Mental health crisis or meth?

This article reports challenges faced by police when encountering someone behaving erratically — is it a mental health issue or a substance abuse issue? Officers working in areas currently experiencing a surge in meth abuse may find it difficult to tell which cause is behind a person’s behavior. A particular sticking point is that calm de-escalation techniques are recommended when handling a mental health crisis, but that approach may not work best with someone under the influence of drugs.

5 facts about crime in the U.S.

A useful synopsis of crime in the U.S. as of 2018 is available here from the Pew Research Center. Violent and property crime are down dramatically over the last 25 years, although these gains are not always recognized by the public. Crime rates vary substantially around the country — Alaska and New Mexico have violent crime rates 4 times higher than Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

Hate crime training

This NPR segment reports hate crime training delivered in New Hampshire by two formal federal officials on behalf of the Matthew Shepard Foundation and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The session aimed to familiarize officers with recent local and national hate incidents and generate discussion of the pros and cons of separate hate crime laws. Officers were skeptical of the need for special laws but supported the training, saying “If we don’t train, if we don’t stay on top of the current changes and laws and the attitudes and the climate, then we’re going to pay a big price for that. We’ll lose the trust of the community, and we can’t do that.”

Victim tracking of rape kits

An increasing number of states have laws establishing rape kit tracking systems, as reported here. At least 17 states now have such laws, with 5 others pending this year. A key feature of the systems, besides helping officials track cases and reduce backlogs, is empowering victims to monitor the status of evidence collected from them. Advocates argue this “provides a degree of transparency and accountability that, until now, had been notoriously absent from sexual-assault cases.”

State laws on police video

This article from The Pew Charitable Trusts reviews the status of public access to body-worn camera video, including an interactive map that summarizes each state’s current laws. Almost half the states have enacted new legislation in the last two years.

Mapping mass shootings

This brief article includes an interactive U.S. map of mass shootings since 26 innocents were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School 3 years ago. Hawaii, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Wyoming appear to be the only states that have avoided such an incident.