SAR2401 said:
Do you have a link to this supposed federal rule? I have never seen any such criteria for HS grants. In addition, national emergency is a pretty ill-defined term. Was 9/11 a declared national emergency and, if so, by whom?
http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=19&id=26605
The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently announced that they were going to try and discourage the use of radio code systems by public safety agencies by denying federal funds to agencies that were not compliant with the National Incident Management System (NIMS). Then, a week or so later, they changed their minds and said that local agencies can continue to use their codes until they get involved in a big inter-agency operation, at which time they have to go back to plain speech. Their rationale is that these radio code systems are so diverse and inconsistent that fire, police and EMS departments that might need to work together on an incident might not be able to understand each other over the radio.
All it takes is a quick sampling of public safety radio traffic around the country (try entering "police scanner" into Google) to determine that there is about zero consistency in radio procedures. Phonetic alphabets (i.e. able, baker, charlie, etc.), abbreviations, call signs, and even whether the unit calling says their call sign first or last vary tremendously from one place to another. Even the generic terms for the things you're told to do are different. At one department, you get "jobs," where at another they are "runs." Then there are "calls," "assignments," and "missions." They all mean the same thing, but use the wrong term and everyone will look at you funny, if they understand what you’re talking about at all.
Some codes have been adopted as part of the popular culture vernacular. "187" is the California Penal Code for murder, and is commonly used on the radio by police in that state, but it has been adopted by street gangs everywhere as a reference to killing or killers. Actually, the California Penal Code (PC) has been incorporated into a number of jargon terms, maybe because most of its sections are only three digits long and easy to remember. The PC for "disturbing the peace" is used to describe an officer who is prone to aggravate an unstable situation by saying he has a "415 personality." Another section referring to a forcible sex act made it into verse: "Wine me, dine me, 289 me."
Some folks think that the venerable ten-code, made famous by Broderick Crawford in the TV series Highway Patrol ("2150, 10-4." That one really dates me.) should be the standard because it's well, standard.. Unfortunately, it's not. There are as many versions of the ten-code as there are outfits using it. An officer at a 10-10 in one part of the country is at his home, where the other is in the middle of a fight. Well, maybe those could be the same things…
The proposed solution is to have all radio traffic in plain speech, where a traffic accident is called a "traffic accident," not a 10-50 or an 11-80. There are good intentions there, but it’s sure going to take some of the charm out of law enforcement. Every culture has its jargon, and the cop culture has more than most. As with the Penal Code examples given above, many of these insider terms are based on radio codes.
This isn’t too surprising, as the police radio is such a common thread in the life of a law enforcement officer. It’s always there, for better or worse. At least two successful cop shows, Adam-12 and Police Story, began with clips of radio traffic to set the theme. The radio can be heard in the background at just about any cop shop. You’ll even find a lot of police officers with scanners at their homes, just because they feel more comfortable with that constant chatter ongoing.
The radio codes actually did have a purpose, although time and technology have made them largely obsolete. When communications technology was not as refined as it is today, it was frequently difficult to understand what people were saying. Ten codes, beginning with a hard consonant, had "punch" to make them come through more clearly, and the number reduced the air time required to communicate a message. The codes also made it more difficult for outsiders to know what the cops were saying, which provided a tactical advantage. But now, radio transmissions are much clearer and easier to understand, and any crook worth his salt knows what most of the codes mean. Scanner buffs who listen to public safety channels for hours on end either figure out the codes or get a list of the ones used locally from the counter guy at Radio Shack.
The amount of unintended information that goes out over the radio was made clear to me one morning. I was heading back to the station at the end of a graveyard watch when I came on an auto-pedestrian accident that had just occurred. A drunk driver had jumped the curb and struck an older man who was walking down to the river to fish. I went to the victim and asked if he was all right, and he told me, very calmly, that he thought his leg was broken. I pulled out my portable radio and started to request an ambulance for him. "Reno, 7598…" His face lit up and he said, "7598? You’re the DUI guy! They never let you alone!" He usually stayed up all night, listening to his scanner. He knew the names of most of the officers associated with their call signs, a lot about their personalities and what other officers thought of them, and what areas of town they worked. Had we ever gone to encrypted radios (which is the most often suggested remedy for keeping radio traffic confidential), he would have had to find a new hobby.
If we ever wind up dumping the radio codes entirely, as as we might have to one day, life will go on. We’ll still talk to each other, and there will be one less list of items for police recruits to memorize in the academy (however, veterans who used the old codes will have a "secret language" to use for years to come). Joint operations will run more smoothly because everyone will use the same procedures and vocabularies. But it won’t be as colorful, and I think I'll miss it when it's gone.
Tim Dees is the editor-in-chief of Officer.com. Dees worked in law enforcement for 15 years with the City of Reno, Nevada and later with the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of Nevada serving primarily as a uniformed patrol officer and sergeant. He has also served as a field training officer in DUI enforcement, as an instructor at the police academy and in-service training programs, and as a drug influence recognition expert. From 1994 to 2001, he was a criminal justice professor at colleges in Wisconsin, West Virginia, Georgia, and Oregon.
Dees was most recently a regional training coordinator for the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST), based in Pendleton. He holds a master of science degree in criminal justice from The University of Alabama, the Certified Protection Professional credential from the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS), and is a Certified Law Enforcement Trainer with the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers (ASLET).
