Innovative Strategies for Investigating Criminal Organizations

Street-level violent gun crime has two consistent, demographic features: a small percentage of a city’s population is responsible for an overwhelming majority of its violent gun crime and this small population operates in groups. Yet, in violent gun crime investigations and prosecutions, it is most often the single event and the single suspect that are in focus. This focus may overlook what is known and often leaves criminal organizations participating in violent gun crime free from accountability.

The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) further reveals the group aspect to violent gun crime by showing a pattern of criminal behavior shootings. A more complex, but effective, approach to investigating individuals working together to engage in a pattern of violent gun crime is through conspiracy. This webinar explores the surface issues, applying conspiracy strategies to violent gun crime. It opens a discussion for thought to move toward innovative solutions.

NFS Investigation Assessments: Observations From the Field

PSP provides the opportunity for PSP sites to receive an independent assessment of their nonfatal shooting (NFS) processes and protocols. These assessments are intended to provide the sites with a basis to increase their clearance rates, reduce violent offenses, enhance public safety, and decrease crime guns in circulation. In partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR) fields an accomplished team of subject-matter experts to review and assess the requesting agency’s policies, procedures, and practices. This webinar highlights commonalities found in NFS investigation assessments conducted by IIR and provides a generic overview of related observations.

Lunch and Learn: Operation Save A Casing

This PSP Lunch and Learn event highlighted the Wichita, Kansas, Police Department’s Operation Save a Casing initiative, a Bureau of Justice Assistance-sponsored program that allows for local residents of a community to provide critical ballistic intelligence to law enforcement in the event that their firearms are stolen or lost. This event provided an overview of the program and its implementation by the Wichita Police Department.

Navigating NIBIN Leads

The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) is a useful, evidence-based tool for law enforcement’s fight against violent gun crime. As NIBIN continues to expand, more law enforcement agencies are able to take advantage of its important information. With that expansion, however, comes an increase in leads developed by NIBIN, often overwhelming departments and law enforcement in a region. Determining the investigative potential of these leads through effective triage is a critical piece to any successful NIBIN program.

This webinar featured a standardized and highly effective approach to accomplish NIBIN lead triage in a very short amount of time. Using geography, events, time, and solvability factors (GETS), departments are able to systematically triage NIBIN leads, saving hundreds of hours of criminal intelligence and investigative resource expenditures.

Intelligence 101

In today’s climate of rapidly evolving technology, intense public scrutiny, and the increased availability of data to drive strategies, it has become increasingly important that violence reduction strategies are intelligence-led. This webinar provided PSP sites with an overview of the terminology associated with intelligence, as well as the review process required to utilize it in a manner that is both efficient and legal. In addition, the Intelligence 101 webinar highlighted critical practices and reviewed national standards that line officers and investigators need to know to combat violent crime, gangs, and criminal enterprises.

Model Victim Services

Integrating victim services into law enforcement agencies can provide crime victims with streamlined access to counseling and resources. In addition to providing more empathetic services to victims of crime, law enforcement agencies and prosecutorial partners benefit from enhanced victim/witness communication, which in turn can increase the likelihood of cooperation as cases progress through the criminal justice system. Implementing a victim services program can increase an agency’s ability to connect with the community they serve, however the process of building capacity in victim services can be a challenging endeavor. This webinar highlighted the implementation of a victim services program in the Chattanooga, Tennessee, Police Department and the Office for Victims of Crime’s law enforcement and victim services portfolio.

Utilizing Data Effectively

The 21st-century crime analyst’s role is ever-changing as technology continues to grow, evolve, and successfully support criminal investigations. Crime analysts are responsible for producing more than just dots on a map, charts, and graphs. The amount of data that is available to an analyst can be overwhelming, but knowing how to use data as a valuable tool for law enforcement can be a game changer. Topics addressed during this webinar included capturing, analyzing, and acting on data; critical thinking and becoming investigative in analyzing crime; utilizing the analyst network; and investigative resources and analytical case studies.

