For more information on policing in Massachusetts, see entry on Boston Police.
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The Norwood Police Department participates in Amazon’s "Ring network," which as reported in The Verge, "lets law enforcement ask users for footage from their Ring security cameras to assist with investigations." The Ring is an Amazon-produced "video doorbell, which allows Ring users to see, talk to, and record people who come to their doorsteps," and which "sends notifications to a person’s phone every time the doorbell rings or motion near the door is detected."
As of 2016, the Norwood Police Department was sharing and accessing information through COPLINK, a surveillance and criminalization platform developed by IBM and the software company i2, which has been called “Google for police officers." Through COPLINK, Norwood Police officials share their field interviews along with arrest, complaint, accident, and citation reports with other departments who utilize the platform in MA and nationwide, and Norwood Police officials are able to access the field interviews and arrest, complaint, accident, and citation reports of these other police departments. Agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "have direct access to the Massachusetts version of the COPLINK system," enabling ICE agents to access any information Norwood Police officials enter into COPLINK and utilize this information to facilitate ICE's regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations of Black and Brown migrants.
The Norwood Police Department shares field interviews, arrest, complaint, accident, and citation reports, and other information through COPLINK, a surveillance and criminalization platform developed by IBM and the software company i2. Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "have direct access to the Massachusetts version of the COPLINK system," enabling ICE to access information Norwood Police Department officers enter into COPLINK and utilize this information to facilitate ICE's regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations.
The Norwood 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 Norwood Police Department is a member agency of the Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council (Metro LEC). Like other Law Enforcement Councils (LECs) in Massachusetts, Metro LEC functions to increase regional collaboration between police and sheriff's departments, while organizing SWAT teams and obtaining military equipment for use by its member agencies and operating largely out of public view as a semi-private organization.