ASK THE EXPERT, BY REG JONES  

Must separation incentives be repaid to rejoin the federal workforce? Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment Authority allows agencies that are downsizing or restructuring to offer lump-sum payments to employees. Read More

Got a question about federal retirement? Email Reg Jones at fedexperts@federaltimes.com.

Do I have to repay my VSIP if I rejoin the federal workforce?

Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment Authority allows agencies that are downsizing or restructuring to offer lump-sum payments to employees.Read More

Link to article: https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-hosts-five-eyes-summit-to-launch-drive-to-secure-innovation-in-response-to-intelligence-threats

In their first-ever joint public appearance, leaders of the Five Eyes intelligence partnership—the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—traveled to the U.S. at the invitation of FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Together they are launching the first Emerging Technology and Securing Innovation Security Summit in Palo Alto, California, the heart of Silicon Valley. In addition to the Five Eyes, the summit is bringing together business leaders and entrepreneurs, government officials, and academics to discuss threats to innovation, coming trends in the use and potential exploitation of emerging tech, and means to work together to advance both economic security and public safety.

The summit kicks off with a fireside chat with all five members hosted by Dr. Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state. The intelligence leaders will outline current threats and trends to private sector organizations in their respective countries. Following the fireside chat, the intelligence leaders will sit down with private sector leaders for in-depth discussions about expanding and strengthening private-public partnerships to better protect innovation and the collective security of the five nations and their citizens.

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department today announced the release of a new publication, Recruitment and Retention for the Modern Law Enforcement Agency. The publication is the result of a convening of law enforcement and community leaders across the country, facilitated by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) and the Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), at the request of Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. The report presents recommendations to address the challenges in recruitment and retention law enforcement agencies are facing nationwide.

“Law enforcement officers across the country are facing unprecedented challenges at a time when they are already being stretched thin,” said Attorney General Garland.  “The Justice Department has produced this report because we recognize the urgency and significance of the recruitment and retention crisis that agencies are encountering. Policing is a noble profession, and we are committed to doing everything we can to support local police departments as they work to serve their communities, build public trust, and keep people safe.”

“Our law enforcement officers are the nation’s most valuable assets for preserving public safety in our communities,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “The Justice Department is committed to helping state and local law enforcement retain their critically important workforce – while recruiting the next generation of brave public servants. The more than 50 recommendations in this report will help police departments across the country to meaningfully enhance their recruitment and retention.”

The Lineup Podcast: A Deadly Shooting and a Tragic Fire

The new episode discusses a shooting that killed a Philadelphia police officer and injured another in an airport garage and looks at a training fire that critically injured two deputies. Plus, other stories.

October 11, 2023 N.C. prisons embrace digital learning to combat inmate idleness, foster skill development

The blend of technology and education aims at equipping inmates with job-ready skills, amid ongoing 40% staff vacancy rate.

By Avi Bajpai
The Charlotte Observer
Link to full Article https://www.corrections1.com/products/facility-products/inmate-visitation/articles/nc-prisons-embrace-digital-learning-to-combat-inmate-idleness-foster-skill-development-xyr4Gdt8brdfcauN/

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The top official in charge of North Carolina’s prison system said Monday that electronic tablets that have been distributed to prisons across the state have become a valuable and productive resource for inmates.

Speaking at a conference focused on prison reform, N.C. Secretary of Adult Correction Todd Ishee highlighted the rollout and implementation of the tablets, which provide inmates with educational courses to help them learn and develop skills they can use once outside of prison, as a success.

N.C. inmates can use tablets for learning, entertainment and communication. (Photo/AP)

The tablets allow inmates to access thousands of academic, vocational and self-improvement courses as part of an initiative officials launched last year, called Hope University. Since the program’s launch in April 2022, inmates have used the tablets to complete nearly 260,000 full, interactive courses, as well as more than 3.3 million learning resources like videos, audio recordings, and readings, Ishee said.

Courses are offered in more than 170 fields, according to the Department of Adult Correction, but Ishee said the most popular have been the ones that can provide people with tangible skills that could help them get jobs after prison.

At the top of the list was a training course offered by a culinary institute, and introductory courses to commercial driving, carpentry, electrical studies, legal studies, and plumbing — fields that Ishee said were less likely to care about an applicant’s history and were more concerned with whether they could do the job well.

COPS Dispatch
1. Project Unite: The four Integrated Systems for School Violence Prevention
     https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/10-2023/school_violence_prevention.html

2. A Tribal Police Peer Support Team
       https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/10-2023/tribal_police_peer_support.html

3.  Resources on Current Events
         https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/#resources

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics was awarded to Claudia Goldin for her research on gender gaps in the labor market. Ms. Goldin is the third woman to be awarded the economics Nobel, and was the first woman to be offered tenure in Harvard’s economics department, in 1989.
Available for purchase: https://www.amazon.com/Career-Family-Womens-Century-Long-Journey/dp/0691201781/

A century ago, it was a given that a woman with a college degree had to choose between having a career and a family. Today, there are more female college graduates than ever before, and more women want to have a career and family, yet challenges persist at work and at home. This book traces how generations of women have responded to the problem of balancing career and family as the twentieth century experienced a sea change in gender equality, revealing why true equity for dual career couples remains frustratingly out of reach.

Drawing on decades of her own groundbreaking research, Claudia Goldin provides a fresh, in-depth look at the diverse experiences of college-educated women from the 1900s to today, examining the aspirations they formed―and the barriers they faced―in terms of career, job, marriage, and children. She shows how many professions are “greedy,” paying disproportionately more for long hours and weekend work, and how this perpetuates disparities between women and men. Goldin demonstrates how the era of COVID-19 has severely hindered women’s advancement, yet how the growth of remote and flexible work may be the pandemic’s silver lining.

Anti-discrimination laws and unbiased managers, while valuable, are not enough. Career and Family explains why we must make fundamental changes to the way we work and how we value care-giving if we are ever to achieve gender equality and couple equity.

New York TIMES Article October 11, 2023:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/upshot/claudia-goldin-nobel-prize.html

The COPS Office is pleased to release a new publication:

Implementing Change in an Ever-Evolving World: Law Enforcement's Innovative Responses to a Constantly Changing Landscape

Change management has long been studied in the business community, and many models of organizational change have been proposed with applicability to public-sector organizations such as law enforcement agencies. This publication, Implementing Change in an Ever-Evolving World: Law Enforcement’s Innovative Responses to a Constantly Changing Landscape, provides brief case studies of 13 U.S. law enforcement agencies, large and small, which have successfully managed changes in their policies, practices, and goals. Each case study considers the actions of leadership in light of principles of change management such as strategic clarity, stakeholder engagement, and performance measurement. Insights are included from a September 2022 roundtable of executives from some of the agencies profiled.

LINK: https://portal.cops.usdoj.gov/resourcecenter/Home.aspx?item=cops-r1133

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/women-workforce-promotion-broken-rung-mckinsey-lean-in/