Today, we will be talking about Capital Region Real Time Crime Center in Tallahassee, Florida that was launched in February 2023.  The first real time crime center was established by the NYPD in 2005.  It was originally designed to operate 24/7 to provide information support to patrol officers and detectives in real time – as they were responding to and investigating events on the street.  The concept has evolved over the past 18 years to take advantage of a wide range of technology resources.  RTCC’s have been adopted by police agencies across the country.  Many of them integrate technology such as cameras, gunshot detectors, license plate readers and analytical software to provide operational information support to field operations. 

In a unique partnership Florida State University hosts the Capital Region Real Time Crime Center in which the FSU Police Department, Leon County Sheriff’s Office, Tallahassee PD, Capitol Police and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are working together to provide information and analytical support as they respond to calls and investigate crime in the field.  The RTCC includes an in-house learning lab in which students and researchers from FSU’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice can provide immediate analysis of crime trends. 

We are fortunate to have with us today Professor Brian Stults from the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University where he has been a faculty member since 2006. He is also the Director of Research and Evaluation for the RTCC. Brian’s research addresses issues of race, crime, and community in urban areas, with a particular focus on residential segregation, racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and spatial and temporal patterns of crime. 

Also joining us is Leslie Rabon who is the Executive Director of the Capitol Region RTCC. She began her career with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office in 2004 when she was hired as the agency's first Intelligence and crime analyst.  Leslie has been involved in the development of strategies related to intelligence, data-driven approaches, gang enforcement, prevention, and intervention on a local, state, national, and international level. Mrs. Rabon holds a bachelor's degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in critical incident management from St. Leo’s University. 

In this Episode we discus  the Allied Universal World Security Report published in September 2023.  The report – Allied’s first - is based on a survey of 1,775 Chief Security Officers from large global companies in 30 different countries.  

Some of the key findings in the 54-page report include:

·      88% of the CSOs report that company leaders are more concerned with cyber security than physical security.

·      80% of the CSOs believe that recruitment and retention of security professionals will be a major problem over the next five years.

·      90% of the CSOs indicate that it is more important for security professionals to have technological capabilities and a high level of customer service training. 

·      More than $1 trillion dollars in revenue was lost in 2022 from internal and external physical security incidents in 2022. 

The report is filled with interesting insights into the growing challenges of private security.  We only have time to touch on a few of them, so we encourage you to read the report. You can find it here:  https://www.worldsecurityreport.com/ 

Today we will be talking about Police Vehicle Pursuits.  Police pursuits have been the subject of controversy for many years because they often end with crashes that result in serious injury or death to those involved,  and frequently innocent motorists and pedestrians not involved in the chase. The US Department of Transportation’s Center for Statistics and Analysis reports that pursuits ending in death increased 41% from 2001 to 2021 – 36% of the deaths were innocent bystanders. 

Many cities across the country have seen increases in both violent crime and traffic injuries and deaths following the pandemic. In response, some police agencies have relaxed their vehicle pursuit policies resulting in an increase in pursuits.  In Milwaukee for example, policy changes in 2015 and 2017 contributed to pursuits increasing from 414 in 2017 to 1083 in 2018 – injuries tripled. In 2021, the California Highway Patrol reported 12,500 pursuits with 20% resulting in a crash and 7% in a fatality or injury.  Pursuits increased by 7% in 2021 over 2020.  Twenty-seven percent of the deaths and 31% of the injuries were innocent bystanders. 

The Police Executive Research Forum recently released a new report funded by the US Department of Justice that provides guidelines for police agencies.  The Chair of the Pursuit Working Group for the report is Professor Geoff Alpert from the University of South Carolina Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.  We are very fortunate to have him with us today.  

He is an internationally known and respected researcher who has made enormous contributions to improving policing through his research, teaching, consulting, and writing over his 50+ year career.  He has published 26 books and monographs and authored or co-authored 120 articles and book chapters.  He has written 3 books on police vehicle pursuits.  His research covers a wide range of subjects, including the use of force, reducing officer-involved collisions, and discretion.