Information Sharing News News Archive | Subscribe

The National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) will stream the session “Data: What It is, Why You Need It and What in the World to Do With It” live from the National Forum on Criminal Justice on August 1 from 2:00-3:30 pm PT.  This session is geared for novices and addresses issues and questions including: Data:  we need it to decide which problems to tackle, to choose which initiatives to fund, and to measure whether those programs are working as planned. But do we have the data we need? If not, who does and will they share? How do we know if the data are telling us what we need to know? And how in the world do we pay for the analysis? Presenters are Jeff Bender, Deputy Commissioner, NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services; and Terry Salo, Deputy Commissioner, NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services. Glenn Fueston, Executive Director, MD Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention will serve as moderator.
NCJA will stream this session using Facebook Live at https://www.facebook.com/thencja and the recording will be available on the NCJA website at http://www.ncja.org/home.

SEARCH and the National Center for State Courts recently launched a new version of the training course on the Global Reference Architecture (GRA), a framework and set of standards that makes it easier, faster, and more affordable for justice and public safety practitioners to design effective information sharing solutions. This updated and self-paced online training course is presented in 10 modules and helps stakeholders gain a common understanding of the GRA framework, standards, methods, and processes. 

The training demonstrates how to establish a governance structure, develop an information sharing architecture, model and document services, and create information models.   The course includes interactive, hands-on implementation labs that tie lessons together and is presented via an easy-to-use interface integrating narration, video, and written text with a certificate of completion option. 

The GRA Training Course is suitable for a range of trainees, including executives, senior managers, project managers/coordinators, and implementers.  

In 2004, Thomas Hargrove, a 61-year-old retired news reporter from Virginia, became aware of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Supplementary Homicide Report and contemplated whether it was possible to teach a computer how to spot serial killers.  He spent months trying to develop an algorithm that would identify unsolved cases with enough commonalities to suggest the same murderer.  Hargrove eventually founded the Murder Accountability Project (MAP), a small nonprofit seeking to make FBI murder data more widely and easily available.  MAP has already assembled case details on 638,454 homicides from 1980 through 2014, including 23,219 cases that had not been reported to the FBI.  This is the most complete list of case-level details of U.S. murders available anywhere, and the group’s Web site has made it available at no cost to anyone with statistical analysis software.  

The National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) recently released an online training course on virtual currency.  The 30-minute course covers basic information and concepts that serve as an introduction to virtual currencies and their relationship to other types of currency.  It covers various types of virtual currency, including the difference between decentralized and centralized currencies, with a strong focus on Bitcoin: what it is, how it is stored, and Bitcoin-specific investigative tips and techniques.  Individuals must have an NW3C online learning account and be employed by a law enforcement organization to access the no-cost training.

Cybercrime is an ever-growing issue for state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement.  With advancements in technology, coupled with the oversharing of personal information, law enforcement needs to not only ensure the public’s safety online but also be cognizant of the digital footprint that people are leaving behind.  The National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) has developed an online training course based on the Understanding Digital Footprints—Steps to Protect Personal Information resource.  The 35-minute course introduces the concept of digital footprints and best practices in protecting personal identifying information.  Topics include understanding consequences of oversharing personal information, limiting an individual’s digital footprint, protecting privacy on social media sites, and steps to take after becoming a target of doxing.  Individuals must have an NW3C online learning account and be employed by a law enforcement organization to access the training.