Justice and Public Safety

The borough Police Department used a state grant to buy four new body-worn cameras and three automated license plate readers. It includes a 10-year vendor contract that will enable periodic technology replacement.

NERIS is set to replace a 50-year-old emergency incident reporting program on a Jan. 1 nationwide rollout. The new system has presented business opportunities for suppliers of government technology.

The town board voted unanimously last month to put bags over the devices. A special meeting of the Board of Selectmen and the mayor will scrutinize how police use license plate readers and security cameras.

For a price north of $130 million, Motorola was contracted to deliver thousands of radios for police, firefighters and others, as well as install or retrofit more than 50 transmission towers in Virginia.

Police in Gig Harbor, Wash., are the latest Pierce County law enforcement agency to acquire a drone. Plans are for it to assist in areas including missing persons investigations and tracking suspects.

Staff at New York City's more than 1,800 schools will wear wireless buttons on their lanyards, designed by the Florida company SOS Technologies to directly contact first responders and dispatch emergency personnel.

A University of Minnesota project uses drones to examine smoke and then analyze it to understand a fire's flow patterns. It represents a significant step toward using fully autonomous drones for emergency response.

The mayor and Board of Selectmen in Putnam, Conn., will convene this week for a special meeting regarding the police department’s use of license plate readers and security cameras in town.

In Miami-Dade County, Fla., the public defender's office has embraced AI to organize information, conduct legal research and support other aspects of its work in the county of 2.7 million people.

The Wicomico County Sheriff's Office is using a new AI program to transcribe audio from body-worn cameras so that deputies don’t have to type it from scratch. Critics worry nuances could get lost in translation.

After teen suicides drew the attention of lawsuits and lawmakers, the artificial intelligence chatbot platform Character.AI announced plans to restrict the use of its platform to two hours a day for minors.

A series of cyber attacks on public defenders’ offices in multiple western states have spotlighted the technological vulnerabilities of an often overlooked but critical part of the U.S. judicial system.

Full public access to police scanner activity in the East Bay will soon be unavailable after Berkeley councilmembers gave the city’s police department permission to encrypt radio communications.

The town Board of Commissioners approved a two-year pact to install 10 surveillance cameras, but subsequently canceled it. Staff and board members expressed privacy concerns around data sharing.

The idea behind the new technology is to enable quicker emergency response in case of school shootings or weapons threats. The effort reflects larger trends in public safety and government technology.

The Cybertrucks are part of the department's goal of creating the most technologically advanced department in the country, said the sheriff of Clark County, Nev.

The City Council will consider reversing a policy banning encryption of police channels. Critics argue doing so would deprive the public of a tool to monitor crime and hold officers accountable.

The Ohio city’s new police headquarters is due to open in the second half of 2026. The firm overseeing somewhat concurrent station renovations is using an AI-powered procurement tool to streamline ordering of supplies.