Video: NIJ's Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) Program - Departing Class

• NCJ Number: 250967
• Author(s): Edward Pallas; Gary Eblan; Jim M. Gillis; Mark Landahl
• Date Published: June 2017
• Length: 2 pages
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Technical Assistance; Report (Technical Assistance); Program/Project Description

Annotation

In this video and accompanying transcript, law enforcement officers discuss how the National Institute of Justice's (NIJ's) Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) scholar program benefits professional development and provides the opportunity to network with academia and share research with other agencies to improve evidence-based policing; and they discuss how the LEADS scholar program equips smaller agencies to improve community relations.

Abstract

One officer rates networking as the most important aspect of the LEADS scholar program, as interactions with other officer scholars from across the Nation, particularly those officers who have also been involved in policing research, facilitate an ongoing sharing of information on evidence-based policing in other agencies. Another officer also mentions the benefits of networking through the LEADS scholar program, which enables the sharing of problems and solutions even after officers have returned to their respective agencies. Other benefits of the LEADS scholar program mentioned by the officers in the video are inspiration to be a better researcher in policing, learning to apply research findings to practices, and incorporating research findings into officer training. Another LEADS scholar officer comments "We need evidence-based answers to what we do and why we're doing it, and it's a time where we can also provide both professional and the academic side to the research that's going on that we need in this critical time."