Public Safety
Covering topics such as corrections, criminal justice, emergency management, gun control and police/fire/EMS.
Enhancements and weatherization efforts mean this year’s freezing weather did not overwhelm the state’s electric system. But policymakers face tough decisions as future load projections grow.
Since Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore’s surprise announcement that he will step down in late February, the department has been looking to fill the position. The search has revealed that few women have the requisite experience to fill it.
During the first 22 days of this year, 17 people died in road crashes across the state. Legislators have proposed legislation to lower the blood alcohol level for arrest to .05, down from the current .08.
Swatting — falsely reporting a serious emergency to provoke aggressive police response — is on the rise. Fighting this dangerous and distracting trend remains challenging, both legally and technologically.
A Review Board will review five death cases within San Diego County jails, two of which involved inmates who were wrongfully jailed. The sheriff isn’t required to adopt or implement any recommendations from the board.
State Sen. Scott Wiener has proposed legislation that would require new car models to come equipped with technology to prevent drivers from exceeding a road’s speed limit by more than 10 miles an hour.
There’s a big audience for it. But people listening to police radio creates serious privacy challenges. They can also hamper law enforcement.
The state’s Flood Resiliency Blueprint will be an online tool that compiles research and data about flooding in North Carolina in one place. This can be used to inform future plans.
Chases have cost the lives of thousands (half of them innocent bystanders), but sometimes they’re the only way to apprehend violent criminals. Police agencies need nuanced policies to guide their officers.
Human error on Jan. 3 resulted in the loss of thousands of files from 77 computer system servers for the Pennsylvania State Police and State Employees’ Retirement System. Some of the data has yet to be recovered.
The state ranked first nationally in 2022 with 458 hailstorms. Losses are most severe in Dallas County, which has $102 million in expected losses every year due to storm damage.
When the power went out on Saturday, Portland General Electric said the outages would be fixed within 24 to 48 hours. But as of Tuesday afternoon, 31,052 customers were still without power, forcing many to find warm shelter elsewhere.
The most expensive weather and climate disaster in 2023 was a drought and heat wave across the South and Midwest that cost $14.5 billion. But weather conditions that don’t cost billions, like extreme cold, still have major community impacts.
Artificial intelligence platforms have flaws with serious class, gender and race implications. Public officials need to pay more attention to those biases and do what they can to prevent harm.
“Severe repetitive loss properties” are homes that have flooded twice, with damage totaling the property, or flooded four times with at least $5,000 in damages each time. But residents aren’t allowed to know where those properties are exactly.
Is crime out of control? The homicide rate went down 12 percent last year. Still, there’s more than one kind of crime, more than one data set and more than one way to spin things.
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