SWAT in the Commonwealth: Trends and Issues in Paramilitary Policing

Movies and television shows depicting a future where law enforcement officers look like military soldiers may not be wholly inaccurate. In the last ten years, SWAT teams, or police paramilitary units (PPC\u27s) have become an influential force in contemporary policing. Academic research and the news media have recently taken note of this development and have highlighted several important trends and issues related to paramilitary policing. These include the rapid growth of PPU\u27s, their movement into mainstream police functions and the potential negative consequences of such a shift. This study overviews national trends in paramilitary policing using two national surveys. It then examines trends and issues relevant to the state of Kentucky using both mail survey data and in-depth telephone interviews

Policing Kentucky\u27s School Children: Issues and Trends

The purpose of this research bulletin is to document the scope and nature of an important dimension of the school safety movement--the degree to which schools in Kentucky are being policed by public police agencies. A shift toward having an active police presence in our public schools, an unprecedented and significiant development, should be examined carefully

MLSys: The New Frontier of Machine Learning Systems

Machine learning (ML) techniques are enjoying rapidly increasing adoption. However, designing and implementing the systems that support ML models in real-world deployments remains a significant obstacle, in large part due to the radically different development and deployment profile of modern ML methods, and the range of practical concerns that come with broader adoption. We propose to foster a new systems machine learning research community at the intersection of the traditional systems and ML communities, focused on topics such as hardware systems for ML, software systems for ML, and ML optimized for metrics beyond predictive accuracy. To do this, we describe a new conference, MLSys, that explicitly targets research at the intersection of systems and machine learning with a program committee split evenly between experts in systems and ML, and an explicit focus on topics at the intersection of the two

Interview with Dr. Peter Kraska [video]

Dr. Peter Kraska, Professor in the School of Justice Studies, also coordinates the graduate program in that department. He has published numerous books and journal articles since coming to EKU in 1994. His scholarship has most recently focused on developing criminal justice theory and examining trends in crime control. He continues to pursue his interest in the blurring of U.S. military and police forces, particularly in light of recent terrorist activities. This work has been featured heavily in the media, including news pieces featuring his research in The Economist, Washington Post, New York Times, National Public Radio, Peter Jennings\u27s World News Tonight, and the Jim Lerher News Hour