drug overdoses at the halfway house, where residents had overdosed 32 times in the previous two years.
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How San Quentin Inmates Built a Search Engine for Prison
Wired, (06/01/2018), Issie Lapowsky
Participants in California's The Last Mile computer coding program ran into a problem: since they are unable to access the Internet, they could not search for information. So they built their own version of a search engine, JOLT, which can search the prison library system and help them quickly find the information they need to learn more of the skills they need to succeed on release.
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Michigan Set to Close Another Prison Next Year
Detroit News, (06/05/2018), Beth LeBlanc
Michigan plans to close an as-yet-unnamed correctional facility under the 2018-2019 fiscal year budget recently approved by a joint legislative conference committee. Closing a facility could save the Michigan Department of Corrections approximately $19 million.
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