As reality continues to endlessly bombard us with more and more incidents of violence to include Tops Supermarket, Robb Elementary School, continuous gun violence in our cities — and so many more – the list of incidents synonymous with extreme violence and mass killings keeps growing. There are no singular causes, nor easy fixes to immediately improve the reality that has become part of our everyday life. Though no easy fixes exist, we must engage.

Whether these incidents are explained as the results of mental illness, substance abuse disorder, gun violence, hate crimes or any other causal factors individually or collectively, the net reality is that we – the IJIS Community – must engage to affect positive change that can improve the outcomes within our communities, within our society, within our world.

This year’s Mid-Year Briefing will bring together victims, practitioners, policymakers and technologists that have experienced, responded to, supported, and learned from these incidents of violence over the recent years. Collectively, we will have the opportunity to learn and collaborate on programs and solutions that can improve opportunities to prevent and mitigate these events in the future. Whether the focus is on data sharing, policy adherence, operational processes/change management, or technology tools to support mission needs, the discussion will enable engagement and participation on multiple levels. In addition to practitioners, we will also recruit membership organizations nationally that will have valuable contributions to offer to the discussions.

Join us to learn from the incidents of the past so that we can positively affect our collective future!