Short Features

In the past few years, ATLAS researchers have also attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of non-lethal weapons when it comes to crowd control. They have developed tools for crime-mapping and are now moving into tracking crime through cyberspace.

With a new $400,000 grant from the New Hampshire Department of Justice and the attorney general's office, ATLAS has lured a three-person team from Dartmouth to work on new ways to assist law enforcement in computer forensics.

Headed by Andrew Macpherson, a 35-year-old London School of Economics graduate, the Technical Analysis Group at the Institute for Security Technology Studies has become the clearinghouse for problems all levels of law enforcement encounter when investigating cyber attacks.

Police assist students and parents, left, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999.

Cyber attacks can take many forms, including "hacks," or intrusions intended to steal or destroy information; denial-of-service attacks, which can shut down computer networks; or viruses or worms, which can disable computer networks in a broad geographic range. "There is clear factual evidence that terrorist organizations are using cyber-technologies for propaganda, recruitment and training, communications, fundraising and targeting information packages," says Macpherson.

His group has also demonstrated a knack for pointing out the tools that law enforcement officials can employ to track criminals and terrorists.

Another recent Justiceworks grant will help different agencies across the country find a common denominator for emergency electronic communications. It fits in with Justiceworks' overall mandate to apply criminal justice research to all levels of law enforcement. This mandate is reinforced by the presence of Charles Putnam, a lawyer and co-director of Justiceworks who spent 16 years with the state attorney general's office.

"A lot of what we try to do is applied work," Putnam says. "We're trying to assist the men and women who do their jobs in the justice system. How people and institutions work together is as important as finding a technological fix for a problem."

Officers carry a wounded colleague, left, during a manhunt for a gunman in northwestern New Hampshire and Vermont on Aug. 19, 1997.

Thus ATLAS Project researchers have become increasingly involved in helping the state employ—and assimilate— technology. They have begun working with a group appointed by the state's chief justice to create a computerized database of court records throughout the Granite State, calling the current pen-and-paper records "19th- century technology."

The study brings the issue of open records to the forefront. Kirkpatrick claims that the current lack of communication among clerks and courthouses in the state can only be eliminated by better coordination between agencies.

One thing that's clear to all three men is that the basics of policing aren't changing.

Macpherson points to a recent analysis he conducted of the ways police tracked down criminals through cyberspace: detective skills were as important as ever.

"Law enforcement is incredibly useful," he says. "Their ability to work around a lack of an established protocol and their interactions with the private sector are terrific."

And thanks to researchers at UNH, one of the resources they can call on is Justiceworks.

 Easy to print version