National Assessment of Technology and Training for Small and Rural Law Enforcement Agencies (NATTS): A Descriptive Analysis

摘要

The primary goal of this project was to conduct an in-depth assessment of the technological capabilities and needs of small and rural law enforcement agencies. This project fills a great void because most of what is known about policing comes from systematicallyconducted evaluations of urban and large-department policing. Little has been done to examine the current state of small and rural law enforcement. Just as large departments are influenced by such variables as agency size, degree of specialization, personnel sophistication, availability of training, volume and nature of workload, jurisdictional economic conditions, local history, and culture, so are small and rural departments, but perhaps in varying degrees. Issues such as these must be assessed and understood in order to guide science and technology development for small/rural policing, thereby designing effective and successful technology training for small/rural police agencies. This research project provides a comprehensive and national assessment of the technological capabilities and training needs for small/rural law enforcement organizations.