Law enforcementLaw enforcement agencies use technology to compensate for shrinking budgets

With funding shrinking in many sectors of law enforcement, agencies are searching for new ways to operate affordably while maintaining quality standards.

As Government Technology reports, professors and economists are urging agencies such as police departments to cut back on spending in the face of shrinking budgets. George Bascom and Todd Foglesong of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government published a report entitled Making Policing More Affordable, in which the two highlight the quadrupling of police budgets between 1982 and 2006. With federal budgets slimming due to the effects of the 2008 economic recession, they argue that there are simply too many opposing trends to continue with police budgeting-as-usual.

Some police departments are responding to the challenge. The Camden Police Department in New Jersey is aiming to run a “smarter police force” which will not only operate effectively, but also use intelligence to cover up for budgetary constraints. Camden Police Department Chief Scott Thomson has announced plans to use new technologies as a “force multiplier” which will assist the department and provide tactical and operational intelligence to a central command center. There, real-time data will be fed back to the officers, linking them to a greater group of operatives with a broader skill set and ability.

“They are getting better at procuring technology that can deliver capabilities they didn’t have before,” said Robert Davis, the director of research at the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).

Though this system is still being developed and put into practice, the city is reporting a decreased murder rate since 2012.

Despite these solutions, many within these departments are still concerned about the well-being of individual officers who may be in situations where they are overworked or overwhelmed by the technological assistance.

“It’s a very subjective business in many ways,” said Jim Bueermann, the president of the Police Foundation. “There has to be a balance between the technology and the cop. If you lose the human side to policing, then you lose the compassion that’s part of the job.”

In anticipation of these changes, the PERF also conducted a survey of its members to find out which changes could be the most beneficial. Foremost among these was the need for a nationwide public safety broadband network, which is already coming into being with federal funding for FirstNet, a customizable wireless network aimed at providing officers with apps that can serve their needs on local, state, and national levels. Second is the need for a text-based 911 emergency system due to the growing use of text devices. Lastly, members of PERF saw crime centers that operate in real-time much like the Camden departments efforts, and a ramped-up focus on cybercrime, as some of the highest priorities in the next decade.