NCJ Number
114376
Journal
MIS Report Volume: 16 Issue: 2 Dated: (February 1984) Pages: 1-10
Date Published
1984
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Using Florence and Boone County in northern Kentucky as a case study, this report examines how police departments can use cable television to broadcast public information, for training, for communicating with other agencies, and for notifying citizens during emergencies.
Abstract
An introduction surveys the public safety community in Boone, Campbell, and Kenton counties and its efforts to overcome both internal and external communications problems through cable television which was franchised in 1981. Issues addressed include early production problems, the benefits of cable for small communities, and costs. The report discusses seven problems that cable television solved: the inability to make the smaller community aware of local issues, difficulties in making participation convenient for citizens, high cost of public education projects, the inability to alert local businesses quickly and cost effectively about criminal activity, absence of an effective method for timely exchange of intelligence between police departments, lack of training opportunity for police officers, and the inability to pretrain the public and quickly provide information about disasters. Also discussed are the role of cable television in police tactics and citizens' responses to public safety programs.