View From the Street: Police Leaders Share Their Perspectives on Urgent Policy and Research Issues Facing Law Enforcement in 2010 and Beyond - Panel at the 2010 NIJ Conference

• NCJ Number: 234758
• Date Published: June 2010
• Author(s): Stephanie Stoiloff; J. Michael Ward; Bernard K. Melekian; Charles Wellford
• Length: 7 pages
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Presentation; Presentation; Legislation/Policy Analysis; Conference Material

Annotation

This audio and transcript of a panel presentation at the 2010 NIJ 2010 Conference covers the comments of three police leaders about their perspectives on issues and programs that pertain to policies, programs, and technology in which their agencies have been involved.

Abstract

Stephanie Stoiloff - who commands the Forensic Services Bureau for the Miami Dade Police Department in Miami, FL - discusses the features and benefits of her agency's gun buyback program ("Gun Bounty") and use of mobile fingerprinting devices by officers in the field. The Gun Bounty program enables the agency to obtain ballistic information from the guns bought and trace their use in crimes known to the police, which facilitates locating suspects through the person who submitted the gun to receive money under the Gun Bounty program. The mobile fingerprint device enables officers to identify persons stopped by taking their fingerprints and determining whether they are on file in the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The second presenter - J. Michael Ward II, the Chief of the Alexandria Police Department (Kentucky) - discusses how a small, rural police agency uses training and cooperation with larger departments to achieve greater cost-effectiveness. Frontline officers are trained in multitasking; for example, training patrol officers to manage crime-scenes and drawing on the technologies of larger agencies to enhance data collection and analysis. The third presenter - Bernard K. Melekian, Director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and former police chief in Pasadena, CA , the fourth largest law enforcement agency in Los Angeles County - discusses police credibility, public trust, and connection with diverse populations in a community; achieving police legitimacy in interaction with the community; and achieving an integration of technology and community policing.