Law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve face challenges every day. Some agencies struggle to meet changing service demands, while others are unsure how to allocate resources, incorporate promising practices, effectively engage their communities, or spread the word about new programs. The Collaborative Reform Initiative Technical Assistance Center (CRI-TAC) offers agencies no cost training and technical assistance (TTA) that can assist in each of these areas.

In October, CRI-TAC seeks to bring greater awareness to the critical TTA topic of domestic violence reduction and prevention. Is your agency seeking to enhance its ability to effectively prevent, identify, and investigate incidents of domestic violence? Do your agency’s policies and procedures reflect current best practice models? Do you need assistance in developing new or strengthening existing community partnerships to engage the community in addressing domestic violence?

At present, CRI-TAC is actively engaged with agencies in enhancing the ability to effectively prevent, identify, and investigate incidents of domestic violence. CRI-TAC can help to equip frontline or specialty-unit personnel with training and provide access to resources to ensure efficient and effective delivery of services in line with best practice models.

There are many practical examples of how CRI-TAC can provide TTA to address domestic violence reduction and prevention. Leveraging the knowledge of subject matter experts (SMEs) with trauma-informed expertise in domestic violence response, prevention, and prosecution, CRI-TAC can review the existing domestic violence reduction efforts, policies, and trainings of an agency. This review of policies and practices focuses on identifying gaps and considerations for enhancement as well as ensuring that the existing tools encompass appropriate and updated evidence-based practices for effective usability by responding personnel.

CRI-TAC can also assist agencies in building learning objectives and customizing in-service training for sworn and nonsworn personnel. Once developed, the CRI-TAC SMEs can deliver train-the-trainer instruction to agency instructors to provide the customized in-service training content. Additionally, the SMEs can deliver customized training to specialized units, designed to strengthen their interactions with victims and develop mentoring, training, and leadership skills when responding to crimes of domestic and family violence.

Response Investigation of Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, and Stalking

In collaboration with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA), a CRI-TAC partner, has initiated an effort to market, coordinate, customize, and deliver training to enhance the response to and investigation of domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking. Through this training, an expert will teach about liability, the dynamics of domestic violence, investigation, and interviewing and prosecuting domestic violence cases. During this training, participants will learn how to do the following:

• Describe the dynamics of domestic violence
• Use new interviewing, evidence gathering, and probable-cause determination techniques in domestic violence cases
• Conduct more effective investigations to hold offenders accountable and therefore prevent future abuse
• Enhance the safety of victims of domestic violence and of responding officers
• Decrease the risk of lawsuits against law enforcement agencies
• Apply federal and state laws pertaining to domestic violence
• Enforce protection orders
• Describe evidence-based investigation and prosecution
• Identify counseling, shelter, and legal resources for the victim
• Understand law enforcement's role in a coordinated community response to domestic violence crimes

This one-and-a-half-day training is open to members of law enforcement, criminal justice, advocacy agencies, and other community organizations involved with domestic violence prevention and awareness.

About CRI-TAC

If you are a law enforcement executive looking for support, CRI-TAC is here to help. Funded by the COPS Office, CRI-TAC offers no-cost, customized solutions to state, local, territorial, and tribal law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. The solutions provided are tailored to the agency and informed by cutting-edge innovation and evidence-based and promising practices.

Law enforcement agencies must be prepared to respond to a broad range of issues. Because of this, CRI-TAC can address more than 35 critical law enforcement areas. CRI-TAC offers several types of technical assistance services, delivered by SMEs from the field:

• Resource referrals: toolkits, reports, and other relevant publications
• Web-based training: recorded webinars and live online training
• In-person training: existing and customized on-site training
• Virtual mentoring: connections to SMEs to share information and promising practices via phone or video conference call
• On-site consultation: visits to the requesting agency to collaborate with agency leaders and provide guidance on best practices and tailored solutions
• Agency peer exchange: assistance in facilitating meetings among agency members and other public and private sector stakeholders

Learn More

To learn more about CRI-TAC, to download a brochure, or to request assistance for your agency, visit CRI-TAC’s web page via the COPS Office’s website.

Emily Kuhn
Project Manager, Projects
International Association of Chiefs of Police

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