Adventos – Page 11 – SmartForce®’s Blog

Reduce Common Struggles when Managing Body Worn Camera programs

The SmartForce™ Agency Management System makes it easier to manage the challenges of the implementation of a Body Worn Camera program. With SmartForce™ there will be less effort, less frustration, and implementation will be faster. Regardless of the camera hardware system chosen for your agency, you may experience difficulties in the following areas:

1. Policy compliance
2. Reporting on response to resistance (a.k.a. Use of Force)
3. Citizen complaint tracking
4. Training management
5. Video storage
6. Open records requests
7. Public Information Officer responsibilities

Policy Compliance

PERF, the COPS Office, and departments across the United States have shared best practices for Body Worn Camera Program policies. What is yet to be solved is a way to systematically manage the receipt and acknowledgement of these policies with appropriate testing and auditing. A prominent police department received negative coverage in the media for completing a pilot program where the results of the test where inconclusive. This was because 80% of the time the officers did not turn on their cameras, even though it was policy to do so. An Agency Management System, like Adventos SmartForce™, streamlines policy drafting, submissions, auditing, and reporting, so department management can focus on policy shaping rather than wondering if officers are not in compliance.

Response to Resistance

Most departments report Use of Force information using hand written forms or with legacy internal affairs software which often don’t account for what truly matters during a Use of Force incident. SmartForce™ is not only capable of including video evidence in an actual report, but it is also capable of reporting on the chronological sequence of events. SmartForce™ handles reporting when multiple officers and multiple parties are involved, it provides a comprehensive view of what type of responses to resistance are effective, and what de-escalation techniques were used. Response to Resistance management is critical in the context of a Body Worn Camera program.

Citizen Complaint Tracking

While the use of body worn cameras, as PERF states, “often improves the performance of officers as well as the conduct of the community members who are recorded”, departments operate in a world where bystanders can capture video and file a complaint. When a citizen complaint is filed, SmartForce™ makes it easier to appropriately route the report through a chain of command and resolve it in a seamless and efficient way. SmartForce™ will save your department time as you handle citizen complaints. It will also improve morale and create a culture of accountability among your officers.

Training Management

A recent Los Angeles Times article blames rising accidental firearm discharges by deputies on the lack of proper training and policy. Most training academies handle field training officer reports via paper forms and training is reported and analyzed by hand as well. SmartForce™ streamlines the recording of daily observation reports, training, and certifications across an entire department. As the complexity of managing Body Worn Camera programs grow, training and policy compliance are of paramount importance.

Video Storage

Video management and the capacity to store electronic files are a growing need. Some body worn camera vendors use closed and proprietary platforms, while others use the Microsoft Azure platform, which is CJIS compliant. The SmartForce™ solution runs on the Microsoft Government Cloud, is CJIS compliant, and allows for reports such as Response to Resistance or Complaints to include video evidence retrieved from body worn cameras. Having both a written report and video evidence together, a one stop shop for information, simplifies administration.

Open Records Requests

Managing the coordination required to respond to an Open Records Request is a monumental task. Most departments rely on manual processes to file, discover, categorize, and disclose the requested information. SmartForce™ centralizes the Open Records Request process adding visibility to key personnel in the process and ensuring the department meets all legal requirements.

Public Information Officer

The role of the Public Information Officer (PIO) is growing across police departments in the United States. Your PIO could be struggling to obtain needed information, in real time, in order to respond promptly to community requests. SmartForce™ is the only software solution that makes it possible for PIOs to work collaboratively with those that matter most, when time is of the essence.

Start your FREE Trial

Our Agency Management System fits the needs of any size police department. We offer a FREE trial so you can determine if SmartForce™ will deliver the required value before purchasing the product. Start your FREE trial at www.adventos.com.

