Special Focus: Community Policing and Homeland Security

Homeland security begins with local law enforcement and the community. The collection of information at the community level is critical to the overall homeland se­curity mission. That’s where it all starts for every city and town in the United States. Unfortunately, it is still common to find that the fire and police professionals often don’t know what the other discipline is doing, even in the smallest communities, and police and fire departments take for granted that the other discipline is aware of threat-related information.