Social Network Analysis

Social network analysis (SNA) can be a useful tool for criminal investigations and police community efforts to reduce violent crime. Understanding how data is compiled and structured, how it may be utilized, and the limitations that it has is critical for leaders considering the use of SNA. This webinar outlined the concept of SNA and how this tool can be utilized to further crime-reduction strategies. Topics included visualizing a network and types of network data related to SNA, understanding group dynamics and the utilization of SNA in focused deterrence, SNA associated with hotspots as well as NIBIN linkages, and potential implementation challenges and legal considerations.

Managing the Recovery of Digital and Video Evidence

As video camera and cellular technology has advanced, digital and video evidence recovery has become critical to a successful criminal investigation. The proliferation of privately and publicly owned video cameras presents an unprecedented opportunity to build stronger cases supported by extensive digital evidence. The advancement and abundance of digital and video evidence have also presented new challenges to law enforcement and prosecutors who are now trying to recover, manage, and prepare large amounts of data and video evidence for trial. The Chicago, Illinois, Police Department (CPD) has recently established several Area Technology Centers (ATCs) and has integrated select personnel into these units to augment CPD’s investigative and patrol personnel in the recovery of digital evidence. Topics addressed during this webinar included: an outline of the ATC’s organizational structure, methods of deployment, and response protocols; technology utilized to capture digital evidence within the ATC; and CPD’s digital evidence recovery efforts, including case-specific summaries.

Crime Analysis for Executives

Crime analysis has become an essential tool in law enforcement’s efforts to enhance public safety, identify emerging trends, allocate resources, apply new technology, and plan crime-prevention strategies. Successful data-driven strategies such as hot-spot policing, problem-oriented policing, and intelligence-led policing use the work of an effective crime analysis unit. This webinar provided insight on how a crime analyst can support chiefs, sheriffs, and other police executives or managers with strategic or tactical decision making. Topics included: what to expect from your crime analyst, and how to make effective use of crime analysis; supporting and managing crime analysts, as well as staffing levels and placement; methods to improve data quality, including necessary tools and training; and Records Management System (RMS) and Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) connectivity.

Focused Deterrence

Focused-deterrence initiatives commonly include such aspects as identification of prolific offenders, scripted offender notification meetings, coordinated and strategic prosecution, provision of social services to individuals willing to accept them, and careful monitoring of individuals’ actions. When carefully and properly implemented, focused-deterrence initiatives have great potential to enhance the perceived legitimacy of the police and the public’s trust in them in communities where these have often been lacking. This webinar provides an introductory overview of the fundamentals of focused deterrence, research on and implementation of focused deterrence in major cities, and virtual tools to further focused deterrence efforts.

Please note, due to technical difficulties with the audio service provider during this presentation, viewers may experience minor audio impairments when viewing this webinar. For questions regarding this webinar or the topic of focused deterrence, please contact info@pspartnership.org.

Crime Guns 101

The initial recovery and identification of a crime gun is one of the most critical steps in any investigation. This step is even more critical for agencies whose communities are experiencing high incidences of violent gun crime, are expanding their utilization of crime gun intelligence (National Integrated Ballistic Information Network [NIBIN] and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ [ATF] eTrace), or are participating in a Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC). These firearms provide valuable investigative leads and are subsequently scrutinized during all aspects of the investigation that follows the recovery. Despite the importance of this initial step, few officers receive training on the identification of firearms and, as a result, firearms are frequently misidentified, leading to missed opportunities for lead development, case connection, and successful prosecution. This webinar provided an overview of the NIBIN process and CGIC concept, history and relevance of ATF’s eTrace, how to properly identify and recover crime guns, and lessons learned and successes from unique cases.

