Public Safety
Covering topics such as corrections, criminal justice, emergency management, gun control and police/fire/EMS.
Future in Context
Reducing traffic deaths is a compelling proposition, but it gets complicated when trying to make it so.
City and state leaders in the Milwaukee area are addressing a spike in reckless driving in a variety of ways, from increasing penalties to redesigning streets. The city has a goal of eliminating traffic deaths by 2037.
The City Council unanimously approved a three-year, $815,000 contract with RollKall Technologies. The move comes in direct response to a 2018 audit that criticized the agency’s lack of oversight.
There’s a movement toward cracking down again on minor offenses. It raises larger questions about what transgressions we should be punishing — and why we should.
The Maryland Protecting Opportunities and Regional Trade Act went into effect immediately after Gov. Wes Moore signed it. The program will assist workers and businesses affected by the Key Bridge collapse.
The state launched an investigation into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department three years ago after a string of controversial shootings and costly lawsuits. Now the case is expected to settle.
After shedding nearly 1 million jobs, staffing levels are now higher than at the start of 2020. But severe shortages remain in several fields such as nursing, public safety and education.
Researchers predict there will be 11 hurricanes, five of which will reach major hurricane strength, and 23 named storms due to a historically warm Atlantic Ocean and probable La Niña conditions.
Emergency management officials in Ohio have been prepping for the event for months, anticipating large crowds and slow traffic. Aside from inconvenience, stalled traffic threatens response times to everyday emergencies.
The shift to the Next-Generation 911 program will provide more accurate caller location information, increase the communication methods accessible to dispatchers and will reduce response time, potentially by minutes.
Since 2016, there’s been more than a 50 percent increase in Fire Department vehicles being pulled from service due to breakdowns or malfunctions. Currently, 45 percent of the department’s fire engines are older than 15 years.
The data on traffic fatalities and injuries doesn’t account for their needs or even count them. Better data would enable better solutions.
The Louisiana governor took to Facebook to call for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, after comments Morgan made about the rollout of a dedicated State Police troop for New Orleans.
Veterans were once half as likely as the general population to land in prison. Now, they're twice as likely. State and local officials are trying to prevent this from happening.
Due to a series of atmospheric river storms in 2022, several levees broke along Sacramento County’s Cosumnes River, causing three deaths. The levee repairs were completed last year.
Jails across the state have seen their first reduction in deaths in seven years. But investigations of the 63 deaths revealed supervision failures in more than a third of them.
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