Justice and Public Safety

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has rolled out more than 62,000 tablets across 66 prison facilities to allow inmates to connect with loved ones. The devices will also give inmates access to educational resources.

News out of San Francisco caught many off guard recently as officials considered allowing the use of weaponized robots controlled by law enforcement officers. The city quickly dropped those plans after public outcry.

More Dayton-area cities have installed new automated license plate reading devices in the past several months and at least one other local police department said it wants to add them next year.

On the heels of a week-long civil trial surrounding the data collection practices of the Maine State Police, officials will seek an outside review into whether its intelligence unit is violating federal privacy laws.

After stepping away from a decade of public safety technology leadership, Davis will write about challenges in law enforcement while eyeing a return to the industry. He describes what the public safety future might hold.

Working with the Texas-based SparkCognition, Adelson Educational Campus is integrating an artificial intelligence-based system with its existing cameras to initiate alerts and lock-down procedures in case of emergency.

Following a spate of false alarms about active shooters, the Manchester school board has approved putting the gunfire-detection system ShotSpotter, along with Fusus technology for live video, into school buildings.

Houston County commissioners voted to move forward on a four-year agreement with Flock Safety. District Attorney William Kendall said the photos will only be used for active investigations and certain emergency situations.

Despite using facial recognition technology to identify criminal suspects nearly 2,000 times last year, findings from the LAPD inspector general's office show that the department has no way to track the technology’s outcomes or effectiveness.

Rave Mobile Safety offers such services as incident alerts and emergency preparation, and will boost Motorola’s own public safety tech offerings. Rave is used by governments, schools and other public agencies.

Cobb commissioners agreed to allow the county police to enter a three-year contract with Clearview AI — a company that has come under fire for data privacy — to utilize its face recognition software.

An ad campaign that began in late summer has been reupped to educate drone pilots about the dangers posed by electrical lines and power infrastructure. An influx of the devices is expected over the holidays.

A Bakersfield city committee dedicated to public safety discussed potentially arming park rangers with Tasers and body-worn cameras while also proposing placing gunfire detection technology at local schools.

Technology capable of more thoroughly scanning cargo containers for contraband has not been put in place despite a 2021 offer to purchase and install the equipment from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.

Mississippi’s Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport will be one of 16 airports around the United States testing facial recognition software to identify travelers at TSA security checkpoints.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Friday morning to usher in a new technological era for the court, one that sees the use of technology to make records much more accessible than they have been.

State courts’ IT choices can raise or lower barriers to accessing the justice and impacts whether the public sees it as fairly distributed. Experts discussed what the path to a more equitable process looks like during a recent conference.

The Family Online Safety Institute, an international nonprofit focused on online safety and healthy technology use for kids and families, aims to meet the moment with research and information for educators, families, elected officials and corporate leaders.