As law enforcement agencies across the country, make the switch from analog to digital radio systems, many departments are taking advantage of the new technology to keep the public from listening in on their stations. After spending $7 million on upgrades to comply with a federal 2013 deadline to switch police radio communications from analog to digital, the City of Pasadena in California encrypted its main frequency, blocking access to outsiders.

In the world of seized assets, straight answers can be hard to come by. For example, according to recent reports from the Houston Chronicle, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials distributed a news release recently announcing that the bulk of $29 million that once belonged to Gulf Cartel king Osiel Cardenas Guillen will be spread among a dozen South Texas law-enforcement agencies.

If you want to have a successful second career after law enforcement as a fiction writer or novelist, the first thing you need to do is forget about the stuff you weren’t supposed to talk about on the job. “Don’t dodge race, don’t dodge sex, don’t dodge the war on drugs because people told you they’re winning it and you on the street know that they’re not.”

Just because the search turned up an item not specified in the warrant doesn’t mean the search was improper says the US Supreme Court. The high court recently ruled that California police officers cannot be sued because they used a warrant that “may have been defective” to search a woman's house.

In another story where politicians and public safety officials are at odds, a “self-defense” bill that has passed the Virginia State Senate has set off alarms among the law enforcement profession. Proponents of the law say the bill simply expands the circumstances on which “good people” can defend themselves. Others claim the law is a basically an invitation for violent criminals to kill with impunity

Pension contributions from state and local employers aren't blowing up budgets despite what you may have heard repeatedly. In fact those contributions amount to just 2.9 percent of state spending, on average, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators.

According to recent media reports, the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina will continue to challenge the state's attorney general and police department over the issue of when police can lawfully search vehicles. Just recently the city council voted 8-2 in favor of keeping a moratorium on police searches of cars in place.

In February, after a Herculean effort where law enforcement leaders from rural, suburban and urban communities joined hands with their counterparts in the fire and emergency medical services to get the section of the broadband spectrum known as D-Block reserved exclusively for first responders, President Obama signed the measure into law.

You hear it over and over again. We’re broke. There’s no more money for anything. The government must tighten its belt and cut costs. Apparently the folks at the Department of Justice didn’t get the memo.

Recently the Dept. of Justice expanded the FBI's more than eight-decade-old definition of rape to count men as victims for the first time and to drop the requirement that victims must have physically resisted their attackers.