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The purpose of this paper is to consider the existing literature surrounding the use of technology in today’s society to inform future developments across emergency services. Reference to the Police Service in particular will have a resonance for many other public agencies who are utilising more and more technology.

Literature from a policing background will be reviewed to discover the positive impacts and benefits attached to its use, the potential obstacles to its implantation, and how lessons from one agency may be of benefit to others.

The findings suggest that there appears to be attention required in the application of technology by public agencies, namely, workforce culture, training and budgets, and legislation which need to be addressed if the use of technology by public agencies is to be successful.

This paper seeks to learn lessons for the implementation technology by a public agency, namely, the police, in an attempt to inform other public bodies. By doing so, it is believed the lessons learned will make the application of such technologies more effective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine critical issues and challenges that are related to the application of technology to improve the management of police organizations.

First, the study reviews the background of the police service model, the development of police-related technology and the relationship between these technologies and police performance measures. Based on the analysis of managerial concepts, the study provides discussions about risks of technology and human factors, resource limitation, professional attitude and culture, privacy concerns, citizen video and social media, and public trust.

The study concludes with suggestions to examine police technology application from a broad perspective to address not only technology operational issues but also related organization, management, community and policy concerns.

Findings of this study contribute to the understanding of technology application, contribution and limitation in public management.

As the war on terrorism escalates, police agencies are using technologies that electronically scan individuals, structures, and vehicles to identify things hidden from public scrutiny. These machines create new socio‐technical systems for police and citizens. Public policy gaps evolve when new systems give police sensory capabilities that fall outside existing procedural standards such as probable cause and reasonable suspicion. Mobile digital terminals are now common, but are also abused by police officers who run queries on vehicles without articulate suspicions. New technologies such as passive millimeter imaging that permit “X‐ray”‐like examination of individuals and structures create more potential for abuse. As these new technologies diffuse among police agencies, policies should be guided by questions about whether technologies work as designed, whether they are effective, and whether they accomplish anti‐terrorist and crime control objectives. Traditional rules for wiretapping can offer models for operating policies for the new scanning and imaging technologies.

Testing technologies for policing is costly and laborious. Previous research found that police can be reticent about technology adoption. The purpose of this paper is to examine law enforcement adoption of programmatic innovations focused on particular crime types (radiological and nuclear threats).

First, an expert police panel explored readiness to adopt an advanced technology (personal radiation detectors (PRDs)). A survey was then developed from the panel findings (n=101 sampled from East Coast metropolitan police).

Results indicated that on-duty device adoption was likely, but not off-duty. In addition, concerns about ease of carrying PRDs, personal health and security issues, and concerns about job performance were raised. Furthermore, findings suggest that police respond negatively to financial incentives, and focus instead on how innovations can contribute to their own safety and that of their immediate families. Additionally, results indicate that false positives are not a significant barrier to adoption, but device training is important.

This work gives insight how to engage officers more meaningfully in technology adoption for benefit of policing in the field.

This work expands previous police adoption literature and advances understanding of the increasing role officers are taking in counter-terrorism efforts in the USA with applications around the world.

A number of external and internal forces are influencing policing efforts to service the community. These external forces include public expectations for traditional services, and the State government's push towards new public management practices. Internal forces include legacy management practices and inappropriate asset holdings. While there have been a plethora of companies from the private sector that have successfully used information and communication technology (ICT) to address similar influences and ameliorate their performance, this has not been the case in the policing environment. To obtain the strategic, tactical and operational benefits that can be acquired through the adoption and widespread implementation of ICT, a framework is presented to enable virtual policing in Western Australia.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of officers/civilians with dyslexia serving in the police service in England and Wales. Although there has been a growing body of research which has analysed the experiences of offenders and victims with dyslexia, there have been few studies focusing on the experiences of police officers/civilians with this condition. This study employs the social model of disability to conceptualise the experiences of these police officers/civilians from a disability rights perspective.

This applies a quantitative methodology to analyse data on disabling environments experienced by officers/civilians serving in a police service situated in the North of England. The paper collected data from 56 police employees previously diagnosed with dyslexia.

The findings reveal that a significant number of officers were reluctant to disclose that they had dyslexia to their police service. The choice to disclose was a key concern for officers/civilians, as this was directly linked to their experiences of stigmatisation, as well as the risk of their competences being questioned at work. The analysis presents evidence that, although officers/civilians have legal protections under the Equality Act 2010 (c15) in the UK, very few had experienced any form of “reasonable adjustment” in the workplace.

