Justice & Security Strategies

Smart Policing in Cambridge

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:07:29 +0000

View the project’s Press Release from the Cambridge Police Department.

Additional information coming soon.

Creating Safe Places

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:29:06 +0000

CPTED is a process and a way of thinking about crime. It is not a program or system of ready–made solutions. CPTED emphasizes understanding and changing the physical environment in an effort to reduce crime at particular locations.

CPTED also commonly brings together various departments in local government to examine how the physical features of an area influence and contribute to the occurrence of crime.

Why does it work?

CPTED is effective because of the concept called defensible space. This concept suggests all space in the human environment is defendable: someone may take responsibility for the space and take action to defend it from non-legitimate, criminal, or unintended use.

Alternately, space can be undefended. When there is no identifiable person who is responsible for the space, it is left exposed to criminal use. Crime is more likely to happen at an undefended location, and crime is less likely to occur in a defended area.

How does it work?

CPTED is applied in the community through one of four overlapping strategies:

• Natural Surveillance – the design of an area so as to allow the greatest visibility by citizens.
• Territorial Reinforcement – how space is defined. All space is defined as public, private, or semi-public/semi-private.
• Access Control – the physical guidance of movement to and from a place by the placement of entrances, exits, fencing, landscaping, and locks.
• Maintenance – the upkeep of an area demonstrates that someone cares and will defend the property against crime.

Clients

Since 2006 Justice & Security Strategies has worked with numerous cities and organizations to use the principles of CPTED, including:

• City of Dublin, CA
• City of San Rafael, CA
• City of Walnut Creek, CA
• City of Pittsburg, CA
• City of Visalia, CA
• City of Stockton, CA
• City of Richmond, CA
• American Planning Association-California Chapter
• California Code Enforcement Association
• San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit
• Design, Community & Environment Planning Firm
• Institute for Children, Family and Justice

Our staff has extensive experience in implementing and teaching Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. They have taught CPTED classes to police, city planners, school officials, code enforcement officers, and other municipal government workers throughout California for many years. They have extensive experience in municipal policing, where they have consulted on numerous CPTED projects with city staff, school district staff, community members, and private businesses.

What we offer

JSS provides both training and consulting services in CPTED. We customize our training to fit your organization and needs. We perform assessments on new and existing facilities and developments.

Management Consulting (Test)

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:20:23 +0000

Finding Funding and Grants (Test)

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:44:57 +0000

Training and Education (Test)

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:44:19 +0000

Homeland Security in Montgomery County

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:43:43 +0000

JSS and 11 partners (JSS Team) provide responsive, flexible, collaborative services to the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. Specifically, the JSS Team provides:

• Expertise in every aspect of first responder capabilities and their incident command response, including emergency medical services, public health and hospitals;
• Nationally respected and recognized authorities in federal, state, regional and local strategic, policy and operational requirements for emergency management planning, response, mitigation recovery and resilience and all the emergency support functions;
• Broad knowledge, expertise and capabilities in public outreach and education with sensitivity to diverse communities and ability to translate materials into multiple languages;
• Expertise in crisis communications, cyber terrorism and security, terrorist threat assessment and critical infrastructure protection;
• Expertise in building consensus, facilitating meetings and exercises, executive level policy dialogs and training in communications, policy implementation, standard operating procedures and performance;
• Expertise in federally funded grants and UASI project management and support;
• Extensive experience with development and implementation of the Emergency Management Standards including EMAP. NFPA and ASTM.
• Deep and experienced familiarity with the diversity of Montgomery County communities, including outreach and involvement of city/town governments, civic organizations and the private sector; and
• Commitment to maximum participation of small business, MBE, veteran and minority owned businesses.

JSS has assembled a unique team with breadth, depth, and extensive experience in emergency management planning and support. The Team that we have assembled includes nationally recognized authorities in emergency management planning, response, mitigation, and recovery and has extensive involvement and familiarity with Montgomery County, its various communities and businesses, as well as the National Capital Region and the State of Maryland:

