The Police and Soft
Technology:
Assessing the Link between
Information Technology and
Police Performance
Police and Technology: A Brief
History

The first technological revolution in policing that
produced a notable change in their function
came about with the advent of the telephone, the
two-way radio, and the automobile .
 With the proliferation of the telephone in the
early 20th century, policing changed.
 Citizens called, and in fact were encouraged to
call, the police to deal with a multitude of
problems, and the police responded to those
calls from dispatch via a two-way radio, and
sped quickly to locations via patrol cars.
The New Technological Revolution
in Policing

Problem-Orientated Policing (POP) and
Community-Orientated Policing (COP) now
encourage police to make greater use of the
data they routinely collect, and to be more
analytic with regards to the data they utilize for
tactical and strategic decision making.
 POP and COP strategies encourage police to
go beyond individual calls for service, and
instead take on the problems underlying them.
Data Collection and Management
Innovations in Policing
 Record
Management Systems (RMS)
 Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) Systems
 Mobile Data Terminals (MDTs)
 Compstat and CAM: Crime Mapping and
Crime Analysis
 Early Intervention Systems
Funding New Police Technology
COPS MORE grants helped more
than4,500 law enforcement agencies
acquire and implement technology in
support of efficient community policing
operations.
 The grants totaled more than $1.3 billion
and funded crime-fighting technologies
that helped redeploy the equivalent of
more than 42,000 full-time law
enforcement professionals into CP.

Evidence of Impact of New
Innovations on Police Performance



National Research Council review of police performance
(2004) revealed that there is no evidence of improved
performance linked to recent police innovations.
Peter Manning(2008) reached the same conclusion in
his detailed case studies of police technology
innovations in three police departments: Washington,
Boston, and an unnamed medium sized American city,
called Western.
A recent Campbell Collaborative Evidence-Based
Review of COP programs( 2008) did identify a
significant, but modest, impact on performance.
Record Management Systems
(RMS)
A
RMS is a way to manage information,
from criminal reports and arrest records to
personnel records and fingerprints, and
will be utilized by almost all staff in any
given department.
Record Management Systems
 Faster
access to information (patrol
officers
 Improved information about crime and
calls for service (command staff)
 More accurate information (command
staff)
 Improved UCR reporting (records section
 Reduced data entry (records section
personnel)
 Improved investigative case management
Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD)
Systems

Currently, more than 97 million calls for service to 911
are made annually, and the number has been
increasing, especially with the proliferation of cell
phones.
 One solution adopted by some cities was to develop a
non-emergency number, such as 311.
 Another response is to attempt to sustain rapid police
response to true emergencies (e.g. crimes in progress),
while eliminating police response to calls that do not
ultimately demand their attention, or “stacking” calls that
require police attention, but where a delayed response is
adequate.
 New features to existing CAD systems have been
developed as a technology to serve this role.
Mobile Data Terminals (MDTs)

MDTs are now essentially in-car laptop
computers, capable of performing the same
tasks as a desktop computer.
 Such MDTs can be used to obtain information
about a call for service (e.g. previous calls from
that address), and about persons (e.g., criminal
histories) with whom they have contact.
 This helps eliminate airtime use with requests
for information from dispatchers, and also
increased police ability to proactively run license
plate checks on automobiles without having to
stop them.
Compstat and CAM: Crime
Mapping and Crime Analysis

Compstat is based on four principles designed to make
police organizations rational and responsive to
management direction:
 (1) accurate and timely information made available at all
levels of the organization;
 (2) the selection of the most effective tactics for specific
problems;
 (3) rapid, focused deployment of people and resources
to implement those tactics; and
 (4) relentless follow-up and assessment to learn what
happened and make subsequent tactical assessments if
necessary
Early Intervention Systems


Early warning (EW) systems, or early intervention (EI)
systems as they are currently labeled, are behavior
monitoring devices used by police administrators as a
means of identifying officers who display symptoms of
frequent misconduct, and intervene soon after such
symptoms appear with some form of intervention (e.g.,
counseling, retraining, etc.).
This type of proactive intervention in officer careers has
the potential to prevent a substantial amount of police
misconduct, especially as research has found that a
small number of officers are responsible for a
disproportionate amount of misconduct (Harris, 2006).
Hot Spots Policing
 Crime
Analysis of Calls for service and
patterns of crime
 Link Crime analysis to police deployment
 Focus on locations with the most serious
problems
 Identify patterns of criminal activities over
time and by location
 Issue: coercive vs. proactive police
strategies( values-oriented policing)
Operation Ceasefire in Boston
 David
Kennedy’s unique “pulling levers”
strategy identified as model program by
the DOJ. Carrots vs Sticks
 Assumption: Gang members are the
primary cause of violence in Boston
 Intervention: Make gangs accountable by
targeting gang leaders and members for
aggressive prosecution when a violent
crime occurs in their territory
Other Boston Police Initiatives
 Warrantless
searches for guns in targeted
high risk locations
 Gun Buy-back Programs