Blogs

This month's From the Archive document is a research project conducted by the Police Foundation, and funded by the National Institute of Justice, in the early 1980's. In 1983 - 1984, the citizen contact patrol field experiment was conducted to examine the impact of police officers initiating contacts with citizens in residences, businesses, and on the street. In making these brief, friendly face-to-face contacts, the police increased their presence in targeted areas and made contacts equal to 14% of the population and 37% of the occupied housing units.

The March 2013 issue of Police Chief Magazine contains a research-in-brief of the Police Foundation study, The Shift Length Experiment: What We Know About 8-, 10-, and 12-Hour Shifts in Policing. The full foundation report is available here.

Police Foundation research has played a vital role in the current gun control debate sparked by the Newtown, CT tragedy. Some of the use of this research has once again made it clear that policymakers and the media must exercise care in how they portray research findings. Numerous mentions have been made to the Foundation's ground-breaking 1994 survey and report titled "Guns in America."

Much of the focus has been on a finding in the Guns in America report that suggested 60 to 70 percent of gun transfers were reported to have involved federally licensed firearm dealers. Unfortunately, many have interpreted this to mean that "up to 40 percent" of gun purchases occurred without the requirement of criminal background checks. The use of this statistic to justify additional gun control measures has come under criticism from an Associated Press Fact Check article published earlier this week.

This month's "From the Archive" installment focuses on an issue that is, and has been, the subject of much discussion. Guns in America, is a product of the National Survey of Private Ownership of Firearms (NSPOF) coducted in 1994. It provides some of the most comprehensive information on what type of guns are in circulation, who owns them, how and why they were acquired, and how they are stored. 

Also discussed are the views of those surveyed with respect to gun regulation.

It’s been over a year since we launched CopBook. In the last year we have seen tremendous growth in the CopBook community. From a technical perspective CopBook has made great progress. CopBook is now running on the latest version of Jive, which both introduced new features as well as improved the user experience. We heard from early adopters that the first iteration of CopBook was often difficult to navigate. The newest version of CopBook has streamlined many common user actions and provides an environment that is easier for new and returning users to understand.