Works Cited:

Article from a Web site:

Miller, Lindsay, Jessica Toliver, and Police Executive Research Forum. 2014. Implementing a Body-Worn Camera Program: Recommendations and Lessons Learned. Washington, DC: Ofce of Community Oriented Policing Services. http://www.policeforum.org/assets/docs/Free_Online_Documents/Technology/implementing%20a%20body-worn%20camera%20program.pdf

Article from a Web site:

Hamilton, Matt. “L.A. Sheriff’s Department blamed for rise in accidental gunshots by deputies.” Los Angeles Times, 16 Dec. 2015.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-los-angeles-sheriff-training-handgun-accidental-discharges-20151216-story.html

Improve Police Agency and Community Collaboration

Brian Mc Grew
VP of Education

Today’s 21st Century Policing occurs in Conjunction with the Community

Imagine a secure, real-time, two-way and targeted communication method internally and with the community you serve. Imagine being able to connect more closely and collaborate with retailers, schools, hospitals, and other law enforcement agencies.

Well, it’s possible today with an Agency Management System (AMS). An AMS is a secure environment that can build, maintain, and foster a culture of information exchange and collaboration, both internally and with the community you serve.

An AMS, in a Police environment, can contain shared Community Collaboration sites which makes it easier to share information within the agency as well as with its partners in the community. For example, interaction relegated to once-a-month meetings can be conducted in real-time, so community programs can sustain momentum and blossom from the increased pace of information sharing and collaboration. By opening communication in a secure manner with an Agency Management System, the chance of misunderstandings is reduced and there is less wasted time and resources, due to improved coordination, communication, and transparency.

To create a culture of empowerment and trust within your agency and the community, here are some considerations:

Adopt an Agency Management System that can allow you to set up secure collaboration sites with key organizations, such as schools, churches, mental health facilities, citizen’s academies, retail business districts, HOA’s, and other local law enforcement agencies.
Assign Ownership and Foster Collaboration between leaders, owners, and assigned officers.
Share successes internally and through your Public Information Officer externally in regard to intelligence sharing, collaborative crime reduction efforts, project results, strategic initiatives, improved relationships, and feelings of safety.

Enable your Officers by Trusting and Leading Them

An Agency Management System can help extend the network of an officer internally or externally by his or her experience, specialty, skills or interest. Patrol officers for example may have key information relevant to a case in the criminal investigations unit and just need a communication platform that makes them aware of the need for their information so they can share it. Or maybe there’s an officer with particular skills in your agency that could be a resource to a neighboring agency. For these situations and more, allowing and trusting officers to contribute through a collaborative communication platform is a major step toward achieving a potential 25% increase in engagement and productivity.

Lead by example, not by exception. If you want more people to respond to communications or shared knowledge, show them how easy it is. One way Management can lead by example is to use a collaborative tools like an AMS to conduct command staff business.

A Collaborative Culture is Built in Phases

We like to talk about the concept of crawl, walk, run, just like a youngster becoming mobile. Start your collaborative efforts with a small step that has a high probability of success. Ask yourself, “what key organization would benefit and deliver value to your agency if you opened up a secure, on-line communication channel”? “What kind of written, photo, or video information would they like to receive or send to your agency that would be important or time-saving to them”? After asking yourself these sorts of questions, start sharing that information and responding to questions through an AMS.

Not All Information and Collaboration Has to Be Visible to Everyone

As collaboration becomes the norm in your agency, people will want to collaborate on sensitive projects. They will want to share content, but will not want it to be visible to anyone outside of an invited group. This can be done with an AMS that grants permission to specific team members to access these content areas.

Policing Should be Evolutionary, Not Static

Processes, policies, and procedures not only inform employees what to do, they keep people safe too. In today’s law enforcement environment, new policies and systems must be designed that allow for and teach how secure collaboration with the right internal and external partners can provide even higher levels of public safety and trust.

A demonstration of how the SmartForce™ Agency Management System securely connects to key community organizations or to see SmartForce™ in action with a free 30-day trial, please visit www.adventos.com.

Improving our Customer Support System

Mariano Delle Donne
CEO

As I watch our company grow from a small team to a larger company, it is extremely important to me to ensure our support, customer service, and ability to strategically solve customer problems, grows at the same pace or better than the number of customers or demands of our marketplace. Since continuous improvement is one of our core values at Adventos™, I am excited to announce the addition of a new tool to better manage our customer support processes and give us insight into key areas of customer service our customers value most. At Adventos™, we call our support “Assurance”, as in you are assured our software will work as promised and you are confident we’ll have your back.

