Officers Returning from Combat
Combat Deployment and the Returning Police Officer, an Office of Community Oriented Policing Services report, examines issues concerning the transition of law enforcement officers back to work after combat zone deployment. It covers such topics as the psychological effects of combat deployment; methods that may lessen the severity of stress associated with combat; and strategies to help law enforcement officers returning to work, their families, and communities. The document highlights four law enforcement agencies that have taken measures to assist returning officers and offers recommendations for further study. The complete report (NCJ 224254) may be accessed via the National Criminal Justice Reference Service’s website at http://www.ncjrs.org.
Gang Survey
Highlights of the 2006 National Youth Gang Survey is an Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Fact Sheet that reports findings from the research. Since 1995, the National Youth Gang Center (NYGC) has conducted this annual survey of law enforcement agencies across the United States regarding the presence and characteristics of local gang problems. Selected in 2002, the current nationally representative sample includes all police organizations that serve cities with populations of 50,000 or more and all suburban county police and sheriff’s departments, along with a randomly selected sample of police agencies in smaller cities (between 2,500 and 49,999 population) and rural county police and sheriff’s departments. For the 2006 survey, 86 percent (2,199) of the 2,551 survey recipients responded. NYGC asked participants to report information solely for youth gangs, defined as “a group of youths or young adults in your jurisdiction that you or other responsible persons in your agency or community are willing to identify as a ‘gang.’”
Survey results indicated that approximately 785,000 gang members and 26,500 gangs were active in this country in 2006. The survey asked respondents to indicate factors influencing gang-related violence. Over half of the agencies reported conflict between gangs and drug-related issues as directly affecting levels of gang-related violence. Respondents advised gang-member migration across U.S. jurisdiction, emergence of new gangs, and the return of gang members from secure confinement as somewhat impacting this type of violence and conflict within a gang and gang-member migration from outside the country as infrequently influencing such criminal behavior. The OJJDP Fact Sheet (FS 200805) is available at the National Criminal Justice Reference Service’s website at http://www.ncjrs.org.
Cybercrime Against Businesses, 2005
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a special report that provides data on monetary loss and system downtime resulting from cyber incidents. Cybercrime Against Businesses, 2005 presents the nature and prevalence of computer security incidents among 7,818 businesses for that year. It examines details on types of offenders, reporting of incidents to law enforcement, reasons for not reporting such activities, types of systems affected, and the most common security vulnerabilities. The study also compares in-house security with outsourced security in terms of the prevalence of cyber attacks. Appendix tables include industry-level findings. A few highlights revealed that computer virus infections were the most prevalent cybercrime among businesses in 2005; the 3,247 businesses that incurred monetary loss from cybercrime lost a total of $867 million; and most businesses did not report cyber attacks to law enforcement authorities. Complete information on this publication (NCJ 221943) can be found at the National Criminal Justice Reference Service’s website, http://www.ncjrs.org.
Policing in Arab-American Communities
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) report Policing in Arab-American Communities After September 11 discusses a study by the Vera Institute of Justice that examined how the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, affected relationships between law enforcement officers and residents in Arab-American neighborhoods. Four significant obstacles to improved relations between police and Arab-American communities emerged: mutual distrust between Arab-American communities and law enforcement, lack of cultural awareness among law enforcement officers, language barriers, and residents’ concerns about immigration status. Some communities indicated that they feared law enforcement agencies, especially federal ones, more than acts of hate or violence, despite an increase in hate crimes. They specifically cited immigration enforcement, surveillance, and racial profiling.
The study also revealed some promising methods for addressing these obstacles. Many of the best practices proved consistent with general principles of community policing. For more information, access the report directly via NIJ’s website at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs‑sum/221706.htm.
June 2009 | FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin
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