When your kids tell you that they want to grow up and be a police officer, they are going to need a whole lot more than responsiveness and decision-making skills to do the job. In 2015, policing has expanded to include more than the traditional reactive responsibilities such as “calls for service and crime investigation.”
Their mission has expanded quite a bit and now encompasses proactive strategies such as those discussed in depth in 2014’s Future Trends in Policing.
“There are a lot of fundamental changes happening in policing,” Chuck Wexler, the Executive Director Police Executive Research Forum, writes in his opening letter to the publication.
Here are just a four examples Wexler shares when discussing how policing has and continues to change:
- New Technologies: “Every day we read about new technologies being used by police departments, ranging from “body cameras” worn by officers and automated license plate readers to analytical software designed to predict when and where crimes are likely to occur in a city.
- Cybercrime: “[It] is a major development that local police departments are starting to explore. Demographic changes are affecting the types of people who enter the policing profession.”
- 2008 Economic Crisis: “The economic crisis that began in 2008 was a wake-up call that police budgets are not sacrosanct; today’s police agencies to some extent are competing with private security agencies.”
- Demand for Transparency: “Today’s communities demand more accountability and transparency from their police. And police departments are finding new ways to use social media and other strategies for communicating with their communities.”
Policing today much more than a reactive occupation these days. With changes that have taken place in the last few decades, the landscape of the job has completely changed. And police forces have become more proactive today as these for examples and more change what crimes are being committed, how we are gathering and sharing evidence, and the advances in technology which make it possible for us to get at and analyze all of this information.
Changing Landscape Means Greater Demand for the Right Technology
How is your agency doing at adapting to the rising trends in policing? Do you have the tools you need to equip your teams to not only react but also to be proactive in the field?
Talk to iRecord about the latest in technology and how we can get the right pieces of digital recording and audio equipment, storage hardware and more into the hands of your hard-working, community-committed force.