Technology and law enforcement operations in contemporary policing

Technology and Law Enforcement

The field of law enforcement has been one of the most challenging fields from the historical time yet it is a department that cannot be wished away as long as the society has to remain sane and civilised. The only option is to persistently and consistently update law enforcement and equip it in order to cary out the respective duties and responsibilities that it should in order to help te citizens to live in peace and abide by the law and have no fear of possible infrigment of their rights and protection by the lawless criminals. The improvements also assure the innocent law abiding citizens that in any case their rights have ben infringed upon, then the propagators of these crimes will be traced and charged and justice be done.

However, the constant improvement that is expecetd to give sense of security to the citizens can only be achieved within the contemporary society through the employment of high end technological inventions in terms of the method of securing the people, collection of evidence, storing evidence, collection of information and combating the criminals among other functions. Technology has vastly changed the way the police units operate in all the states, the funding of these police departments in the recent years and the budgeting process as well. It is a fatc that the ntechnologies that are funded today by the state funds using the citizen's taxes were not a thing to be thought about a few years ago. It is important for the law enforcement oficers and all concerned persons to stay in touch with the contemporary technological changes especially those that are relevant to the law enforcement and security of the people. The law enforcement personalities should not only know or be cognizant of the changing technology but also have the indepth knowledge of what technology can do for them within the law enforcement department and the relevant agencies. It is therefore important that they are aided to become skilled and in acquiring the nececssary technical knowledge and improvements by the relevant funding sources (Paul D.S., 2004).

The noble technological advancements present the police with many avenues to combat crime and criminal activities with high tech tools like the GPS and advanced communication provisions being some of te latest to be introduced to help the police. There are also those that are geared towards ensuring the police are safe in their daily activities like the body armor, the less-lethal projectiles.

Some of the tools that are used in the current worl are:

Crime lights- these are designed to detect the finer details within a crime scene for instance the hair length and width, detect body fluids hence allowing the processing of the crime scene. These lights also allow the detection of matter in areas that were previously unreachable.

Photo enforcement systems-these are used to deter crime and accidents by automatically generating red light violation and speed summons which will extensively improve the security of the other road users.

Grafitti cameras- these are systems set up in areas prone to graffiti and they can take the photo of the criminals who would want to put up graffiti, it can talk to them and alert them that their photos have been taken and they should vacate the region lest legal steps will be taken against them. The grafitti are know to be a major communication channel for the gangs hence disrupting these communication channels, then the gangs remain weakened.

Thermal imaging- these are devices that are used to detect the growing of marijuana in closed areas through utility of the radiated or reflected surface energy through the use of non-intrusive device. These devices can also be used to detect a fleeing fugitive in the darkness, recover a child hidden by criminals in covered areas and other such sensitive rescues. The device is important in the police operation since it conceals the position of the police officer from the criminals even after the police have picked up the position of the criminal.

Radio-these have been in the company of the police for a very long time and have evolved in range and effectiveness in order to enable the police and all law enforcement oficers to effectively communicate while on the train of criminals. One advantage of this tools is that the response and sharing of the informnation is done in real time and within a short time.

High-tech crimes

However, the tricky part with crime is that it is ever on a slipery slope, where the grounds keep changing and do so fast. At times the criminals forge their tactics far much ahead of the police and the law enforcement leaving them to play catchup in the crime game. This is so prevalent in the white collar crimes where no use of force is use against the victim. With the high-tech world, more and more crimes turn towards the same technology to go through without detection for a long time, hence police must be prepard for such situations in order to keep such crimes abay.

Governors in all states in the U.S. have focused their efforts and those of the state's National Guard towards dealing with cybercrimes which has been on tremendous increase and costs the economy billions of dollars annually. Apparently, the state of Washington to allocate the National Guard the cybersecurity responsibility. To portray how serious the acpect of cyberattacks is to the states, the people employed to deal with the menace are fulltime employees and soldiers, most have worked for employers who deal in internet service like Verizon, Microsoft, Google and Cisco. This gives them the ample time and the best technical skills to handle the criminals who exploit the internet for their own illegal gains (Homeland Security News Wire, 2014). Apart from the criminals, the terrorists, both local and international can seriosly compromise the security situation within the country if they get access to the crucial data to the nation. Criminals are eager to steal medical, financial or other personal data states store in their electronic records the more reason why the nation as a whole has put emphasis on securing the data against the abuse of technology.

This challenge has moved the law enforcement agencies o use communication channels like facebook and other social media to track down the criminals and charge them. The challenge is not local but national such that even the Pentagon has its own cybersecurity measures and keeps consulting with the governors and the National Guards in order to counter the vice. In March of 2013, the senators also gave their contribution towards curbing cyber security issues by passing the cybersecurity civil support teams within the National Guard, also commonly referred to as the Cyber Warrior Act. This means that the secretary of defense as well as the governors would have the authority to activate the Guard's team that would promptly respond to a cyberattack.

It is in light of such seriousness on the issue of cybersecurity that the police have also come in to play their significant part. Commonly, the police departments have taken to facebook and also other social media for a wide range of security issues such as soliciting tips about crimes from members of the public to updating the citizens on security issues as well as improving the community relations and ease of sharing safety-related information. These social sites give the police a quick and easy way of interacting with the public and also pass information to the public. It is via such media like facebok that the police can share videos or pictures that are related to a given crime and in effect giving the members of the public the chance to respond incase they have any information about the crime, a response that can be done anonymously by sending the message concerning the crime to the administrator of the pages directly.

The social media like facebook, twitter and the rest are also very instrumental in strengthening the relations between the community members in that in any event that there is an emergency, it can easily be spread throughout the neighborhood through such social media and collective efforts in combating the emergency solicited within a short time.

Remedies to the challenges

In order to avoid the misuse of such site by an individual within the team, there is need to have the department concerned with managing the page craft very strict media policies that will guide the use of this site and even what can be allowed to remain on the page having been posted by the public. Since the pubic will be consistently posting comments on the page such that the public can see, there must be two or three people charged with editing the page consistently and deleting the offensive posts or those of content that are not in agreement with the guidelines of the organization. Once these thresholds are well defined by the department then the people who are responsible for the management of the page cannot be accused of arbitrary censorship since they will be acting in line with the policies of the department. It is hence important that the policies are, in a summarized way, communicated to the people who visit the social pages so that the users know what to expect and also to ensure they don't feel offended if their offensive comments, or comments that are not in line with the policies of the page are deleted.

There are circumstances however where the law enforcement can cross the boundaries and in effect make the use of social media, either unproductive to the law enforcers or even counterproductive. Once instance is the case of entrapment defense where for example a police officer will add you as a friend, the first asks you if you wanted to buy cocaine, then you agree, this is entrapment and the accused can use this as a defense, though some are very hard to prove. The other fear that crops up in people is the cases similar to the Occupy Wall Street where the judges ruled that tweets do not enjoy same status as private speech and ordered twitter to provide the deleted tweets and were used in the court as evidence.

On the other side of the coin, in as much as the social media helps us to report crime to the police and in a way helps the police to arrest the offenders, social media helps in exposing the rotten elements within the police as well. There have been cases of major dissidence reported across the world which were triggered by clips of police brutalizing citizens. Social media acts both ways and largely, if used properly can be of benefit in maintaining law and order.