Whether it's an inmate escape into the community, or a call for help to quell a disturbance, corrections, law enforcement and community members need to be able to communicate during a crisis.

Events such as last fall's active hurricane season in the southeast or the terrorist attacks on 9/11 have exposed the weaknesses of existing communications systems and across the country many local agencies and the federal government are trying to do something about them.

The National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center - Southeast manages  several government-funded interoperability projects with the goal that the technology developed can be brought to the market for law enforcement and corrections agencies.

"We're here to ensure the needs and requirements of law enforcement and corrections are met and, at the end, to be instrumental in field test and evaluation of these technologies," said Bob Roberts, Project Manager for development for NLECTC-SE.

Roberts currently manages a software defined radio system program that provides a bridge to differing radio frequencies thereby allowing various agencies to communicate in the event of a crisis or disaster.

"It's a 800 megahertz system that draws everyone onto a common channel. It originally started as a response to one of our hurricanes," said Roberts, who is based in South Carolina. "There's been research on it long before 9/11."

Roberts explained that the development of the Dynamic Open Architecture Radio System (DOARS), which has received second round funding, requires both hardware and software installation to connect the radio systems by emulating each radio's functionality. Information is passed between the hardware and software and then the software creates a "patch" to connect radios and frequencies.

"If [the user] knows the frequencies, they can be programmed in [but] it also has an auto acquire function where the DOARS unit determines the frequency of the new radio to be added to the talk group and identifies the frequency for the operator," Roberts said.

Roberts added that the system could be operated either from a field command post or a central communications center.

"This technology can work in a command post operation, where multiple agencies respond and all are operating on different radio frequencies," he said. "It has capability for 27 cross-band channels or talk groups for command or control for tactical operations.

The technology is currently in development and will be sent for field-testing in January 2006. Roberts hopes that the equipment will be available and on the market to agencies, including corrections, within a few years.

"Whether it's a prison escape, manhunt, or riot, [if, say] a person operates on one system and the police department operates on another radio system, DOARS could link the disparate systems," said Roberts.

And he expects that agencies will be pleased with the improved communication the technology will provide them.

"We have had qualified success with it in [preliminary] field demonstrations. At end of the first phase it will be tested by people in the field, then lessons learned will be used for production," he added.

But long before technologies can be produced to improve communications, agencies need to sit down together to discuss where and how their communication networks can improve.

This has been the focus of one project based in Michigan that has received Department of Justice funding.

Public/Private Communication Needed

While funding from Homeland Security has helped improve communications in the law enforcement sector, there is still some work to be done to help public and private entities, such as businesses, communicate effectively during a disaster or emergency.

"On the public side, the communication between public agencies has made significant steps. What I find in the public and private sector is sometimes the public sector will say [they] have good relationships with the business community, then when you get into some of the information they have, [they don't have a true partnership,]" said Radford Jones, an academic specialist with the School of Criminology at Michigan State University who, with Department of Justice funding, is conducting research about improving emergency communications.

Jones, who has a background in the U.S. Secret Service and as head of Security and Fire for Ford Motor Company, in recent years has promoted and studied communication between the public and private sector. With DOJ funding and the project's strong correlation to homeland security, he has been able to promote a comprehensive approach to improving communication between public and private agencies.

Whether it was managing a presidential motorcade route or improving communications between a corporation and public safety, Jones knows from past experience how important cooperation between public and private entities can be.

His interest in improving this communication blossomed when he received a grant to write a protocol for public/private partnerships in critical incidents, which was published in 2000.

Jones conducted focus groups in several communities to bring these entities together to discuss how they might handle an emergency and how they would communicate. He continues those focus groups today on a national level

"A true partnership is when police, fire, emergency preparedness bring the shopping mall and the large and medium-sized businesses in together to find out what the expectations are of each other, if there is a major incident. A lot of the time businesses think they can call 9-1-1 and get support, but it is a several-step process," said Jones.

Holding a meeting that involves multiple stakeholders in the community is among the steps that Jones recommends for jurisdictions wishing to improve communications.

In that initial meeting, representatives from the pubic and private sector should discuss the basic needs of the community, share information that may be pertinent to protecting the community, talk about how each entity responds to emergency situations and their expectations of each other.

"In one community [where these meetings were held] there was a small business that was producing a guidance system for missiles, but police didn't know about it. It could have been a potential [terrorist] target," said Jones.

Jones said that after the public and private agencies become comfortable with each other and map out a strategy for joint response during an emergency, they should complete a tabletop exercise together.

"It's an excellent exercise; they learn there are assumptions and expectations they have never discussed [before]," he said.

Jones said in one community, he helped stakeholders conduct a tabletop exercise for emergency response that involved a "fire" in the local shopping mall. The players learned that individual store security doesn't always notify mall security when an incident occurs and that trying to screen and detain a possible terrorism suspect would be complicated by mall requirements to leave all doors unbarricaded.

Jones said the exercise ended up involving both a "fire" and a "suspicious package" that was labeled as sarin gas. The discussion that followed between the players in the exercise concerned evacuation routes, handling traffic, and how to convince people to stay put in a post 9/11 era.

"One of the questions was would people stay in the facility? Since 9/11 we have learned that any awareness you have done with employees, if done with guidance from the public sector, [will] hopefully [translate into] some confidence on the part of the recipient being given the information [from their employers]," Jones said.

With a new round of funding Jones is traveling throughout the country discussing information sharing and communications and promoting the importance of the public and private sectors working together.

He said in one community the local police chief embraced the idea and granted access to the police frequency for the local shopping mall security.

He hopes that improvements in communication like this one are a frequent result of his work.

Separately, Jones is also working with a committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police to create protocols for information sharing between public and private entities to spell out in guideline form the steps that should be taken to improve safety and security.

"Now there are protocols that would be looked at. So you could go to the retail shopping area or manufacturers [in our community] and if you are concerned about communications in crisis management these are the protocols [to look at]," he said.

Resources:

NLECTC-Southeast, nlectc-se@nlectc-se.org

Radford Jones, jonesrad@msu.edu