— Volume V No. 2: May 2009 —

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A Social Infrastructure for Hometown Security: Advancing the Homeland Security Paradigm

COMMENTS

Scott Mattison May 12, 2009 14:41
You nailed it, gentlemen. Insightful, inciteful and succinct. Thank you for drawing attention to this long-overdue approach. Scott Mattison, Sheriff Swift County, Minnesota
Gary Kinney May 19, 2009 17:15
Dear Sir, I agree with your message. I am a CERT and an MRC Medical Leader in my community and have not been very happy with the preparation or the training being provided to engage in Human Intelligence in detecting and reporting terrorist activity. Our oranizations and its members are not being prepaired
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John Moakley June 29, 2009 11:13
I have been saying for years now that maybe "presentation" or "spin" is the problem. People see "Homeland Security" as someone else's "problem" or "responsibility" and not the "everybody" issue that it truly is. This goes beyond individuals,
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AUTHOR:
Robert Bach
Dr. Robert Bach is currently on the faculty at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School and works with CNA’s Institute for Public Research. Dr. Bach has served as a strategic consultant with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on border and transportation security issues; his current research focuses on community participation in homeland security and emergency preparedness, and strategic planning. He can be reached at rbach20010@aol.com.

AUTHOR:
David Kaufman
David J. Kaufman is CNA’s Director for Safety and Security and a member of the faculty at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security. He is the former director for preparedness policy, planning and analysis in the Department of Homeland Security/FEMA’s National Preparedness Directorate. Mr. Kaufman has more than ten years’ experience developing and implementing homeland security preparedness programs for states and local jurisdictions. He can be reached at kaufmand@cna.org.

ABSTRACT:
The nation’s homeland security strategy calls on federal, state, and local governments, businesses, communities and individuals across the country to work together to achieve a shared vision of a secure way of life. Yet true involvement on the part of individual citizens remains elusive, due largely to a misdiagnosis of the way the American people experience homeland security practices, inappropriate application of border screening and verification techniques to domestic public life, and an incomplete strategic preparedness framework that relies excessively on top-down federal management. This essay argues for a new approach that engages the American people in ways that invite their participation in understanding, assessing, and mitigating risk. New community-oriented techniques are needed that draw heavily on community-policing models and public health philosophies; the federal government needs to invert its strategic planning and funding processes, seizing the moment and leveraging the restructuring of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other priorities as opportunities to put communities first. The new administration has issued a national call to service. This call offers an opportunity to invest in a social infrastructure for homeland security that will bring the American people fully into strengthening their own preparedness.

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SUGGESTED CITATION:
Bach, Robert, and David Kaufman. “A Social Infrastructure for Hometown Security: Advancing the Homeland Security Paradigm.” Homeland Security Affairs 5, issue 2 (May 2009)
http://www.hsaj.org/?article=5.2.2
http://www.hsaj.org/