The Platform for Innovative Policing
The SmartForce® Team
SmartForce Technologies Inc.
On Monday 02/21/22 we released v1.1 of CitizenContact.
Here’s what’s new:
Officer Card by SmartForce®
Share your digital business card.
You can share this QR code as many times as you want.
It does not expire.
My Reports and Agency Reports
We completely redesigned both sections.
Now, you can see the full submitted report.
Check out the revised CitizenContact officer/owner guides for more information.
Chris Arvayo
Customer Success Manager | Product
Having a reliable, cutting-edge early intervention system allows a police agency to effectively monitor the risk and wellness of their police officers, impacting the safety of the community they serve and protect.
An effective police leader knows that having a clear picture of an employee’s performance can prevent problems from arising and allows quick responses to address the problems when they do arise.
Introducing the SmartForce Early Intervention System. A cutting-edge tool that provides law enforcement leaders a real-time look at an officer’s risk, allowing for timely intervention when it is needed.
The Early Intervention System has an intuitive user interface that allows Command Staff to set the risk and intervention tipping point related to complaints, crashes, pursuits, and response to resistance reports generated in our SmartIA software.
The user interface alerts the user to the types of activity the officer is involved in as soon as the officer is added to one of the reports in SmartIA
Toggle between risk and timeline view.
Add intervention notes, and collaborate with other members of the command staff, to ensure risk is properly managed.
With the SmartForce Early Intervention System, manage risk, drive accountability, ensure officer wellness, and increase public trust. Thank you for your commitment to making your community safer.
Brian Mc Grew
VP of Education
We’ve recently been introduced to new language and concepts like “social distancing” and “shelter in place orders” thanks to COVID-19. The implications of this are far reaching and definitely impact public safety & law enforcement.
Change is always hard, but in times of crisis, change is easier. Great leaders know this and do 2 things; 1) Manage fear through direction, protection, and order and 2) Initiate positive change with vision, alignment, and execution. Great leaders are not afraid of parting with “the way we’ve always done it.” Instead, they realize that necessity is the mother of invention and they use emergencies as an opportunity to better their agency as a whole.
The Great Recession of 2008 had an enormous impact on law enforcement staffing and forced police departments and sheriff offices to do more with less. Some leaders took advantage of this crisis and used their time and energy to reinvent their organizations. The necessity to do more with less was an opportunity for them to invent and share a new vision of how to be successful at delivering public safety vs. spending time and energy trying to get back to “full-staff.” These great law enforcement leaders made innovative tweaks and decisions on how they delivered public safety and guided their organizations to unprecedented levels of crime reduction and community service.
COVID-19 and its implications offer another significant opportunity for law enforcement leaders to step-up and become great leaders in our ever-changing world today.
Examples of this are already happening. The Savannah Police Department leadership suspended group meetings like shift-briefing and is now conducting their briefings virtually through an investment in technology to be more efficient. With this change, they are providing protection against virus transmission/exposure, management direction, and order to their officer’s lives at work. They’re also using their technology investment in other ways to create more time for higher priority calls and bringing more value to their community faster. Click here for the Savannah Channel 11 Top Story, “New technology helping keep Savannah officers safe, connected amid COVID-19 pandemic.”
Whether it’s the COVID-19 pandemic or some other crisis, become a great law enforcement leader by managing fear and creating a positive vision of organizational change. In the words of a great Chief of Police recently promoted to City Manager, “Technology like SmartForce® can be the difference between simply doing what has always been done, and doing it more efficiently” – John Jackson, MCJ.
If you’d like to learn if investing in new law enforcement leadership & management technology will have a high return on investment and can facilitate great organizational change for you, call or email me. Thanks for all you do to make the world a safer place!
Brian Mc Grew
VP of Education
Are you looking for a way systematically and realistically implement crime reduction strategies throughout your agency? Are you unsure what your crime analyst should produce to be more effective? Do you want to make your crime reduction accountability meetings more meaningful and productive?
These are some of the questions I hear quite frequently while working with law enforcement agencies across the country who are at various stages of excellence with implementing and executing pro-active crime reduction strategies and concepts like CompStat, Hot-Spots Policing, Intelligence-Led Policing, DDACTS, Problem-Oriented Policing, etc.
Since there is very little evidence-based research and even fewer educational opportunities to learn from the best how to guarantee results, most agencies are stuck trying to get better at a very slow pace.