Drawing on the social model of disability, the paper concludes that the police service must improve access to reasonable adjustment, for example, through the use of assistive technologies, to create a more inclusive and supportive working environment for their employees.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of perception of police use of surveillance cameras (POP-S), perception of police legitimacy (POP-L) and community well-being. The study further explores the mediating effect of procedural justice between POP-S and police legitimacy.

A convenience sampling technique was used in the selection of 388 participants, who answered questions relating to police use of surveillance cameras, legitimacy, procedural justice and community well-being. Structural equation modeling was used to test the effects of the hypothesized paths.

The findings showed that POP-L was positively related to community well-being. In addition, procedural fairness partially mediates between POP-S and police legitimacy.

The study sample was limited to only motorists within the city of Accra. Hence, the study does not consider other potential offenses that may be uncovered by police-deployed surveillance cameras.

The study optimizes the relevance of technology use in contemporary policing for the elimination of road traffic carnage.

In this research, the academic scope of technology-based policing was scholarly advanced by drawing links between police use of surveillance cameras, police legitimacy, procedural justice and community well-being within the context of emerging economies.

The purpose of this paper is to challenge the traditional placement of CCTV within the realm of crime prevention technologies and to propose a conceptualisation of surveillance cameras that takes into account how different elements interact to shape how these are understood, defined and used in the day-to-day practices of the police.

Methodologically, the research draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two medium-sized Italian cities where open-street CCTV systems have been recently implemented and is based on a combination of non-participant observations and interviews with police officers in both forces.

Overall, two main findings emerge from the fieldwork. First, cameras are rarely used and not for reasons pertaining to crime control; rather, they have become a tool for the efficient management of scarce policing resources, with particular emphasis on the co-ordination and real-time tracking of patrolling personnel. Second, this shift is understood in radically different ways by officers in the two cities, so that what is experienced as a benign form of peer-to-peer co-ordination in Central City becomes a form of undue surveillance on the part of higher ranks in Northern City.

The value of the present work is twofold. On one hand, it provides relevant information to police practitioners on how organisational and structural factors impact on the use of surveillance cameras in policing. On the other, embracing the idea that CCTV is constructed through the interaction of several distinct, yet related, processes can explain why the same technology is implemented, defined and used in different ways in comparable organisations.

The diffusion of innovations paradigm suggests that stakeholders’ acceptance of a police innovation shapes how it spreads and impacts the larger criminal justice system. A lack of support by external stakeholders for police body-worn cameras (BWCs) can short-circuit their intended benefits. The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of BWCs among non-police stakeholders who are impacted by the technology as well as how BWCs influence their daily work processes.

The authors conducted interviews and focus groups (n=41) in two US cities where the police department implemented BWCs. The interviewees range from courtroom actors (e.g. judges, prosecutors) to those who work with police in the field (e.g. fire and mental health), city leaders, civilian oversight members, and victim advocates.

External stakeholders are highly supportive of the new technology. Within the diffusion of innovations framework, this support suggests that the adoption of BWCs will continue. However, the authors also found the decision to implement BWCs carries unique consequences for external stakeholders, implying that a comprehensive planning process that takes into account the views of all stakeholders is critical.

Despite the recent diffusion of BWCs in policing, this is the first study to examine the perceptions of external stakeholders. More broadly, few criminologists have applied the diffusion of innovations framework to understand how technologies and other changes emerge and take hold in the criminal justice system. This study sheds light on the spread of BWCs within this framework and offers insights on their continued impact and consequences.

The purpose of this paper is to explore factors that drive officer support for body-worn cameras (BWCs).

Results of an officer perceptions survey completed as part of an evaluation of the Chicago Police Department’s BWC project are presented. The influence of treatment- and outcome-oriented justice concerns on officer support for BWCs is explored with a variety of covariates.

Outcome-oriented concerns are a significant predictor of officer support for BWCs, while treatment-oriented concerns are not.

The research enhances understandings of the applicability of procedural justice theorizing in policing generally, and offers direction important to the meaningful use of BWCs.

This finding runs counter to dominant relational models of procedural justice that concentrate on the perspective of subordinates, but lends support to arguments advocating the centrality of role (authority vs subordinate) in the formation of justice evaluations.