This new tool is a Centralized Software Management System for handling support requests. Here are its benefits:

Centralization

All customer support issues will be managed via support tickets and organized in one central system. This reduces the risk of an e-mail or phone conversation containing key information being lost or filed incorrectly. We are essentially making one small change to our current customer support system, but the pay offs will be great for our customers, as well as our deployment and development teams.

Transparency

For issues that are more complex and can’t be resolved immediately, customers can see “at a glance” the status of their ticket, as well as the person working on the issue. This should give customers “a peace of mind” knowing their problems are assigned and progressing to resolution.

Product and Training Improvement

By organizing our customer support system, we’re able to perform an analysis on repetitive ticket items. Improvements to either our Smart Solutions or the training we provide will undoubtedly help each user’s experience.

Ensures Continuity

If a Customer Service team member is promoted or leaves the team, issues can be quickly reassigned, making sure no ticket falls through the cracks. All information stays in one place, with easy access.

Our goal with this change is to maintain our “top-shelf” customer service you’ve come to expect, so you and your agency can operate at the highest levels of efficiency. We are excited about the improvements to our Assurance Support System and look forward to your continued success.

TED Talks for Crime Analysts

Brian Mc Grew
VP of Education

In this article we “curate” 3 TED Talks that apply to Crime Analysts:

#1 – By Amy Cuddy, “Your body language shapes who you are”

Awesome talk for everyone, but especially for the plate-full, analytical, ever-in-demand, non-sworn, but important, crime analyst. Take 2 minutes and do this before your next CompStat or other crime reduction meeting.

Click here to watch the video.

#2 – By Andy Yen, “Think your email’s private? Think again”

Because most email systems even in law enforcement are insecure and risky methods for communicating crime intelligence.

Click here to watch the video.

#3 – By Lorrie Faith Cranor, “What’s wrong with your pa$$w0rd?”

Because a Crime Analyst cannot afford to be hacked and you have to manage at least 30 passwords!

Click here to watch the video.

What are your thoughts and suggestions for other beneficial videos for Crime Analysts?

Leading Successful Implementations

Mariano Delle Donne
CEO

Often times, organizational leaders can unknowingly create inconsistencies in executing their strategic direction. In their quest to find the great idea that will transform the organization, they whiplash their people with new and ever changing tactics. These tactics (e.g. changing shift schedules, creating new divisions/units, implementing new technology, developing new initiatives, etc.) might make sense individually, but if they haven’t been positioned as an integrated way of moving the agency forward and how they apply to the ever changing environment, people in the organization might become skeptical about senior management’s ability to secure the future.

Leaders have to place strategic changes, initiatives, and goals into a broader organizational context, or they risk losing good talent, burning out managers, and wasting money on programs that don’t pay off. People have to see why what they’re doing has to change and why they should suddenly be moving in a new direction.

Our environment, public opinion, and the economy changes fast, so no approach will stay perfect, thus strategic plans will always need adjustment, interested learners, and iteration. One best practice to keep people energized and willing to adjust, is to help them understand how the current focus connects with or builds upon the last set of strategic directions and imperatives in their current reality.

The following is how one Police Chief, who I find skillful at carefully positioning each new change initiative as something that builds upon previous foundations, implemented change in his agency.

First he selected a leader capable of carrying the project forward. He made sure to fully brief him on his vision of the project and allowed his project leader to share his perspectives so they were on the same page regarding the project and its benefits. The Chief also made clear he what his project leader’s role and responsibilities would be as well as how much he believed in the project leader’s ability to lead the project. Doing so created a sense of ownership and vested commitment.

Next, he briefed the core leadership team and introduced SmartForce™ as a strategic initiative that was in line with previous initiatives, such as modernizing their RMS and CAD system.

During the kick-off he detailed why he had chosen SmartForce™ as their platform for a one-stop-shop communication and information sharing. He used clear examples of challenges facing the agency and what SmartForce would do for the agency. He included how the SmartForce project was aligned to their agency’s principles and values such as leadership, customer service, engagement with the community, and the simplification of work processes to create more productive work time. He involved them emotionally by connecting the dots for them and therefore his initiative was not seen as one more thing to learn or do. When the Chief wrapped up his opening remarks saying, “I expect this to work and I expect you to make it work, too”. Everyone wanted to make this new initiative work and no one felt dragged into just another futile project.

