Law enforcement officials maintain a delicate relationship with the communities they protect. They must ensure the safety of citizens while also acting as a force for justice. As communities and law enforcement activities become more complex, officials are seeking out new ways to handle relationship management and avoid risk. CivSource spoke with Captain Mark Long [...]
Dell and the American Red Cross are launching a new digital operations center – the first social media based operation devoted to humanitarian relief. The Red Cross is also recruiting digital volunteers to help respond to questions and provide information to the public about disasters as they happen.
Last month I attended the International Disaster Conference & Expo in New Orleans along with former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. It was an extraordinary event with more than 1,400 people from 27 countries represented. The prominent list of speakers, including Secretary Ridge, made it clear that the topic of crisis management, emergency response [...]
Rochester, Minnesota and Las Vegas, Nevada are teaming up with IBM on using predicitive analytics for law enforcement. The efforts are part of IBM’s broader Smarter Cities initiative which uses analytics and other tools to provide big data to officials about how their cities and states look and operate. CivSource spoke with Mark Cleverley, Director, [...]
Congress may be moving forward on the public safety broadband network, but some Governors say that there isn’t enough involvement from state officials – the primary users of the proposed network. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and Wyoming Gov. Matthew Mead (R), co-chairmen of the homeland security committee of the National Governors Association (NGA), have [...]
Verizon Wireless and Durham North Carolina have partnered to start a pilot that will allow residents to send a text message to 911. The pilot will last for six months and will allow 911 dispatch to handle text based calls in addition to voice. Durham is the first city in North Carolina to utilize the [...]
North Carolina has launched a statewide aerial photography project designed to give first responders a clear picture of the landscape of the state. The project will be funded through a $12.3 million grant and will provide images to 100 counties statewide. Those images will be captured in such a way to present an accurate street [...]
According to a new report, the state and local market for justice, public safety and homeland security technology will see an influx of $800 million in new spending over the next five years. Law enforcement officials looking to adopt both cutting-edge and back-office solutions ranging from predictive analytics to court case automation will push the [...]
The County of Monterey, California has signed a $15 million contract with Harris Corp. to design and deploy a new public safety radio system that will improve coverage, reliability and communication interoperability between local, county, state and federal first responders, the company said Wednesday.
The number of public safety interoperable communications (PSIC) projects is expected to increase according to a new report from INPUT. The deadline for projects under the Federal Communications Commission’s narrowbanding initiative is on the horizon and INPUT estimates that state and local spending on PSIC projects will reach $38.7 billion by 2015.
