High-Priority Technology Needs: Protecting the Public

Through collaboration and consultation with practitioners, NIJ has identified high-priority technology needs for the criminal justice field, including the following aimed at protecting the public:

• Assured means to continuously and accurately monitor the location and status of offenders under supervision in the community, including:
  • A noninvasive, assured method to continuously monitor an offender’s substance abuse.
  • Within structures and outside in urban and rural environments.
  • Smaller, less obtrusive, more reliable and secure monitoring devices.
• Safer, more cost-effective aerial surveillance solutions to identify, locate and track illicit activities and to locate missing persons, particularly for application with small and rural agencies. Solutions must consider regulatory requirements.
• Improved, unobtrusive means to accurately detect a broad spectrum of contraband to preclude its introduction into public venues, including:
  • Academic institutions, including schools.
  • Mass transit.
• “Intelligent” surveillance solutions providing automated incident awareness and warnings
  in public venues, including:
  • Academic institutions, including schools.
  • Mass transit.
  • Sporting venues.
  • Shopping areas.
• Improved means to detect and respond to weapons concealed on an individual’s body at a safe distance, including person-borne improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
• Improved, assured means to detect and effectively respond to vehicle-borne IEDs, which:
  • Are easily transportable.
  • Are rapidly and remotely deployable.
  • Cause minimal collateral effects.
• A means to remotely locate and track cooperative and uncooperative individuals
  inside buildings in hostage rescue and search situations.
• Improved characterization of currently available less-lethal devices and their health and safety effects, particularly on at-risk populations, leading to improved use-of-force protocols and to safer, more effective devices.
• New, safer, more effective less-lethal devices that:
  • Can better deter individuals from taking a prohibited action.
  • Can instantly incapacitate individuals for a specified period of time.
  • Are suitable for use on at-risk populations.
• Rapidly deployable, effective devices that can safely and remotely stop all types of vehicles under a variety of circumstances.
• Improved emergency-response solutions, minimally including:
  • Accurate location of the incident.
  • Timely, optimized response.