• Abt Associates, located in Bethesda, Maryland, has 45 years experience supporting government with planners, scientists, analysts, IT and other specialists in a wide-range of business programs focusing on critical infrastructure sectors.
• Beverly R. Silverberg Communications, Inc. (BRSCI), a small, woman-owned management consulting firm based in Montgomery County, specializes in efficient and effective strategic communications helping organizations deal with crisis situations and public outreach.
• CNA is a not-for-profit research and analysis organization with 68 years of experience solving some of our nation’s most complex operational and homeland security problems at the local, state and federal levels.
• Digital Sandbox is a risk analysis and management software firm that creates risk analytics and risk-based solutions for federal, state, local, and private organizations to mitigate catastrophic and disruptive threats that can impact them.
• G-2 Solutions, led by Christopher Geldart, is a Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business that specializes in providing full-spectrum homeland security and emergency management solutions for federal, state and local governments.
• MELE Associates, headquartered in Rockville, MD, is a veteran-owned, minority-owned business with an extensive record in project management, homeland security, health information systems, energy, radiological/nuclear threat reduction and critical infrastructure protection.
• Radius Technology Group, an 8(a) certified small business headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, is an Information Assurance and Management Consulting firm that specializes in cyber security, physical security, and program management support.
• Readiness Consulting Services (RCS), led by Robert Fletcher, is a small business providing executive consulting to federal, state and local government , universities and non- governmental organizations engaged in emergency management and homeland security.
• Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) BDR Division is a leader in emergency management and disaster readiness, dedicated to helping local, state, and federal government agencies, hospitals, schools, universities, and the private sector plan for, respond to, and recover from natural and human-caused disasters.
• Telecommunications Development Corporation (TDC), a small minority-owned business, specializes in homeland security and emergency management planning by offering project management, network and systems administration, site management, and training.
• TriMed, Inc. is a woman-owned small business in Montgomery County that was established in 1993 to provide medical planning and consulting services for all-hazards events in the National Capital Region.
This Team includes six small businesses; six are certified minority business enterprises; and four are local small businesses in Montgomery County. JSS leads this Team with its project management skills and provides depth with its knowledge of and expertise with first responders operations and trends.

City Planners (Test)

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:42:46 +0000

Children of Inmates

admin — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:52:37 +0000

Activities of the Service Network for Children of Inmates:

Since 2007 the Network has served children, ages birth to 18, whose parents are incarcerated in prison or jail. The Network has:

• Developed systematic processes to receive referrals from the community, local law enforcement, Miami-Dade County jail and state prisons
• Proactively located children to ensure they are safe and with a responsible adult caregiver
• Established six community-based care coordination centers in faith-based organizations to respond to crises and provide basic services
• Provided services to reduce risks for anti-social behaviors, facilitate family stabilization, and improve developmental progress
• Created opportunities to allow for stronger bonds and attachment between children and incarcerated parents through prison and jail visits and video-visitations, and
• Raised community knowledge of the consequences of incarceration on children.

The Network provides these children and their families with wrap-around support that will lead to success in school and society. A number of strategies and tactics are employed to ensure that these children are safe and served by nurturing families and communities. Identifying and locating these children is the first step in assisting them. Second, we assist in the child and family in obtaining basic needs (food, clothing, shelter) and provide them with appropriate referrals to medical services, mental health care, educational opportunities, legal assistance, and other services. Third, we strengthen the bonds between the incarcerated parent and child through communication (letter writing), visits to prison or jail, and with video visits at the Care Coordination Centers. Fourth, we raise community awareness and serve as advocates for these children of inmates. We carefully measure our performance and provide the Children’s Trust with robust results.

Since 2007 the Network has received 2,250 referrals from incarcerated parents and other sources; located, and contacted 1,625 of those referrals; and provided care coordination services to 919 children and their families. To strengthen the familial bond between the child and his/her incarcerated parent, the Network has taken over 500 children to visit seven Florida Department of Corrections facilities and the Miami-Dade County Jail since 2008. To raise community awareness, the Network established a website in December 2008 and in 18 months the site has received over 3,500 unique hits and over 4,500 visits.

The Network has garnered the attention of the news media as evidenced by the Miami Herald’s three articles about children of inmates, CBS4 News’ three television stories, and in January 2010 National Public Radio’s “Tell Me More” program showcased the work of the Network. More importantly, the Network has gained a foothold in the state, as the Florida Department of Corrections has included the Children of Inmates in its re-entry plans with seven correctional institutions.

We provide a continuum of direct and unique support services. These services include:

• Hosting free-flowing expression support groups for small groups of children to help children understand and process their feelings and come-to-terms with the realities of parental incarceration. During these sessions, letter-writing or drawing are used to support the child’s efforts to communicate with their incarcerated parents and to express their feelings about the situations in which they find themselves.

• Separately hosting support groups to allow the caregivers build a sense of community and share how they are resolving problems specific to their situation, such as obtaining birth certificates for children left in their care, managing school routines, etc.

• Coordinating special quarterly trips to selected correctional facilities to overcome barriers to visitation and improve caregiver bonding, where appropriate. The trips are used both to provide support to existing clients and to engage new clients.

• Employing video-visitation sessions using state-of-the-art conferencing technologies to maintain more frequent contact and/ or to provide for less costly, invasive and frightening contact/ bonding between the child and incarcerated parent.

Safe Kids, Safe Schools

admin — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:48:27 +0000

Implementation and impact evaluation of the iris recognition technology in three New Jersey schools.

Inspectors at District Stations

admin — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:32:08 +0000

Evaluation of community policing pilot project, inspectors decentralized with placements in district stations.