Creating this kind of context is a critical component of leadership. People need to know how the dots are connected, not because they don’t want to follow the next new program, but because they want to make sure their energy expenditure will be worthwhile and productive.

If you manage people, think about how you can help them connect the dots between the work they do and what their work is meant to achieve. Ask yourself, what are the threads that tie together past initiatives and strategic directions with current ones? How can I best illustrate moving from our current state to the necessary future state? What are the lessons learned that you can apply to the next project? How have past efforts helped you build capability over time, and how can that help you win as a team and as an organization?

Unless you take the time to help your people understand the answers to these questions and emotionally engage them, they may experience change as a series of random and arbitrary directives with no rhyme or reason. By putting change into a longer-term context, whatever you are trying to accomplish will have a better chance of success.

External Sharing and Authentication

Doug Owens
Director of Implementation

If your agency’s work involves sharing documents or collaborating directly with other law enforcement agencies, community groups, partners, etc., then you may want to use the external sharing features of SmartForce™ to share content securely with people outside your organization who do not have licenses for your SmartForce™ and Microsoft Cloud subscription. Sharing information securely and in real time are powerful ways to improve communication, coordination, and results.

In this article we explore external sharing in detail.

What are the external sharing features?

External sharing features include:

The ability to turn external sharing on or off globally for an entire environment (or tenant). Turning external sharing off at the tenant level means no documents or sites can be shared externally.

The ability to turn external sharing on or off for individual sites. This provides you with the ability to secure content on specific sites that you do not want to be shared and allow access to certain sites you do want to share with external partners.

The ability to share sites and documents with authenticated users. Authenticated users are those who your agency invites to sign in by using either a “Microsoft” account or a “Work or School” account. We will explore this topic in more detail later.

What is an authenticated user?

An authenticated external user is someone outside of your organization who can access your SmartForce™ solution, but does not have a license for your SharePoint Online or Microsoft Office 365 subscription. External users are not employees, contractors, or onsite agents. They are outside agencies or community groups that need to have a user name and password to access your solution. Key examples of authenticated users are; Principals and Vice Principals of Schools, District Attorneys, Crime Analysts from local police or sheriff’s offices, Presidents of Homowners Associations, Managers of Hotels, Retail Business Owners in a key business park, etc.

How do you give an authenticated user access?

With Office 365 or SharePoint Online

When agencies have Office 365 or SharePoint Online, turning on external sharing is done with a few clicks of the security functionality by your SmartForce™ administrator.

To illustrate this example, let’s say that three agencies all have SmartForce™ and they are running it on Office 365 Government. These three agencies can select to share an Auto Theft Investigations or Regional SWAT site among themselves using their current Microsoft e-mail addresses so they will all have access to these two said sites to collaborate together.

Without Office 365 or SharePoint Online already in place

In this case, the user needs to “Cloud Enable” their email address. This can be done with a Microsoft Passport account such as an outlook account which can be associated with a .GOV account and clients can use the .GOV account to authenticate. The Microsoft Passport account is used to cloud enable the user. You can associate any email address to a Microsoft account.

To illustrate this example, if your agency is running a School Resource Officer or School Safety Program, you will be able to give external, secure access to school principals or vice principals that “Cloud Enable” their email addresses so they can share documents, photos, and discussions between themselves and school resource officers.

With Active Directory Services for Integration

Azure Active Directory is an option for Organization to Organization or Agency to Agency (or B2B as in Business to Business). If your agency has Azure Active Directory there is no cost to use the service and more details on how to implement the authentication is linked below. With this model, you can use SmartForce™ on Office 365 and or Azure and provide external authentication and access.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/active-directory-b2b-collaboration-overview/

A Final Note on Security

The SmartForce™ Agency Management System contains the most robust security features of any law enforcement solution on the market today. Whether you are wanting to share information in a CJIS compliant environment with internal or external users, we can help you set up the proper permissions to fit your particular agency’s needs. Contact us at 303-800-5042 and one of our law enforcement specialists will be happy to answer any additional agency specific questions regarding external sharing, authentication, or security.

