On Monday, the Justice Department announced that the VRN will expand to include the following cities: Compton, Calif.; Flint, Mich.; Little Rock, Ark.; West Memphis, Ark.; and Newark, N.J.
Collaborative reform is more effective than federal agencies simply giving grants to local law enforcement, says Laurie Robinson, a criminologist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who served as co-chair of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
“Unless that [grant] money is focused in a very strategic way … it can very easily be dissipated,” she says.
Support from technical experts can be more effective, she says. Long-term training and technical assistance from federal personnel can help police departments identify specific community problems. The departments can then turn to specific agencies for short-term tactical assistance to help address those problems. VRN cities have employed the US Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, among others.
“I [think] technical assistance is some of the best-spent federal money because it’s relatively inexpensive compared to large federal grants,” she adds.
The Camden County Police Department got de-escalation training from the US Marshals Service, as well as access to a 360-degree shooting simulator, according to Chief Thomson. Combined with other training, the measures “have significantly lowered the instances where our officers have fired their service weapons,” he writes in an e-mail.
“For an urban police department that responds to thousands of man-with-a-gun calls each year, this has made policing safer for the officers and the public,” he adds.