New from COPS
Combat Deployment and the Returning Police Officer
This report examines issues concerning police officers’ transition back to work after
combat zone deployment. Topics include the psychological effects of combat
deployment, methods that may lessen the severity of combat stress experienced,
and strategies used by police agencies to help officers returning back to work, their
families, and communities. The report highlights the responses of four police
agencies that have taken measures to assist returning officers, and offers
recommendations for further study.
www.cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/ResourceDetail.aspx?RID=471.
Identifying and Measuring the Effects
of Information Technologies on Law Enforcement Agencies
This guide by the Institute for Law and Justice provides information that will help police
departments measure the effects of information technologies to support community policing
activities. The guide is based on the results of an assessment of the COPS Office’s 2002
Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) grantees; however, the results apply to any
agency that is considering or has recently made a technology purchase. The guide is
relevant to departments of all sizes and covers a variety of applications—automated field
reporting systems, computer aided dispatch, records management systems, and others. The
guide focuses on the three E’s–efficiency, effectiveness, and enabling–which identify the different
ways the technology may affect agencies. The intent is to provide practical measures based
on these three E’s for how information technologies contribute to achieving department
goals and can be used to examine the merits of such expenditures..
www.cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/ResourceDetail.aspx?RID=475.
Planning and Assessing a Law Enforcement Reentry Strategy
Today’s high rates of prison recidivism point to significant public safety challenges.
Using proven problem-solving approaches, this guide identifies factors that drive the
cycle of prison reentry, analyzes its causes, and presents ways community policing
activities and partnerships can help individuals transition from jails or prisons back
into the community. Developed by the Council of State Governments Justice Center
and the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), this resource includes materials to
assess effectiveness, set priorities, and plan new strategies to deal with the
challenges of this special group.
www.cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/ResourceDetail.aspx?RID=461.