Justice and Public Safety

Law enforcement groups and criminal justice reformers are at odds over a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that will allow the state to keep tabs on certain "sexually violent predators" through Global Positioning Systems.

The company has made a cellphone alternative to police body cameras.

Portland leaders should approve more than a dozen conditions before the city starts using ShotSpotter gunfire detection technology to address privacy, surveillance and other concerns, a community oversight group says.

Orting Police Department's drone is equipped with a Forward Looking InfraRed (FLIR) system, which can detect temperature variations. The tool is useful for both police and rescue operations, officials say.

Long a holdout from a wave of agencies that outfitted officers with body-worn cameras amid calls for more transparency, the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office is poised to equip all deputies with the devices by 2023.

A report came out last week that criticizes gunshot detection technology that is used by cities across the country as ineffective, wasting police officers’ time and targeting overpoliced communities.

Can a police officer who finds a cellphone during an investigation start scrolling through the device — and access a trove of information about your life — without first getting a search warrant?

The California Attorney General's Office confirmed Thursday that the OpenJustice web portal remains offline after a trove of personal data related to concealed weapons applicants was exposed in late June.

Ring, an electronic doorbell company owned by Amazon, admitted to providing video to law enforcement without consent of the device owner 11 times this year, according to Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey.

Michigan City, Ind., Police Chief Dion Campbell hopes to get a series of license plate readers and gunshot detectors in the city to help fill a big gap in Northwest Indiana, where most other communities have them.

An East Texas company on Thursday was ordered to pay $275,000, and serve three years probation, for supplying potentially tainted rocket fuel to NASA, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Metal detectors made by CEIA USA, calibrated to see the metal density of guns and large knives, are being installed at West Virginia's Morgantown High, University High, Clay-Battelle and a technical education center.

A lawsuit brought by a protester who sued San Diego police after officers seized her phone and refused for months to return it was settled this week with a deal that narrows when police can take phones and for how long.

A contract to track down illegal fireworks by drone in Kern County, Calif., was justified, according to fire officials. Initial estimates show the drone flagged 100 potential violations with citations of $1,500 each.

The vehicle-mounted cameras are designed to interact automatically with all nearby body-worn cameras. The move follows the $1.89 million purchase of 225 body-worn cameras in September 2020.

Even as cryptocurrency investors deal with recent losses in value, public-sector interest in crypto continues to grow. That means more opportunities for fraud and more need for protections, the companies say.

Researchers created an algorithm that predicts risks of biased, overly punitive sentencing. The tool performs with similar accuracy — and similar limits — to risk assessment algorithms already used to influence pretrial and parole decisions, authors say.

The city plans to launch an educational campaign about the upcoming enforcement for the new 13-month program, and for the first 30 days of the program, drivers won’t get tickets for speeding.