At SmartForce®, we’re here to change that. In May of 2020, we will be hosting an educational conference for Command Staffs so your agency can get the evidence-based educational experience that can inject new life, speed, and results into your crime reduction model.
You’ll get guidance on how to infuse hot-spot and offender-based practices into your day-to-day operations systematically so they become as sustainable as responding to calls for service and investigating crimes.
Can you imagine how great it will be to have the right real-time data, the right real-time communication, and the right framework for your executives down to your officers to be their best at reducing and preventing crime for your community?
Make an investment in your command staff that will make a difference for them, your agency, and your community!
Thanks for all you do to make the world a safer place and hope to see you in May!
Brian Mc Grew
VP of Education
Congratulations to Colonel Nathaniel McQueen, Delaware State Police on their Excellence in Policing Award.
The Center for Police Practice, Policy and Research gives this award once a year to a current sworn police officer, supervisor, commander, or executive who is a leader in their agency and has been a champion for implementation of innovative strategies that bring about change and improve policing.
Learn more here.
There are several core challenges that often stand between law enforcement organizations and their quest to improve crime reduction efforts in their communities. Selecting the right strategy (or even blend of strategies) that will address their unique problems is a major hurdle to overcome. Likewise, staffing, culture, and measuring execution in a meaningful and long-term way are also common obstacles.
While it’s certainly true that there is no “one size fits all” approach to crime reduction, there are a few core concepts that can address many of these obstacles, and help an agency accomplish its goals simultaneously.
Based on our experience, countless conversations with your peers, and case studies, we have fast-tracked the top Three Critical Keys to Success when it comes to reducing crime:
It All Begins with Accountability
One of the most important factors required to reduce crime has to do with adopting a true accountability mindset for your proactive policing efforts. The problem is that in many agencies, accountability is something that “rolls downhill” – meaning that responsibilities are often pushed down to the people who are working beneath those they were given to. A Chief gives an assignment to a Commander, who assigns it to a Captain, who delegates it to a Lieutenant, etc.
Instead, accountability needs to be shared across all levels of the organization, not just the last person it was delegated to. More than that, a successful crime reduction strategy depends on accountability being assigned based on the complexity of the crime. The more significant the crime, the higher the rank of the officer to which it is assigned. These are two critical perspectives that any agency of any size can easily adopt by sharing accountability and assigning by complexity.
Communication is King
Equally important is the concept of communication – something that most agencies could stand to improve in at least some ways. If your agency wants to focus on robberies and burglaries, for example, this needs to be communicated to everyone. This communication extends to the officers out on patrol as well as the crime analysts who are focused on data collection and the investigators who need to know what their priorities needs to be in a given day.
Likewise, actionable data must be communicated if crime reduction techniques are to be successful. Everyone in an agency needs to know what is happening, why it’s happening, and they need essential community information to gain critical perspectives on the people and groups they’re dealing with.
Remember, knowing what to communicate is often just as essential as knowing how to communicate within your agency.
The Power of Collaboration
Finally, we arrive at collaboration – or in other words, the realization that decision makers within an organization need the most accurate, actionable insights to make the best decisions possible at all times. Key data needs to be top of mind, represented visually and presented in a way that can be easily organized, searched and accessed.
Equally important is the realization that decision makers exist at every level in an agency – not just at the top. Once all of the decision makers have the knowledge they need, they’ll be in a better position to prioritize their time and respond in the right way to their own unique piece of the crime reduction puzzle.
If you’d like to find out more information about the Three Critical Keys to Success in terms of reducing crime, download our new eBook: “The Most Powerful Guide to Reducing Crime – 3 Keys to Success.”
Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS) is a law enforcement operational model which combines data on the locations of crimes with data from traffic crashes to determine how to best place officers and other resources. This model is designed to not only reduce traffic accidents and crimes, but to enhance the presence of law enforcement in the community, putting officers in places where it is most helpful and reassuring for them to be seen. In addition, such targeted use of resources could lead to an overall cost savings for law enforcement departments in the long run.
It is generally accepted that highly visible traffic enforcement is an effective deterrent, and that crimes often involve motor vehicles. With these two facts in mind, DDACTS is designed to optimize the placement of officers to reduce crime and accidents based on real data. DDACTS uses data of a variety of types, including:
Much of this data is coded for type of incident, location, time of day and day of the week. It is used to create integrated maps that overlay crash, traffic and crime data to help to identify hot spots within a community or jurisdiction. Further analysis may show causation factors, environmental influences and time patterns for crime and traffic accidents.
