Tag: justice and public safety

Natural disasters are devastating, often resulting in loss of life, massive property damage, and damage to the critical infrastructure that powers emergency services. This can prompt public sector organizations to consider building more resilient infrastructure. Such was the case for the 911 system in Livingston Parish, Louisiana, an agency that dispatches for 21 public safety agencies including law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services, and averages over 325 calls for service per day. After a major flood in 2016 knocked out their 911 system, they worked with AWS Partner TailorBuilt Solutions, LLC. to use AWS to become resilient against disaster, reducing service interruptions and improving response times.

According to the United States Constitution, public access to judicial proceedings is a right covered by the First and Sixth Amendments. To make hearings visible to the public, even when in-person attendance is limited, state and local governments are beginning to mandate many court proceedings be live streamed, often with a very short window to do so. The cloud-native media and asset management platform Nomad, which is built on AWS, helps governments implement scalable live streaming capabilities quickly and simply.

With the development of 5G and an ever-growing number of cloud-connected devices, data is becoming available at an unprecedented rate. Law enforcement agencies can use this hyper-connected environment to bridge previously isolated data siloes and make better-informed decisions to improve emergency response and citizen services. To discuss how law enforcement agencies are using new technology to improve constituent outcomes, AWS recently hosted a webinar featuring a panel of experts. Read on for key takeaways from the webinar and watch on-demand.

Carbyne, an AWS justice and public safety customer and partner, provides 911 call handling systems, offering a cloud-native software as a service (SaaS) platform. Although any public safety answering points (PSAPs) can benefit from Carbyne’s cloud-powered solution, certain regions with hostile, remote terrain can especially benefit from improved caller location and the ability to put eyes on the scene. This is crucial, for example, in situations where people are lost or hurt in the desert, and in desert-heavy counties that form the Rio Grande Council of Governments (RGCOG). Using Carbyne improved RioCOG’s caller location from an accuracy of a few miles to within roughly 10 meters on over 85% of emergency calls.

After a multi-year journey working with the mission critical application technology providers and Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) officials across the US, Amazon Web Services (AWS) implemented a simple and technically robust approach to CJIS compliance. Now, agencies and organizations in all 50 states in the US can host criminal justice information (CJI) on AWS.

To protect citizens and save lives, justice and public safety agencies rely on timely access to critical information, such as criminal histories, arrest warrants, stolen vehicles, and 911 call data. Providing this mission critical criminal justice information with five nines (99.999%) availability and protecting it according to the rigorous security requirements prescribed in the Criminal Justice Information Services Security Policy are top priorities for criminal justice agencies (CJA). AWS’s innovative features and security controls can help customers achieve CJIS compliance in a simplified way.

AWS hosted first responders from fire chiefs to law enforcement to identify solutions to address gaps in communication technology and ensure emergency information is dispersed consistently and quickly. The Tech to Protect Challenge, a hackathon hosted by Redflash Group, connected public safety agencies and first responders with technologists and coders that help them work backwards to solve common challenges. The program helps emergency responders save lives through improved communications and awareness by advancing and expanding technology access.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) is a worldwide organization for law enforcement leadership to communicate new ideas, share experiences, disseminate information, and build relationships with other law enforcement entities. This year’s conference included sessions on trends in the law enforcement environment, new ideas, technology, and real-world applications. Here are some of the topics that AWS and our network of partners and solutions providers are working on to improve with law enforcement.

AWS Services are used throughout the United States by state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies. Customers can create customized cloud-based environments for CJI workloads with training and helpful resources provided by AWS to meet CJIS requirements. Backed by the secure and tested AWS network, customers can feel comfortable putting sensitive workloads in AWS.

Law enforcement applications are increasingly becoming integrated with the cloud. Whether through computer-aided dispatch, records management, or data analytics, the cloud is enabling officers to accomplish new tasks. To understand the value of cloud computing for police investigations, let’s first compare the traditional way police departments have managed data versus how it works in the cloud.