• Evidence suggests that three-strikes law does not deter crime

    Contrary to what police, politicians, and the public believe about the effectiveness of California’s three-strikes law, researchers have found that the get-tough-on-criminals policy voters approved in 1994 has done nothing to reduce the crime rate; a criminologist finds that decline in alcohol consumption is most responsible for decreasing crime rate

  • Mayor suggests student fee to hire more police, firefighters for local college’s sporting events

    Morgantown, West Virginia mayor Jim Manilla wants to hire more police officers and firefighters to deal with street fires, riots, and other incidents following West Virginia University sporting events, and he wants the students to pay for it

  • To ensure success, Mexican drug cartels emulate corporate business model

    When the subject of Mexican drug cartels come up, most people think of bloody violence, pounds of cocaine or marijuana, and so much money people have to weight it instead of counting it; what people do not think about is the business models the cartels emulate – and they emulate the models and management charts of typical American corporations

  • New approach to identifying remains allows reopening of cold cases

    In an effort to identify the thousands of John/Jane Doe cold cases in the United States, researchers have found a multidisciplinary approach to identifying the remains of missing persons; using the new method, the researchers were able to identify the remains of a missing child forty-one years after the discovery of the body

  • Jewish Community Homeland Security Primer distributed to law enforcement agencies

    Amidst the Jewish High Holidays, the Secure Community Network (SCN), the national homeland security initiative of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents, distributed what SCN described as “a first ever” homeland security briefing primer for American law enforcement and homeland security agencies and national security partners across the United States

  • Oregon terrorism suspect’s request to learn identity of government informant rejected

    Mohamed Mohamud, a 21-year old Somali born Oregon resident, is accused of attempting to bomb Portland, Oregon’s 2010 holiday tree-lighting ceremony; a request by Mohamud and his defense team to learn the true identity of a government informant known only as “Bill Smith” was denied by U.S. District Judge Garr King

  • Critics: U.S. not doing enough to combat domestic terrorism

    The effectiveness of the U.S. campaign against al Qaeda and its affiliates may have reduced the threat of foreign terrorists launching attacks on targets in the United States, but the threat of terrorism the United States is facing has not been reduced owing to the rise in domestic terrorism

  • Security education is becoming a central part of security hiring, promotion

    There is a growing emphasis on homeland security-related education in security hiring in both the private and government sectors; this growing demand has lead to a rapid growth in college and university degree programs in homeland security – the number of such programs is now estimated to be 350; trouble is, those programs do not have a commonly agreed upon curriculum, and as a result, the classes chosen to be part of an individual’s curriculum are based on the available faculty, rather than proven value to the students

  • DHS submersible Pluto mimics the real narco-subs

    In the early 1990s, South American drug cartels came up with a new tactic to transport narcotics destined for the United States: small, radar-dodging, self-propelled, semi-submersibles (SPSSs); better to address the submersible problem, DHS Science and Technology Directorate created its own submersible and called it Pluto, after the planet which is difficult to spot

  • Math tree may help root out fraudsters

    Fraudsters beware: the more your social networks connect you and your accomplices to the crime, the easier it will be to shake you from the tree — the Steiner tree, that is; a new study outlines the connection linking fraud cases and the algorithm designed by Swiss mathematician Jakob Steiner

  • Assassination attempt on Quebec’s premier-elect foiled

    A man shouting “The Anglos are waking up” broke into a victory party held by Pauline Marois, Quebec’s premier-elect and the leader of the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ), after the party won the provincial election on Tuesday; the gunman missed Marois but killed one man and wounded two others; the PQ emerged as the largest party in the province, but it failed to win an outright majority; its minority government status means that it will not be able to push for a referendum on Quebec’s independence from Canada

  • Photographers and security personnel fight over access to buildings

    In the years after 9/11 and the 7 July 2005 London bombings, photographers have been waging a war with security personnel of public and private buildings; photographers argue that anything that one can see from the street can be photographed, even if it is a privately owned building, but security people – both private and the police – are worried about terrorists gathering information for a possible attack

  • NYPD monitoring of Muslim communities did not produce a single terrorist lead

    An NYPDunit which gathers information on Muslim communities and businesses in order to uncover links to terrorist plots has been unable to do so in six years of engaging in monitoring Muslim communities in New York and New Jersey

  • Concerns over terrorist groups gaining foothold in Latin America

    At the moment, Islamic militant and terrorist groups do not seem to have a presence in Latin America, but concerns are growing that these groups could develop strategic links with drug organizations, posing a serious threat to security in the hemisphere

  • UAVs with dexterous arms to help in infrastructure repair and disaster recovery

    With current technology, most UAVs perform passive tasks such as surveillance and reconnaissance missions, tasks which are performed well above ground; researchers are interested in how UAVs might interact with objects at or near ground level; a UAV with dexterous arms could perform a wide range of active near-ground missions, from infrastructure repair and disaster recovery to border inspection and agricultural handling