For law enforcement agencies, not being able to find the right information quickly can mean the difference between life and death and a loss of community trust.
A report by IDC titled The High Cost of Not Finding Information shows the challenges executives face when information is elusive. Good information is the foundation of good decision-making and allows organizations to run efficiently by saving time, frustration and duplication of effort. Executives also admit that tracking and accessing the right information is a daily problem in many organizations.
The risks are notable.
Without accurate and timely information, poor decisions are made. Siloed communication leads to multiple staff members or units working on the same project. Productivity and morale are poor when needed information is missing, lost, or difficult to find.
In the public safety space, agencies that suffer from poor information management also risk the safety of staff members and the general public. Confidence in an agency can erode or suspicions may be raised if information that should be available cannot be produced easily or takes too long to be be found and acted upon.
Our work with more than 250 law enforcement agencies shows that these risks and frustrations are real and significant issues for department leadership.
Law enforcement agencies rely heavily on computer aided dispatch (CAD) and record management systems (RMS) to manage core functions, including calls for service and response activities. However, these systems are, at best, only a partial solution for traditional policing during committed time. These systems dispatch officers and keep records, but both are backwards-looking technologies, they do not provide departments with needed information to guide decision-making and responses in a targeted and real time.
Existing CAD and RMS systems are not enough for effective modern police work. Today, we find more agencies wanting and needing to better manage key management functions, including uncommitted time, community oriented policing efforts, and regional information sharing. These functions include police work that falls outside the traditional boundaries covered by CAD and RMS, such as:
- Coordinating organized shift briefings and roll call pass-on.
- Communicating responses to crime in a real time, targeted way by following a crime thread.
- Confirming that messages from command officers is seen and acknowledged by officers.
- Centrally managing all correspondence and requests from the community.
- Ensuring community responses, whether ongoing or ad hoc, are channeled up and down the chain of command, with status reporting on requests, whether from an elected official, media outlet, or private citizen.
- Managing crime intelligence information including bulletins that are generated internally and those that span multiple jurisdictions.
- Leading a real-time, coordinated response to a major crime incident. Again, such responses may be internal, or involve multiple agencies or a regional SWAT team.
- Coordinating community-related initiatives such as working with retailers, school safety programs, and faith groups.
Managing large-scale events that require coordination among multiple parties that do not share RMS data.
Internally managing employee policy acknowledgement, training records and employment history.
Coordinating new initiatives that requires communication and alignment, such as body-worn camera testing and implementation.
Managing these complex tasks today, agencies often rely on different, incompatible and disconnected systems, including emails, paper-based filing and communication, Excel and Word files, Access databases or a city- or town-provided intranet. These may be partial solutions, but often lead to situations where information is difficult to find.
With SmartForce™ by Adventos, law enforcement agencies have another option. SmartForce™ is the only CJIS-compliant and mobile agency management system designed to account for uncommitted time and to drive current policing strategies. SmartForce™ also provides a single platform for integrating and automating all law enforcement administrative processes outside of CAD and RMS. SmartForce™ is a real-time communication and collaboration platform to better connect law enforcement agencies internally and to the communities that they serve. Click here to find out more.
