Even though their pleas will likely fall on deaf ears in Washington D.C., State Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. and U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez joined law enforcement and other officials outside Clifton City Hall in New Jersey recently to call on lawmakers to fund a program that would allow police departments to hire more officers.

In Chicago, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police says his organization will try to intervene in a recent lawsuit that alleges inequalities in how Chicago police deploy officers in minority neighborhoods. According to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, FOP president Michael Shields gave a speech at the City Club of Chicago on the topic.

One of the main flaws with the drug war is its singular focus on supply rather than demand. As long as there is a demand for illicit drugs, suppliers will find a way to satisfy it. And the demand is overwhelming. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times by Lisa Girion and Doug Smith, prescription drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States.

Maybe when the economy turns around we can get back to the war on drugs, but for now budget cuts are making life easier for those who make their living growing, manufacturing and distributing illegal narcotics. Law enforcement officials in Georgia say a cut in federal funding means the Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad and Gang Task Force will be forced to focus more on local cases and not on the bigger state and federal cases.

It turns out drones, typically used for military action in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya, may soon be flying in the skies near you.
Law enforcement agencies want drones for air support when chasing criminals on foot or in a vehicle, utility companies believe the drones will provide invaluable help monitoring oil, gas and water pipelines and farmers think the drones will be useful and farmers are convinced drones will be the perfect way to spray their crops with pesticides.

The following is posted on the official web site of the Obama Adminsistration’s www.whitehouse.gov. President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history, and WhiteHouse.gov will play a major role in delivering on that promise. But that’s what they say. The question of what federal officials actually do is a different proposition entirely.

According to a new report from DOJ's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, a recent study shows the first-ever national decrease in law enforcement positions in 25 years. "Across the country, mayors, sheriffs, and chiefs have been asked not only to do more with less but to make painful budgetary cuts," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech at the recent International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference in Chicago.

If you live or work in Vallejo, California; Central Falls, Rhode Island; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Boise County, Idaho; or Jefferson County, Alabama, you might have noticed a few alarming changes recently. All of those municipalities have either filed for bankruptcy or plan to do so shortly. If the economy doesn't pick up any steam sometime soon, there could be hundreds more cities and counties filing Chapter 9 - the municipal version of Chapter 11 for individuals and businesses.

It's never an easy thing to know how to discipline a kid who's gotten into trouble. Some kids respond to tough love and harsh punishment. Other kids do better with encouragement and forgiveness. But whatever a parent chooses in terms of ways to respond to something like their child sneaking out to a party without permission, on thing is clear. If the punishment involves medieval armor, a beating with a tree branch, and a two-hour "duel," odds are at least one parent's getting arrested for child abuse.