At Law Enforcement

Future Policing Proposal

When looking at law enforcement, there are many things that could be changed to help to improve the safety and efficiency of the officers on duty. While anyone will tell you that crime and criminals are always evolving, it seems as if most of the practices our country’s law enforcement uses has stayed the same. There are many future technological trends in production today that could be utilized by law enforcement to enable them to better serve the law abiding citizens. Two of the future technologies that should be implemented are the use of wearable computers and the use of GPS tracking devices. Our proposal is about the implementation of these two devices and why they should be implemented into the future of law enforcement.

Wearable Computers

According the Rouse (2007), wearable computers are electronic devices that police officers are able to wear in order to process computer data. Wearable computers are small electronic devices fitted beneath or over the clothes of the user. Also referred to as body-borne computers, they may look like special watches, smartphones, glasses, headphones or vests. The wearable computer is attached somehow to law enforcements clothing or also on their other fittings. This type of computer would be able to be up close and personal to the situations that a police officer may find himself involved in. It would be able to give a clearer picture of any situation. This way the citizens would not be able to falsely accuse the officer of misconduct. Also, a wearable computer would be a constant reminder to the officer to always use his moral ethics in a situation. Some of the issues in figuring out how to best utilize a wearable computer would be figuring out come up with a small enough computer that would not be heavy or to big in size. Knowing where to put the device so that it is able to be the most effective product it can be.

Some examples of advanced wearable computers are the special shirt or vest developed by VivoMetrics and the ‘smart band’ produced by a Pittsburgh company called BodyMedia (Nanda, 2005). VivoMetrics is marketing their product as being able to accelerate treatment, the shirt or vest is worn by patients and allows doctors to monitor their progress. The vest records and sends signals, such as blood pressure and heart rate. The ‘smart band’ is worn on the patient’s upper arm and is used to collect information pertaining to the physical state of the wearer. The smart band tracks how the wearer releases body heat along with other information that can aid in overall health and weight loss.

There are various pros and cons to using the technology of wearable computers. An advantage of wearable computers is that a user is in constant interaction with his computer, but a disadvantage is that these computers are heavy. Wearable computers offer law enforcement officers more