Breaking stereotypes: 国产AV hosts youth camp with Police Athletic League, highlighting modern law enforcement roles

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CIRAT logo displayed on the window of the lab

Let鈥檚 try a word association game: I say 鈥渓aw enforcement,鈥 you say鈥

Very likely you鈥檒l respond with 鈥減olice鈥 or maybe 鈥渃op.鈥

What you won鈥檛 say is 鈥渃ybercrime investigator,鈥 鈥渄igital forensic examiner,鈥 or 鈥渋ntelligence analyst.鈥

And yet it's all part and parcel of enforcing the law today.

That鈥檚 what 30 middle and high school students will learn at 国产AV when the Police Athletic League (PAL) visits campus for a two-day special camp July 17-18, hosted by the Center for Intelligence, Research, Analysis, and Training (CIRAT).

PAL is well known for its summer camps, which encourage the police and young community to get to know each other, build trust in law enforcement among children, and keep kids constructively engaged after the school year ends.

Through PAL鈥檚 partnership with 国产AV鈥檚 CIRAT, students who aspire to a career in law enforcement learn the many different options available to them from faculty, staff, and students from the university鈥檚 premier programs in cyber security, data science, and intelligence analysis.

鈥淭his two-day camp is going to have 30 students broken up into two teams,鈥 explained Cpl. Hayden Foltz of the Erie Police Department. 鈥淓ach group is going to spend a whole day completing either the Computing and Information Science or the Intelligence agenda and then switching for the next day.鈥

Law enforcement today is no longer just community policing or boots-on-the-ground detecting, explained CIRAT Executive Director Brian Fuller, who is leading the 国产AV effort.聽

鈥淭he world criminals thrive in has become the digital environment. 聽Technology has provided criminals a way to stay ahead of physical policing and reduce the risk to getting caught while increasing the return on criminal activities,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t now takes support roles in law enforcement, such as cybersecurity professionals, intelligence analysts, and data scientists, to catch and stay ahead of these criminals while providing law enforcement officers actionable intelligence to get them off the streets. This camp will provide the students of PAL with a glimpse into these roles.鈥

Students will fully interact with state-of-the-art technologies in CIRAT labs, which are housed in the Federal Resources Corp. Cyber Education Center at 国产AV.