Law Enforcement Innovation Center

Mission Statement

Our mission is to provide innovative and technologically based training and technical assistance (services) to law enforcement agencies and communities, meeting their ever changing needs as we move forward in the 21st century.

News and Announcements

Positions open at the Law Enforcement Innovation Center

The University of Tennessee’s Institute for Public Service is accepting applications for three positions at the Law Enforcement Innovation Center in Oak Ridge, TN. These positions are:

Program Manager III

Curriculum Coordinator

Training Coordinator

For more information on each position, click the position title above or go to Working for LEIC.

Knoxville Police Hope to Reach out to Younger Generation

Knoxville police hope to reach out to younger generation

By Hayes Hickman of the Knoxville News-Sentinel

Tensions were high during a Monday traffic stop as Knoxville police hurried to confront a carload of Austin-East Performing Arts and Sciences High School students less than a block from campus. As hip-hop music blared from the car’s speakers in the fading afternoon light, the officers knew they must act fast — their camera crew had to finish the scene before dark.

Predicated on the teenage driver’s supposed failure to obey a stop sign, in reality the students and the officers alike were only volunteering as amateur actors for a new educational video about what to do if stopped by the police.
“It’s not so much an effort to tell citizens how to behave,” said KPD Sgt. Mike McCarter. “It’s more an opportunity to help people understand why we do some of the things we do.”

Produced by the Knoxville Police Advisory and Review Committee and the University of Tennessee’s Law Enforcement Innovation Center, the video series also is part of an expanded community policing effort to make in-roads into an often-overlooked demographic — teenagers. PARC, established in 1998, reviews citizen complaints against Knoxville police and works to build relationships between law enforcement and the community. The committee has reviewed more than 1,700 complaints and Internal Affairs cases since its inception, including 63 cases this year through Sept. 30.

“The thing that’s been missing was getting the message out, but gearing it toward young people,” said PARC Executive Director Avice Reid, who described the project as a proactive effort rather than an attempt to fix a problem.

Similar segments also are being taped around loitering and shoplifting scenarios, with a $10,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. “Historically, community policing didn’t really reach out to young people … and give them the attention they need,” said Mike Hill, program manager with the UT law enforcement center, which offers officer training programs throughout the country. “But schools are, if you think about it, just another community, another neighborhood.

“Unless police work closer with students … develop that trust, they’re not going to be very inclined to send a text or an anonymous tip.”
Reid said the videos, taped by a UT camera crew, should be ready for use by the first of the year in the regular presentations she makes to various church and community groups.

Reid also works with recruits at KPD’s Training Academy, offering a wide-ranging 17-hour instruction course in cultural awareness, whether it be how to handle a traffic stop with a carload of young black men or the prospect of arresting a blind person with a service dog, she said.
“I’d love to do some (video) vignettes where officers are just being ugly,” said Reid, “and use that in training, too.”

Hayes Hickman may be reached at 865-342-6323.

Don Green Named Executive Director

It is with great pleasure that I notify you of our permanent Executive Director. Effective December 1, 2009 Don Green will move to the position on a permanent basis.

Please join me in congratulating Don on his appointment.

Mary Jinks, Ed.D.

Vice President of the Institute of Public Serivce