Law enforcement entities constantly try to establish ways for effective crime control. This activity has led to the development and usage of many different police technologies.
These technologies not only provide comprehensive information but also helps in collecting substantial evidence to fight crime in society. With the advancement of technology, law enforcement officers are also changing their ways to eliminate crime proactively.
Let’s discuss what different types of innovative police technologies law enforcement officers are currently using to fight crime better. Some such technologies include
It is used to not only find but also recover and preserve digital evidence, which is frequently associated with electronic crimes. These electronic crimes include credit card fraud, child pornography, and others. This software can also be used in cases of non-electric crimes such as leakage of bank account information, emails, and other private information.
The main purpose of this software is to improve safety and security in different situations. With its help, a criminal can be readily identified and arrested. One example is the arrest NYPD conducted of a rape suspect within 24 hours of the attack via facial recognition software, as per
University of San Diego report.
Fingerprints, which are one type of biometric data, are one of the many accurate methods used for personal identification. The FBI has also compiled a database named Next Generation Identification (NGI) system that aims to provide the criminal justice system with the world’s largest digital repository of the biometric information and criminal history (if any) of people. With these types of databases, law enforcement officers can more easily identify crime suspects.
It is another technology that is now incorporated into the police patrol car. It empowers the officers to control various functions of the vehicle and drive simultaneously. These voice systems may vary from vehicle to vehicle but mostly they can handle commands to run on a siren and run a license plate number. In some high-end cars, voice technology can be used to file reports easily as officers can dictate their notes into the RMS system of the agency.
It is a technology that is extremely helpful in dark and ill-lit situations. Some thermal image cameras are available in small hand-held units. They use infrared imaging technology and detect heat emitted by humans and animals. Then, they provide a heat map or heat picture of the environment under scrutiny. Moreover, this thermal imaging can be used to track the motion of criminal suspects. It has vast applications as it can be used in firefighting, search and rescue missions, as well as other such scenarios.
Google location immensely helps law enforcement in crime control. It provides information about the location of a device at a particular time, which can be very useful in cases such as homicides, rapes and burglaries. Moreover, location-based data serves as evidence in criminal trials.
Geofencing in law enforcement refers to the creation of virtual boundaries or perimeters around specific geographic areas. These technologies include GPS, Wi-Fi, cellular data, or other location-based technologies. Law enforcement can monitor the area within the geofence for different purposes; for example, surveillance, investigations, and especially public safety. Geofencing also enables automatic alerts when individuals or vehicles cross the virtual boundaries that have been set up. All this can help law enforcement quickly respond to crimes and keep communities safe.
Different information-sharing technologies are available on the market now that law enforcement professionals can use to enhance communication. It is believed that these technologies help bridge the gap between different law enforcement entities, including the higher ups and general public. Excel is another preferred option to communicate complex information in simple and easy-to-understand ways with others. It helps in the reduction of miscommunication and enhances collaboration between different departments.
Many innovations have been made to police cars with the passage of time. Some such innovative upgrades include fingerprint-protected access to laptops, tablets, and in-dash computers. This enables police officers to have instant access to crucial information just in time. In addition, smarter police cruisers enable enhanced dash cam capabilities for information collection. This data can then be further analysed and evaluated by using data and crime analysis skills.
Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), can be optimally used in law enforcement to obtain aerial vantage points for different criminal cases, including search and rescue missions, accident reconstruction, crime scene work. Some more sophisticated drone models also incorporate thermal imaging and three-dimensional mapping software to provide on-point GPS precision, which means that prior to the use of drones, you must have insightful and accurate data and information.
While going through the above list of police technologies, you must have noticed how most of them either operate on data or provide data-based outputs. It shows how important it is to use skillful expertise when dealing with data, thus emphasising the criticality of learning how to gather, manage, and analyse data effectively.
So the next question would naturally be ‘how can we learn data skills to leverage these police technologies?’. The answer to this question lies in getting a law enforcement certification through a high-quality course. Finding an accredited certification is an excellent option because those courses are recognized by reputed organisations that provide top-quality learning and hands-on experience.
You can easily get enrolled in online law enforcement training and start learning data-based skills from the comfort of your own home. By doing so, you can leverage the use of police technologies more efficiently and fight crime with more tools at your disposal.
BlueForce Learning is an online certification platform for law enforcement professionals, crime analysts, and law and criminal justice students and professors. Our vision is to enable law enforcement professionals to fight crime with data. To fulfill this vision, we offer a wide range of data analysis based courses and training so that you can choose the one most relevant for you and your field. So, get enrolled now in our certification course and have as of today ongoing access to all course materials!
