By Stephen Owsinski It is not often a brand-new police academy comes into existence, but the concept grants law enforcement agencies more control of police-related instruction, in-house experienced trainers, operational preparedness, and home-based management of criminal justice doctrines instituted by state standards overseeing the regulatory feats of future public safety professionals. One of the unique Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D It’s official, drivers are getting worse and our roadways are getting more dangerous. Many states are reporting increases in fatal crashes over the past half-decade. Fatal crashes are reliably reported but do not necessarily reflect the total number of crashes, or the total number of injuries. Statistics compiled and Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D A bank robber in Missouri decided to hit small-town banks rather than bigger ones with heftier security systems and plenty of law enforcement. One town that he chose was Chilhowee, population 300, situated 20 miles from the county sheriff’s office. The town shared its one police officer with another Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D We are hearing more about response time amid the concern of police staffing shortages. The expectation of citizens that a call to 911 will immediately send a fleet of police cars screaming to your scene is more of a product of television shows and movies where the cops always Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski Some criminal cases are tough to crack, but that doesn’t mean they are forgotten. Enter Cold Case detectives who, despite dormancy, unbox investigative files and endeavor to pick up the scent by backtracking then trek the trails until on-the-lam perpetrators are held accountable. Historical whodunnits make the news across the nation, heralding Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D I was listening to an interview on a local NPR-affiliated radio broadcast about the Aurora, CO case of Elijah McClain, who died in police custody resulting in felony criminal charges for three police officers and two paramedics. The interviewer asked the attorney being interviewed why one of the officers Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D The prime directive for police officers is to protect the innocent, and there are none so innocent as children. According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), there were 558,899 victims of child abuse and neglect across the United States in 2022. In addition to the wounds Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski By now, just about everyone is aware of a massively loaded cargo ship Dali slamming into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, at 01:39 a.m., collapsing the hulking expanse and sending cars into the water below, eliciting gobs of uniformed personnel to the land/sea scene. As can be imagined, Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D The father of modern policing is Sir Robert Peel who famously developed the London Metropolitan Police. Known as “bobbies”, presumably after Peel, they were a model of the new, centralized uniformed police force after which America’s municipal police are still modeled. Peel’s 9 principles of policing are still vital Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D The recent criticism by a state oversight committee of a police training seminar rested largely on the teaching about suspect behavior during a police contact. The committee concluded that the techniques that would lead a police officer to believe that criminal behavior was “likely” afoot would “likely” be held Read more »