Basic Principles of Crime Analysis

Before crime analysts can become effective within their agencies, they must first build an analytical foundation built on basic principles. This presentation assisted participants in establishing a solid base as well as producing information and products that are useful to command staff members, patrol, and detectives. This presentation focused on defining the crime analyst’s role and building a solid analytical foundation, effective and actionable crime analysis products, and time management and prioritization of high vs. low priority products and services. Analytical case studies were also reviewed during this presentation.

Digital Trust

Heading further into the 21st century, digital ethics and trust have become increasingly important issues for police. Communities and agencies are beginning to demand the collection of data and the analysis produced from its collection. Law enforcement agencies are also expected to utilize the data analysis and technology in a secure and ethical manner. The injudicious use of data, analytics, or technology by a police department may have a negative impact on public trust and may increase the difficulty of achieving effective policing in contemporary law enforcement. Leaders within law enforcement agencies will benefit from a deeper understanding of digital trust and its implications to their organizations and profession. This webinar explored the importance of building digital trust in law enforcement agencies. Digital trust between the police and their stakeholders allows for the use of promising technology while mitigating risks associated with the implementation and use of this technology.

Sustainability Presentation by 2016 PSP Sites

This webinar served as an opportunity for PSP sites to learn about sustainability practices, accompanied by real-world examples. This webinar provided an introduction to sustainability principles and featured presentations by five PSP sites to share background on their PSP engagement and their plans for sustaining PSP and continuing to address violence in their communities.

CompStat360

Through the CompStat360 Model, the Police Foundation and the Vera Institute of Justice are leading an effort to harness the power of CompStat in a new tool that provides police with a more complete picture of public safety and enables departments to make decisions based on community needs and priorities. As the adage goes, what gets measured matters. However, community metrics, which are key to ensuring that police respond to community safety needs, are often not measured to the same extent as crime. CompStat has proved to be a valuable tool in modern policing, and adding community measures can enhance the adoption of community policing and the coordinated response to public safety. CompStat360 offers an opportunity for police agencies to focus on crime as well as community engagement and organizational effectiveness. This webinar highlighted lessons learned from CompStat360 pilot sites, how PSP sites can incorporate these concepts, and how to request assistance.

The 101: The NYPD and Victim Assistance

Over the course of five years, the New York Police Department (NYPD) has worked diligently to enhance the ways in which it can serve and respond to victims of crimes. At the onset of the adopted program, the NYPD asked its executive leadership to survey all bureaus and offices within the department, asking two vital questions: how do officers interact with victims of crimes, and how could those interactions be improved? Every function of the NYPD was examined in order to enhance its perceived response to victims of crimes. Input was also sought out from victim advocates and service providers through proactive interactions with these entities. This webinar provided an overview of the 101 ways in which the NYPD enhanced its response to victims of crime, the internal and external assessments that the NYPD completed to produce the initiatives currently in place, the Crime Victim Assistance Program that has been the cornerstone of the department’s efforts to improve its response to victims of crime, and the resources available through DOJ’s Office for Victims of Crime (OVC).

Tampa Police Department (TPD) Gun Crime Reduction Strategies

Since 2015, TPD has seen a 45 percent reduction in firearm related crimes, largely due to the success of TPD's new Violent Crimes Bureau (VCB). The VCB employs strategies such as integrating police units to create more centralized communication, identifying and focusing efforts and resources on the most violent offenders (the Violent Impact Players List), consistently identifying and targeting hot spots, implementing place-based policing and offender management tactics, engaging in effective federal partnerships, and relying on advanced technology such as the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) and the gunshot detection system, ShotSpotter. This webinar will explore the TPD's VCB, including successes and lessons learned, specific gun crime reduction strategies and their effectiveness, and TPD's ideas for future improvement.

