Computer information systems

SIGNIFICANCE: Modern computer technology is helping to revolutionize law-enforcement by helping police departments to deploy officers more rapidly and efficiently and enabling both departments and officers in the field to gather and assess information rapidly.

Police use of computers is a relatively recent development. The first commercially available computer was not released until 1951. Four years later, the New Orleans police adopted the first arrest and warrant computer system. The St. Louis, Missouri, police department installed the first computer-aided dispatch system in 1960. During the 1970s, law enforcement began embracing computer-based information systems even more quickly than the courts and corrections departments. However, during those early years, computer applications were generally limited to basic record keeping, crime reporting, and traffic violations.

Large police departments developed computerized data-searching capabilities during the 1980s; however, they were often disappointed that the much-anticipated benefits in productivity and efficiency were not materializing. This was due, in part, to the problem of integration: Different agencies used different types of equipment that were either incompatible with one another or could not easily be integrated into larger systems. To a lesser extent, the same problem still exists today.

By the 1990s, most police departments with one hundred or more full-time sworn officers had expanded their uses of computers to include staff allocation, dispatching, budgeting, and criminal investigations. In 1994, the U.S. Congress established the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC) to promote the development and production of promising technologies with law enforcement and corrections applications. In 1995, the NLECTC, in turn, created the Justice Information Network (JUSTNET) to serve as a clearinghouse for the dissemination of information about new and proven technology specifically geared for policing and corrections.

During the early stages of the information technology revolution, law-enforcement agencies relied upon computers primarily to speed up their processing of such traditional functions as crime reporting, dispatch, payroll, and traffic tickets. However, with advances in hardware and software, new ways of thinking gradually emerged. The old uses of computers were still in heavy demand. In fact, they had become indispensable. However, computers were soon expected to do more than simply gather, organize, and retrieve information. They were expected to generate new knowledge as well. Information technology is now heavily used in law enforcement in computer-aided dispatch, mobile data computing and automated field reporting, records management systems, and geographic information systems and crime mapping.

Specialized Applications

Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) is designed to handle all information relating to both mundane and emergency calls for service. Based on a “geofile,” or geographic database, using map-based x and y coordinates, CAD can accurately establish the locations of callers and incidents, whether the information is provided in the form of addresses, business names, street intersections, or other fragments of information. CAD fully automates the receiving of calls and the dispatching of police vehicles. When it is used with automated vehicle location (AVL) systems that contain information on the status and location of every vehicle in a police department, CAD can help prioritize calls for service and make suggestions about which vehicles should be sent out, based upon which police officers are currently occupied and which are closest to the locations where help is needed. More advanced CAD systems can also provide officers with useful information, such as the numbers and types of prior calls made from the locations in question, whether there are any outstanding warrants on the residents who live there, and so on.

Mobile data computing allows police vehicles to become “offices” on wheels. In typical cases, officers receive dispatch information about incidents through mobile laptop computers in their squad cars. When they arrive at the scenes of incidents, they can quickly retrieve useful information electronically from remote local, state, and national databases. Officers equipped with mobile data computing can, in fact, perform a wide variety of functions using laptop and wireless hand-held units. They can, for example, access information about departmental policies and procedures, look up pertinent law in the penal code, and call up digital photographic images.

Mobile computing can significantly assist officers in on-the-spot decision making by providing them with immediate access to much-needed information. When the incidents are concluded, the officers can then prepare reports through their laptop or hand-held units. The officers then electronically submit their reports to supervisors. When the supervisors approve the reports, they can forward them electronically to their departments’ records management systems. If a report requires revisions, a supervisor can send it back to the officer for corrections. Mobile data computing is enhanced by automated field reporting (AFR) software. AFR software offers time-saving features such as drop-down menus, spell-checking, error correction, pre-filled fields on the report forms, and other features.

Records management systems are designed to allow law-enforcement agencies to enter, store, manipulate, and retrieve data about virtually every aspect of police work, not merely crime reports, arrest reports, and crime analysis data. Before the 1960s, almost all law-enforcement agencies kept information of this sort in hard-copy files. Mainframe computers improved data retrieval during the 1970s but were not owned by many law-enforcement agencies themselves. Instead, police departments had to share time on the mainframes with other municipal agencies, and control of the mainframes was located outside the law-enforcement agencies. Now, advanced records management systems can be interfaced with other city, county, state, and federal law-enforcement systems, including their databases such as the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Interstate Identification Index (III), the Integrated Automated Fingerprinting Identification System (IAFIS), and the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The last was the planned successor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports.

State-of-the art records management systems can be integrated with other intradepartmental systems, such as computer-aided dispatch and mobile data terminals. Records management systems are not without problems, however. They are expensive to purchase and maintain and require skilled staff with extensive—and on-going—training.

Geographic information systems (GIS) are computer-based systems that store both spatial and nonspatial information in “layers” that can be called up simultaneously and depicted in the nuanced forms of maps. Replacements for the old-fashioned, color-coded pin maps traditionally used by police departments, geographic information systems can generate sophisticated maps showing, for example, relationships among illegal drug sale locations and the locations of schools, housing projects, and public telephones. GIS maps can also accurately identify “hot spots” and “hot times,” enabling reallocation of police resources.

A good example of GIS usage is New York City’s CompStat program. Begun in 1994, CompStat is a unit designed to analyze the statistics of daily crime reports from the city’s police precincts. The data and maps generated by CompStat are used by the chief of police to evaluate the performances of precinct commanders, who, in turn, evaluate the performances of the officers on their beats. The use of CompStat has been controversial, however. According to a 2021 study, while CompStat increased the number of minor arrests made, it had no effect on arrests related to serious crimes. It caused the number of civilian complaints against police officers to increase and led to some department attempting to manipulate data.

In addition to pinpointing the locations of armed robberies over designated periods of time, a geographic information system can include information such as liquor store locations and unemployment rates in specific neighborhoods and the addresses of all probationers and parolees in the area. When combined with the satellite technology of a global positioning system, law-enforcement and correctional officials can then accurately monitor the whereabouts of known offenders in any given community.

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