References:

Manage external sharing for your SharePoint Online environment

Office 365 Government Community Cloud

B2B and B2C services for integration points

Office 365 Trust Center

Six “Must Have” Tools for Crime Analysts

Mariano Delle Donne
CEO

Read “New and Improved Must Have Tools for Crime Analysists” and link to this one:https://smartforcetech.com/blog/adventos/new-and-improved-must-have-tools-for-crime-analysts/

Crime Analysts across the country are becoming the secret weapons for their organizations. Their crime products, whether the identification of crime patterns, problem areas, or spotting repeat offenders, are helping organize and prioritize crime reduction responses and community policing efforts.

To empower these secret weapons, crime analysts must have the proper tools to be successful in their roles. In this article we identify the top six tools every crime analyst must own.

One – CAD and RMS

While CAD and RMS are not analytical tools per se, for a crime analyst and for an agency to be successful in implementing crime reduction strategies, they must have the ability to mine and understand agency data originating in CAD and RMS.

Intelligent Tip:

Ensure your RMS data structures are based on industry standards, such as NIBRS and NEIM. With well understood data structures you will be able to more easily integrate Crime Analysis and Prediction software, as well as leverage regional data and industry best practices.

Two – Crime Analysis Software

Crime analysis software can be as simple as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that targets crime reduction priorities for an agency or a more robust crime intelligence product which has the ability to integrate RMS and CAD data into powerful and customizable dashboards with analytics, query, visualization, and information sharing. Ideally, this software has the ability to provide visually-intuitive heat maps, trend analysis, charts, and is able to quickly uncover emerging trends gaining deeper insight into key issues and areas.

Crime analysis software tools should have the ability to use historical RMS data to produce targeted crime forecasts that are accurate. In any agency, utilizing crime analysis software in either a simple or more robust application should lead to more efficiently allocated Officer resources and help to improve the focus of their time and efforts on proactively reducing and preventing crime.

Intelligent Tip:

Ideally, the applications are cloud-based, so they are accessible from any device for analysts, officers, command staff, and specialty units in the office or on the road. Take a look at Motorola’s CommandCentral Analytics product which has many best in class features essential in predictive software tools.

Three – Law Enforcement Specific GIS

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can help leverage the massive amounts of location-based data collected each day to create actionable intelligence you can use and share. GIS provides solutions used by thousands of cities, counties and law enforcement agencies worldwide for investigations, operations, planning, and administration. Intelligence analysis can sometimes go beyond traditional crime analysis. During analysis you can fuse together reporting from GIS data that relates to Corrections, Parole, and Probation, in-vehicle mobile mapping, traffic, accident analysis, etc.

Intelligent Tip:

GIS is a very powerful tool. For the majority of crime analysis mapping needs, a quick look at the relationship between crime locations or measure of distance will suffice. Having said this, if your agency is making significant investments in crime intelligence, ESRI tools are the industry standard and the trusted leader in GIS for large US governments and corporations.

Four – Agency Management System

Public safety responses to crime reduction initiatives must be organized, targeted and active. Many times they require the coordination of multiple units and often occur during uncommitted time. It can be frustrating for crime analysts to create crime intelligence products that result in little activity or impact. To amplify the impact of crime reduction responses, an Agency Management System is required. An Agency Management System allows for intelligence products to be assigned to the audiences that can and must take action, organizes discussions on the intelligence product, and allows for the tracking and coordination of responses in real time.

Intelligent Tip:

While coordination of crime reduction responses can be accomplished with a simple intranet portal or passed on through email (see our post about the risks of email), an Agency Management System such as SmartForce™ adds levels of sophistication that compliment your RMS and CAD. Because of its CJIS compliant, mobile, and reporting features, SmartForce™ is the best platform for sharing intelligence and responses for targeted crime reduction during uncommitted time.

Five – Microsoft Office

Crime analysts bear a great deal of responsibility in the agency and therefore deserve tools that give them the greatest capabilities to be effective and streamlined. A crime analyst must save products as PDFs, receive PDFs, and open them to revise and share information with one click. Microsoft Office provides this capability for a low cost and integrates with agency management systems like SmartForce™.

