Three questions with Donald De Lucca

Helping law enforcement executives make the right decisions for their agency  

Recently, Mark43 named a new Board of Advisors made up of leading voices in the field of law enforcement and information technology. We sat down with each of them and asked them three questions about their new roles with us. Next up: Donald De Lucca. 

Donald De Lucca is a former chief of the Miami Beach Police Department and a former president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He also served as chief of the Golden Beach and Doral Police Departments in Florida. He is currently a partner at V2 Global, a risk mitigation and relationship management consulting firm.  

What do you see as some of the most urgent issues at the intersection of public safety and technology?

One of the biggest challenges is getting the funding for the technology you need. There are a lot of great ideas out there, but the issue is most often obtaining the funding to develop and pay for it. There are grant opportunities, of course, but some technologies like CAD and RMS are big ticket items. Sometimes it might take years to obtain the modern technology to match what you need, and unfortunately in public safety that’s not acceptable.  

When you talk to leaders in public safety, is there a common theme you hear most often?

Recruitment and retention. The big thing at the moment is the shortage of public safety personnel. Agencies are having an incredibly hard time getting the officers they need, and the people that work in emergency communications are also understaffed, sometimes by as much as 20-30%. Police departments are running lean, and that’s made it hard on the officers who are still working. It’s causing people to retire early. So recruitment and retention is the biggest issue in law enforcement, and has been for several years now. 

Sometimes it might take years to obtain the modern technology to match what you need, and unfortunately in public safety that’s not acceptable. 

How do you think the Board of Advisors can support Mark43 customers? 

All of the advisors have similar skill sets, but different backgrounds. Some of them come from big cities, I come from a mid-sized agency, and it’s that diversity of background and experience that makes us an asset. I am also a former President of the IACP, an entity with 32,000 members in over 170 countries. I can access a lot of that institutional knowledge – a lot of the decisions facing our customers are ones that other law enforcement executives at other agencies have made themselves, either here in the US or even across the world. I can help our partners to access that institutional knowledge, so that they can draw on that experience when faced with a decision to be made about a policy they may need to implement, or evaluating a new piece of technology. I still talk to a lot of chiefs, and I am all about spreading the word about Mark43 and what they do. Not just because they have a superior product, but because of their culture too.

Mark43 works in partnership with more than 120 public safety agencies across the globe, providing them with new technologies that enable officers to spend more time in the field with the community. Interested in learning more? Fill out this form on the right to receive a personalized demo.