New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) Ethical Policing Is Courageous (EPIC) Peer Intervention Program

EPIC is a program developed by the NOPD in an effort to educate and support their officers in the practice of peer intervention. Through EPIC, the NOPD trains members of its department to identify and safely intervene when they believe a person is at risk for doing something that would harm themselves and/or others. This peer approach to 'policing' one another has proven to be effective for the NOPD in preventing harm and promoting officer wellness. The goal of this webinar is to highlight and bring awareness to this proactive, team-focused program as a solution to the officer safety issues that law enforcement faces today. This webinar will explore the efforts that went into gaining support for the program, steps for implementation, challenges faced, and lessons learned.

Innovative Prosecution Strategies to Fight Violent Crime

U.S. Attorneys play a vital leadership role for the PSP sites. Their unique position as law enforcement executives affords them the opportunity to effectively advance the PSP mission of reducing violent crime. The goal of this webinar is to highlight and bring awareness to some of the U.S. Attorneys' exceptionally successful and innovative efforts. Efforts that will be explored during this webinar include developing case review processes, directing and coordinating federal law enforcement assets to the violent crime hot spots within the community, effective goal setting, and developing and implementing innovative prosecution strategies that successfully combat violent crime.

Retail Theft Reduction Strategies

In 2003, 18 percent of Tampa, Florida’s, retail theft was reported to the Tampa Police Department (TPD) by Walmart. The retailer had the highest percentage of shoplifting in the TPD’s jurisdiction—higher than the next four retail stores combined. The TPD and Walmart instituted a working partnership in an effort to mitigate the high rates of retail theft and reduce recidivism and calls for service. The purpose of this webinar is to highlight and bring awareness to this creative partnership/program as an option to fight crime.

Detroit’s Project Green Light

Project Green Light is a public-private community partnership in Detroit, Michigan, aimed at improving neighborhood safety, promoting the revitalization and growth of local businesses, and strengthening the Detroit Police Department’s (DPD) efforts to deter, identify, and solve crime. Project Green Light began with eight gas stations that installed real-time camera connections with police headquarters. The DPD and the city devote staff to effectively receive, monitor, and analyze video feeds from Project Green Light partners, now integrated into Detroit’s Real Time Crime Center. Project Green Light businesses experienced an 11 percent reduction in violent crime in 2017 compared to 2016. This webinar will explore Detroit’s Project Green Light and lessons learned from the city regarding implementation of the project to reduce crime and violence. The webinar will also examine the rationale of the Project Green Light initiative; the implementation strategy; and some of the lessons learned, successes, and challenges.

Public Health Approach to Violence Reduction—The Cure Violence Model

The Cure Violence Health Model applies the methodologies associated with the control of disease outbreaks: interrupting transmission of the disease, reducing the risk of the highest risk, and changing community norms. By viewing violence as contagious and treating it using a health approach, this model has proven effective in reducing violence in multiple jurisdictions across the country and internationally. The overall goal of this webinar is to educate through discussion how violence is an epidemic that can be prevented. This webinar will explore the science behind the Cure Violence Health Model and lessons learned from jurisdictions implementing the Cure Violence Health Model to reducing crime and violence. Make it Happen (Crown Heights, New York), a community-based violence reduction initiative is based on the Model. In the webinar, we will also examine the rationale of the Make it Happen initiative; the implementation strategy; and some of the lessons learned, successes, and challenges.

Child Sex Trafficking

Today’s law enforcement is increasingly tasked with dealing with children who are exposed to violence, crime, and abuse. Unfortunately, one of the most horrific crimes against children is sex trafficking. The child sex trafficking industry can reach beyond the borders of the United States and it can be as close to you as next door, in your neighborhood. The consequences of this high-dollar exploitation of children are far-reaching and result in an uncertain future for its victims—physically, mentally, and socially. The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Public Safety Partnership (PSP) is pleased to host Ms. Cynthia Pappas in this podcast on child sex trafficking and available resources. Ms. Pappas is a senior policy advisor for the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, where she provides national leadership and coordination on issues surrounding child sexual abuse, child sex trafficking prevention and intervention, and youth and law enforcement engagement.