Intelligent Tip:

The free options available are limited in their capabilities. Microsoft Office is available as a subscription on the Cloud as Office 365 for Government and adds CJIS compliance capabilities. The annual price tag is recovered quickly when your crime analysts and field teams have the right information at their fingertips.

Six – KeyPass

With great power comes big responsibility. Crime analysts have access to many databases and sources of information which require multiple secure passwords. There are tools for managing passwords that will securely generate, store, and manage passwords for various computer systems, websites, and services you access.

Intelligent Tip:

This field has many great players. KeyPass is our recommended tool, but if your agency is already working with a secure password keeper or tool that meets or exceeds your agency standards, keep it!

About SmartForce™ by Adventos

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.

For more information visit adventos.com and view a video demonstration of SmartForce™ today.

Adventos™ Corporation Announces Strategic Investment Partner; The Optimas Group, LLC

Julie Fryberger
Office of the CEO

Press release link.

How Crime Analysts Win More with a “Targeted-Service” Strategy

Mariano Delle Donne
CEO

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Crime Analysts across the nation are becoming the secret weapon to their organizations. Their crime products, whether the identification of a crime pattern, a problem area, or spotting repeat offenders, are helping organize and prioritize crime reduction responses as well as community policing efforts.

The correct crime strategy, the precise communication model, and the right tools, can drive increased efficiencies and results.

In this article we explore how a strategy of targeted-service can help a crime analyst and their teams responding to crime patterns, win more often.

First, if you have not read “Avoid Risks of Email when Sharing Crime Intelligence” stop now, click here, then come back and continue reading.

Policing Strategy Truths:

Communication about crime prevention responses must be targeted
Responses in policing must be “active.”
Officers must collaborate in real-time with organized information
Criminal intelligence must be communicated in a CJIS compliant environment, not through email

How can you provide your agency with targeted-service so it wins more?

Targeted-Service Strategy Defined

Reducing crime can be challenging when units and officers are operating in silos. Collaboration must occur, but mass distribution of intelligence products to the entire agency turns your hard work into white noise.

A targeted-service strategy knits together knowledge management and the right customer service.

By storing and managing all intelligence products in one place and directing intelligence information only to the people or units that need it, based on their roles and responsibilities, your intelligence products change from white noise to useful information that can create actionable responses to reduce crime.

For example, let’s say your analysis causes you to detect a home burglary pattern in Zone 4 which happens to be a zone assigned to the Problem Oriented Policing Unit. Instead of sending a mass e-mail of your pattern bulletin across the agency, it is better to use a CJIS compliant communication tool that not only directs your bulletin to only Zone 4 officers and the Problem Oriented Policing Unit, but also to property crimes, for them to design a collaborative response to eliminate this crime pattern.

How to Implement a Targeted-Service Strategy

Understand from your command staff what top crimes are being targeted for reduction by your agency.
Understand how your users currently respond to reduce crime during uncommitted time.
Identify gaps that cause delays or slow responses during uncommitted time.
Obtain executive sponsorship and inform users that you are implementing a targeted-service strategy with your crime intelligence products for the ideal purpose of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness or communicating and reducing specific types of crime.
Measure the time from when your intelligence product is shared and when responses begin (aim is to decrease crime tool response time).
Measure the time it takes for detectives and others to research intelligence (aim is to decrease crime intelligence research time).
Measure the time to close-out incidents pertaining to your agency’s top targeted crimes.
House intelligence products on one single platform with security and access granted only to those who should be acting on them. Publish the location of this information.
Only share intelligence products pertaining to the top targeted crimes to the units, task forces, or persons who have direct responsibility for the response in their area. Ask assigned officers or units to share what they know about the area, situation, and data contained in your intelligence product, as well as their activities they conduct based on your intelligence product.
Store all other intelligence products that do not pertain to your agency’s top targeted crimes in one central storage area that can be searched when needed.

The Right Tools

When investing in the best tools to drive today’s policing strategies for reducing crime and to communicate intelligence products, look for the following qualities:

CJIS compliant web-based platform that can be hosted locally or on the cloud and accessed by mobile devices
Organizes data, bulletins, photos, and video in a single site
Deep search functionality using key words
Assigns intelligence products to specific units, task forces, or officers
Allows for collaboration between those assigned to communicate their response activities and results similar to social media posts

Data and demands on public safety are ever increasing which makes the crime analyst role more important and at the same time, more challenging. Implementing a targeted-service strategy and using the right tools, helps crime analysts and their agencies win more in their fight against crime.

