22 American Police Beat: January 2018 China has a police station without a single police officer C hina is far ahead of the U SA in many areas. For instance, China has taken the lead on green energy and is mov- ing away from coal and fossil fuels while we’re doing the opposite. And when it comes to automating stuff that used be done by human workers, China is taking the lead again. Sure we might have those robots at the Ama- zon warehouses grabbing stuff off the shelves that have replaced human beings but we don’t have fully automated police departments – at least not yet. On the other hand, according to a story from Next Web, China has re- cently announced the opening of the nation’s first cop-less police station in Wuhan. Obviously the facility is not what we Americans imagine when we think of police stations. There are no holding cells or desk sergeants. In fact it sounds more like a hybrid type deal. Think “police substation meets DMV office.” The station can pro- vide driver’s examina- tions via simulator, reg- istration services, and features advanced face- scanning technology. Obviously no one wants to go to a police station where there are no cops and robots take the re- ports after a loved one is murdered or a child goes missing. But for less serious stuff, Chinese people can ac- cess the artificial intelli- gence-run police facility 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They don’t even need an ID. It’s a lesson in how technology in general but artificial intelligence more specifically is taking over faster than people realize. Citizens that want to use the cop-less police facility will use their face as an ID card using high-pow- ered facial recognition software – a favorite tool of Chinese police and security services. If the experiment works out, you can expect to hear a lot of proposals about au- tomating everything from traffic enforcement to the V.A. to God only knows what else. Actually it’s more like DMV meets mall security kiosk For many officers, dep- uties and troopers, the phasing out of the Ford Crown Victoria was a major loss. In fact, when Ford made the announcement that they would no longer be manufacturing the vehi- cles, many police depart- ments and sheriff’s offices stockpiled as many Crown Vics as they could get their hands on. For those outside of law enforcement, this is confusing. Who wants an older vehicle instead of a new one? But there were a bunch of things about the Crown Vics that cops simply loved. According to a re- cent article from Jalopnik, the Crown Vic was in production for 32 years, with very few changes being made in that span. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, as the saying goes. The rear-drive V8 American sedans were relatively cheap and had what it took as far as pow- er in the high-speed pur- suit department. One of the other advan- tages the Crown Vic had was that the vehicles were made “body on frame.” That offered protection – both for officers and the vehicles themselves. Even heavy impacts to the cars wouldn’t likely damage anything struc- tural and were almost impossible to total. Cops still mourning the loss of the Crown Victoria There are 716 percent more incarcerated women today than in 1980. ★ ★ 28th Annual IPMBA Conference Saint Louis, Missouri | June 4-9, 2018 410-744-2400 | events@ipmba.org | www.ipmba.org TRAINING MATTERS GET THE BEST