Once the maps are created and data is analyzed, agencies can then devise strategies to focus law enforcement countermeasures and activities on the hot spots that were identified. This could mean increasing patrols in target areas, stationing police to manage traffic at key times, installing new traffic management devices, putting in cameras and more.
This law enforcement operational model gets stronger the more it is used and analyzed. By meeting with officers, community members, administrative personnel and elected officials, agency leaders can learn what’s working and what isn’t to better fine tune their approach. This “Team” approach also helps to get stakeholders more invested in the program so that they can be counted on for support and continued data. It is also important to do ongoing assessments of reductions in crimes and crashes, cost savings and other results of using DDACTS.
Nobody can predict exactly where a crime or a traffic accident is going to occur, DDACTS, however, can at least point out those areas where there is a higher probability of such events happening, based on historical and current data, so there is a better chance of having an officer in the right place at the right time.
Adventos is proud to announce that it has joined the Colorado Technology Association (CTA). CTA is the state’s premier nonprofit tech organization, creating meaningful connections throughout our community and advancing our technology ecosystem by establishing a diverse talent pipeline, advocating for modernized policy and fostering growth. CTA’s serves its more than 380 members across the state by offering a forum for business development, career advancement, civic engagement and access to influential thought leaders who are driving innovation.
Brian Mc Grew
VP of Education
Law enforcement organizations are moving toward a blended policing approach of both calls for service and data-driven crime reduction. Click here for a FREE download of the most powerful eBook on reducing crime available today.
Brian Mc Grew
VP of Education
There is no shortage of training classes available in the public safety sector. However, this abundance of training is actually what makes it hard to decipher which ones provide the highest impact. Here are my Top 5 Tips & Tricks for selecting the best training conferences.
1- Look for or confirm that the training is “Evidence-Based.”
Conferences that provide speakers sharing their perspectives and best practices have value, but not as much value as speakers who have published evidence-based research that shows certain practices will generate a repeatable successful result.
2- Look for training that matches your department’s highest priorities.
This probably is a given, but I’ve seen many times that participants go to training events because they are local or free. Although the training pertains to the improvement of public safety, it may have nothing to do with the department’s focus on reducing gang activity for example. The return on investment is much higher, even if you had to spend the money traveling across the country for 3 days for an evidence-based training on something related to your 5 year plan, than attending 3 days of local, free training on public safety subjects that are not as critical and are not evidence-based.
3- Always ask for an Agenda.
Advertisements for training are to capture your attention. Make sure the conference can back up the hype. Getting a copy of an agenda, even if it is in draft form can help you determine some key factors on how valuable the training may be. Make sure the featured speakers have more than 30 minutes to discuss the topic. Speakers that have 1.5 to 3 hours of time on a topic will be presenting more than their theories and perspectives. They will likely be sharing the details on how to implement their perspectives in your agency. Great speakers understand adult learning. With a larger block of time on the agenda they can include case studies, workshops, and/or a review of guides, policies or other resources they have designed.
4- Determine if Speakers are Nationally-known or Associated with the COPS Office or the Bureau of Justice Administration.
When you or one of your subordinates goes to a conference, there is only so much that can be retained and put to use at your agency. Retaining whatever level of information from a nationally-known speaker or one that has been associated with COPS Office or BJA grants would certainly provide a high return on investment of time and money.
5- Does the conference have a Theme?
A conference that has a theme like Gang Violence, Sex Trafficking, or Pro-Active Policing has more value than a conference with a hodgepodge of topics because attendees get multiple perspectives, ideas, and ways to be successful on that particular challenge in Public Safety instead of one way to think about 12 different challenges in Public Safety.
My last piece of advice is to go to a conference that matches the criteria above so you know for certain what a high impact training conference looks and feels like, and that all others should be measured against. So, if your agency is focused on Pro-Active, data-driven policing, the next opportunity to attend this kind of high impact/low cost educational conference is the SmartForce™ Command Academy Aug. 8-10 in Breckenridge, CO. This conference will feature Nationally-known speakers that have participated in both BJA and COPS Office grants and have published evidence-based data. Email me and I’ll send you the draft agenda. Then, click here for more details and to register before all the seats are taken.