About SmartForce™ by Adventos

For more information, visit adventos.com and view a video demonstration of SmartForce™ today.

Avoid Risks of Email when Sharing Crime Intelligence and Responses

Mariano Delle Donne
CEO

In Public Safety, communication during a response to an incident can truly be a matter of life and death. The method of communication can also dictate whether an agency achieves success or falls short when responding to crime situations.

Email is still the dominant communication method to share crime analysis products, communicate crime reduction strategies, and implement responses in public safety.

However, in this article we explore the dangers of email in public safety responses and recommend a better solution agencies can use to add speed, accountability, and safety to their communication efforts. Implementing our recommendations will greatly reduce your agency’s risk inherent to communicating crime intelligence through email and increase the utility of your crime products and results.

Communications about Crime Prevention Responses should be “Active”

Email is a passive” form of communication. Often, emails are deleted before they are ever read or stored in folders never to be found or acted upon again.

Communication of crime intelligence products and crime prevention responses should be ”active.” To make these communications active, they should be assigned to appropriate teams of officers to perform desired responses during uncommitted time with feedback loops on their activities, additional intelligence discovered, and results. E-mail is not assignable and falls short on driving accountability since it is often heard that someone “didn’t get the email,” “didn’t see it,” or “thought someone else was working on it.”

Analysis must be Targeted

Email serves the broad purpose of informing many people, but crime analysis sharing should be targeted to the select group of officers responsible for reducing targeted types of crime. The risk of sending crime products to all officers through email is that the intelligence products become “white noise” that are tuned-out or not fully utilized.

Crime Intelligence should be managed in a secure CJIS environment

Email communications are not secure. Data transferred through email can easily land outside an agency with one wrong click or by other means. We once worked with a customer that made a “fat finger” mistake sending a criminal intelligence email that resulted in information being leaked into the public domain. The suspect mentioned in the email, who was later found to be innocent, was brutally attacked by citizens in the community trying to avenge the victim. The police department wound up paying a large dollar settlement because of their email mistake. While this result is extreme, too often emails wind up in the public domain carrying the potential for very negative results.

Organizations must communicate more intelligently

Email is typically a one-to-many communication mechanism and therefore does not place accountability on the individuals receiving it. Individuals tend to scan their emails and catalog or delete them based on the importance to their current shift. Assumptions are often made that another person or unit is taking action on a particular email. Actions and responses often fall through the cracks and incidents take longer to resolve. Our experience tells us that most organizations are swimming in email and most officers are overwhelmed by it.

The complexity and demands on law enforcement are growing at an ever rapid pace. Agencies can’t afford to operate on antiquated communication platforms that bog them down or produce “white noise,” especially in our post-Ferguson era.

What’s the alternative to using email?

Newer communication tools have been designed for the rigorous security demands and accountability needed to boost crime reduction efforts. We recommend switching your crime intelligence communication platform to a web accessible intranet site hosted in a CJIS compliant environment. Agency Management Systems like SmartForce™ are designed for 21^st century policing strategies and provide the security, accountability and mobility needed to help agencies communicate “actively” to prevent or reduce targeted crime. Crime analysis products are securely distributed and accessible on a secure portal and from a smartphone. Intelligence products are tagged or assigned to specific teams to carry out the desired response. For example, a crime analyst discovers a motor vehicle burglary pattern in Beat 3 and creates an intelligence product. She uploads the bulletin, photos, and/or video into the agency management system and only assigns it to Beat 3 and the Street Crimes Unit. Upon seeing the new pattern, the Beat 3 supervisor assigns directed patrol to his officers to conduct during their uncommitted time. Officers in Beat 3 and the Street Crimes Unit share their activity, intelligence, and results of their efforts on secure discussion threads until the incident is closed.

At the core of an intelligent and agile organization is both strategy and the right tools. Take steps today to limit your risk of e-mail pitfalls in crime intelligence sharing and increase your impact on crime reduction results.

About SmartForce™ by Adventos

SmartForce™ is the first 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.