Newsletters
The Public Safety Staffing Crisis
Fire departments across the nation, including full-time, part-time and volunteer agencies, are not able to respond with the required units due to staffing shortages. They are not able to meet National Fire Protection Association Standards, and even with mutual aid assistance they are still often too shorthanded to properly fight a working structure fire.
The Emerging Role of CAD-to-CAD Communications
Today, an increasing number of Law Enforcement Departments see the benefits of utilizing CAD-to-CAD to increase their management and situational awareness of major incidents. Emergency Communication Centers (ECC) are also recognizing that the product can streamline processes so telecommunicators can focus on higher priority tasks.
Body Worn Cameras – An Overview
A BWC program is much more than purchasing a camera for each officer; it includes updating policies and procedures, changing or improving business practices and workflows, assigning and training system administrators, choosing storage options, defining evidence retention, responding to public records requests, protecting citizens’ privacy, and ensuring court requirements/evidence sharing needs are met.
Cloud-Based Software Considerations
Unfortunately, most of the public safety applications including CAD, Mobile and RMS were developed prior to the smartphone and multi-media revolution, and they are not designed to interact with social media applications or real-time video feeds.
The Changing Role of 911 Call Takers
With our changing times and requirements, many cities and counties throughout the United States are looking at changing the way they respond to the variety of citizen calls. This change in basic premise looks at tailoring the response to the type of service requested or needed.
Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) Requirements for CALEA Accreditation
As with any critical document, it is essential to continually assess the completeness and accuracy of the EOP. CALEA® reinforces this through its requirements for verification, training, testing, and after-action reports as input to the annual review and update of the plan.
Future of Public Safety and Law Enforcement Technology
With strong attention on law enforcement, the media and the public have unprecedented access to never-before-seen information that is both real-time and actionable for good and bad.
Updating Policy and Procedures
It is important that agencies develop a process and schedule for reviewing and updating policies and SOPs. A call taker or dispatcher following an outdated policy can have operational impacts that affect the safety of the first responders and the timely deployment of the first responders. It can also cause issues with the quality of the work products, employee productivity and ISO ratings.
Improved ECC Interoperability with CAD-to-CAD
CAD-to-CAD technology can decrease the time ECC personnel spend looking for mutual aid assistance therefore allowing them to concentrate on the incident for their center. It has also shown to improve first responder response times by an average of 2 to 3 minutes, and we all know the value of a minute in public safety can mean the difference between life and death.
A New Trend in Call Taking – Expanding Criteria Based Dispatching
CBD was initially developed for emergency medical based calls and is now being expanded to fire and some police related calls. New technology has allowed agencies to improve response times, but agencies are now implementing CBD in order to allow call takers to get to the root cause even faster.