For more information on policing in Massachusetts, see entry on Boston Police.
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In 2016, Deputy Chief of the Canton Police Department Helena Rafferty participated in a “counterterrorism seminar” in Israel, as part of an all-expenses-paid delegation of US law enforcement to Israel sponsored by the New England chapter of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The New England Chapter of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) sponsors annual all-expenses-paid delegations to Israel for high-ranking New England police, ICE, FBI, and other security officials, where these officials meet with Israeli military, police, and intelligence agencies, with whom they train and exchange tactics including surveillance, racial profiling, crowd control, and the containment of protests.
In 2008, Chief of the Canton Police Department Ken Berkowitz participated in a similar ADL-sponsored trip to Israel. Reflecting on his trip for a newspaper article, Berkowitz compared his job as Police Chief in Canton to that of an Israeli police chief, noting: “In addition to providing all the police services that we do, he had to deal with 568 rocket attacks in his town this year... Basically, Israel is surrounded by 55 million enemies.”
The Canton Police Department is listed as a full member of the Greater Boston Police Council, a "law enforcement council" (LEC) set up in the 1970s to link regional police forces and share resources for policing anti-war protests. LECs in Massachusetts have played a central role in militarizing police by organizing SWAT teams and purchasing military equipment such as Lenco Bearcats and other armored vehicles.
The Canton Police Department is a member agency of the Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council (Metro LEC). Chief of the Canton Police Department Ken Berkowitz is a member of Metro LEC's Executive Board. Like other Law Enforcement Councils (LECs) in Massachusetts, Metro LEC functions to increase regional collaboration between police and sheriff's departments, organizing SWAT teams and obtaining military equipment for use by its member agencies, while operating largely out of public view as a semi-private organization.
As of 2016, the Canton Police Department was in the process of integrating their field interviews, arrest, complaint, accident, and citation reports, and other information into COPLINK, a surveillance and criminalization platform developed by IBM and the software company i2 which has been called "google for police officers." The Canton Police Department is presumably now utilizing COPLINK to share this information, as well as to access information from other police departments in MA and nationwide. Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "have direct access to the Massachusetts version of the COPLINK system," enabling ICE agents to access any information Canton Police Department officials enter into COPLINK and utilize this information to facilitate ICE's regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations.
As of 2016, the Canton Police Department was being integrated into COPLINK, a surveillance and criminalization platform developed by IBM and the software company i2. The Canton Police Department is presumably now integrated into COPLINK and sharing field interviews, arrest, complaint, accident, citation reports, and other information in the database. Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "have direct access to the Massachusetts version of the COPLINK system," enabling ICE to access any information Canton Police Department officers enter into COPLINK and utilize this information to facilitate ICE's regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations.