Has Computer Technology Enhanced Overall Efficiency of South Florida Law Enforcement Agencies?

Criminal Justice

Computers and Their Effects upon Police Efficiency

Computer technology has transformed the modern day police department. Numerous systems now provide assistance in fields ranging from communication, to information storage and retrieval, and even allocation of personnel. Properly designed, computer applications save time and energy. They permit police officers to do the work they were hired to do - police. The various articles in this report both feature and support the use of computer technology in the law enforcement environment. In addition, the case study contained herein represents a real-time, and real-life analysis by policemen of these systems in action.

Computers and Their Effects upon Police Efficiency

Introduction

Computers have brought major changes to virtually every facet of our world, and police work is no exception. From desktop computers in the station house, to laptop computers in police vehicles, a policeman's work is now as much affected by technology as a stockbroker's or an accountant's. Modern technology has now made it possible not only for individual officers to be linked together no matter where they might be, but also for different police departments to communicate with each other across the nation, and even across international borders if need be. Computers give police instant access to huge treasure-troves of information. With a few keystrokes, today's law enforcement officers can do background checks on suspects, look up the criminal records of people they've apprehended, and gain access to files that were previously buried somewhere in a basement or warehouse. As well, computers are an indispensable aid in the daily routine of the modern police department. Time consuming paperwork that once took up a significant part of a policeman's valuable time can now be completed quickly and almost effortlessly, thereby freeing police officer's for the work they were meant to do - fight crime. Even the investigative side of police work has been transformed by today's technology. A computer can instantly create a recognizable image of a suspect's face from a description supplied by a policeman or a crime victim. Computers can cross-check information at speeds previously unimagined. Truly, the computer is a wonderful new tool for law enforcement.

Time was when police work consisted primarily of an awful lot of legwork. "The cop on the beat" was most people's image of the typical police officer. The patrolman spend his days wandering back and forth over specific streets, his eyes peeled for any signs of suspicious activity. He worked alone, or perhaps with a partner, but in all cases, he was completely divorced from the rest of his department while e was out on the streets. His only communication with his brother officers, or with other good-natured citizens was by means of his own voice, or by use of the tin whistle that hung around his neck. Such lone policing meant many things, things that are virtually unimaginable today. Deprived of the instantaneous contact with his department to which we have all grown accustomed, the policeman faced a far more dangerous job than the one he now pursues. Each time he turned down a dark alley, or nudged his way into a blackened building, he put his life in imminent peril. Wandering the dark floors of some lonely warehouse, or walking the shadowed backstreets of a crime-ridden neighborhood, he ran the risk of some criminal lunging out at him. Unable to summon any help but that within earshot, he faced serious injury or worse. Luckily, the American policeman was at least armed, unlike his British counterpart. Still however, this variety of lone policing, cut off from his fellow officers, made much work impossible. A single policeman, or even a pair of policeman, would not dare to enter into a section of a city that might be controlled by a dangerous criminal gang. Such criminal organizations ran rampant, terrorizing ordinary citizens and police alike.

Yet, improvements were on the way. Technology early contributed to the policeman's effectiveness. As the telegraph and telephone transformed communication in the Nineteenth Century, so too, did the police call box help to make police work just that much safer and effective. The cop on the beat was now no longer truly alone as he walked the streets nightstick in hand. If need be, he could summon help from the nearest call box - a vital tool that linked him directly with the stationhouse. Following the call box's introduction in 1910, the technological innovations came even faster. First there was the police car, and then the radio, both of which devices further improved police efficiency. With the police car, the police officer could respond quickly to situations at a distance. In addition, the vehicle shielded him from ill-intentioned marauders. He was no longer purely at the mercy of his own strength when it came to entering dangerous areas or escaping from potentially deadly situations. One must remember, that even the mounted policeman was exposed to similar hazards to his pedestrian counterpart. A horse could be frightened, overtaken, or even shot.

Though large and cumbersome at the beginning, the police radio proved invaluable once it made its appearance in the police car. Though initially allowing only one-way communication - that is between the station and the police car - even this brought about a considerable change in the way the policeman conducted his work. Now, a complainant could appear in person at the stationhouse, or even telephone the stationhouse, and the sergeant on duty could take the call and then immediately radio his men out in the field. In these cases, the radio proved a lifesaver both for policemen and for crime victims. Not only was response time vastly reduced, but the chances of apprehending the criminals were increased as well. Police cars could now rush to the scene of a crime, having more than ever before, the opportunity of reaching the scene either while the criminal act was still in progress, or before the perpetrators had the chance to escape far away.

Later still, the introduction of the two-way radio enabled the officer in the field to radio back reports on conditions in his area. Not only could he call for reinforcements where necessary, but he could also give his superiors clues as to how to deploy their resources. A quiet night in one area, could free up men to be sent to another location. Perhaps most importantly of all, the two-way radio made the cop on the beat, for the first time, the eyes and ears of a single, united organization. The patrolman could now act like the feelers of the central organization. Investigations and emergency operations could now be conducted from a central command post, a point where the best brains, and most skilled policemen directed street-level operations. Every officer now had direct access to headquarters and all its files and personnel. Additionally, radio and telephone revolutionized national policing. The criminal who managed to get out of town one step ahead of the police no longer had an advantage because of his head start. Telephones, telegraphs, and radio were faster than any train or automobile. A wanted man could step off a train at a point hundreds of miles away and have the local police waiting for him, handcuffs in hand. Information on a criminal's activity in distant parts of the country, or even overseas, could be swiftly relayed to a station anywhere, thus providing local officers with much needed information.

Nor were new technologies limited to communications and transportation. So seemingly simple a device as the typewriter made police work far easier than it had been in the days of the stick pen or the fountain pen. Typed records meant records that were easy to read, and records that could be produced and reproduced much more rapidly than in the past. The copying machine, when it came in, further speeded up the production and transmission of files. Originals could be safely kept in one spot. There was no longer the necessity of risking losing them by sending them out to a distant department, or else laboriously copying them out by hand. More significantly, graphic images - fingerprints, mug shots, and the like - could be re-transmitted exactly as they were. And one should certainly not underestimate the impact of these two new technologies. No two inventions probably had a greater effect on modern day police work than photography and fingerprinting. With the coming of the photograph, police now had a definitive record of a criminal's appearance. No longer was there the need to rely on verbal or written descriptions, or haphazard sketches. Crime victims could peruse the books filled with mug shots, and so more easily identify their attackers and suspected perpetrators.

While not strictly speaking a form of technology, fingerprinting however, along with many other forms of forensic investigation, revealed the growing alliance between police work and science. A fingerprint provided an absolute, and unique, identifier for every single person arrested and booked. The cataloguing of the different forms of these prints, the ridges and the valleys, the number and shape of the lines, permitted investigators to pinpoint a suspect's identity even if he had only been arrested once before and at some far-off location. The fingerprint also enabled the police investigator to track down the perpetrator of a crime even in those cases in which there had been no human witness, and in which other evidence was lacking or incomplete. The further influence of science - in particular medical science and pathology - led to ever more sophisticated techniques for investigating crime scenes. Biological and chemical evidence now put the noose around as many criminals' necks as once had eyewitnesses and fingerprints. With increased medical knowledge, a coroner could determine almost the exact time of murder victim's demise, thus helping the investigation. Having a specific window in time to work with, police had a better idea of whom to look for and whom to question. All of these new forms of scientific evidence also meant that police could rule out many that would formerly have been considered suspects, and concentrate on those who were genuinely associated with the case. Spectroscopic analysis, ballistics testing, and even lie-detector machines all had their role to play in making science and technology an every day part of police work. These new inventions also made it much more difficult for the criminal or would-be criminal, as well as much easier for the prosecutors and courts.

However, all of these wonderful technological innovations came with a heavy price, and that price could be measured in the reams of paperwork, the tons and tons of it that filled up station filing cabinets and city halls of records. A police officer or investigator could spend hours, days, or even weeks, poring through dusty files. Doing everything by hand and by eye meant that it could take months to match up the proper photographs or fingerprints, or ballistic reports. And what did you do if you couldn't find the correct information? You knew it was there but it was missing or misfiled or even water-logged or destroyed. An early attempt at solving some of these problems came in the form of the punch cards that were produced by companies such as the International Business Machine Corporation - the modern day IBM. A pattern of holes of punched into a small, paper card constituted a code that corresponded to lines of text. The heaps of criminal records that had been built up over the years could be transferred to these cards. The cards could then be fed into a large machine. Working at a control panel, the machine's operator then punched in the code for which he was looking and the machine did the ret. This kind of mechanical sorting vastly decreased the amount of time given over simply to finding information.

Yet, no matter how advanced, mechanical devices do have their limits. Even the most sophisticated of these machines would seem painfully slow and primitive compared to today's computers. It was the dawning of the electronic age that truly signaled the beginning of a whole new era in police work. At first stored on magnetic tapes, data would eventually be stored on sophisticated hard drives and CD ROM's. High-speed computers could scan through millions of records in only a matter of seconds. And as technology advanced still further, the computer decreased in size and cost. It moved out of the basement rooms of its first ancestors, the chilly cavern that had been required by the behemoth-sized forerunners of today's computers. The computer came to be a feature of every department, and then of every stationhouse, and finally it landed on every desk and in every police car. Armed with both his service revolver and his laptop computer, the policeman now had access not only to a good means of protection, but also to a world full of information. Tasks that once took weeks or months, or that were virtually impossible because of human physical limitations now became ordinary and even expected. Police departments across the country and across the world could at last keep tabs on criminals with a consistency and an accuracy that never before even been imagined. Individual officers and investigators could be freed up to spend their time doing the work they were trained and paid today. Human brains were at long last free to think and meditate on the solutions to the problem of criminal activity, rather than spend all of their time puzzling over confused records, or cramping their hands by completing seemingly endless examples of paperwork.

Nevertheless, the new computers brought with them their own problems. To start with, learning to use a computer correctly necessitated the learning of an entirely new set of skills. To many who were unfamiliar with them, they seemed to have entirely their own language. An entry entered incorrectly, a key pressed in error, could result in the wrong data being retrieved. Keeping a warehouse full of files on a single disk was great, but what happened if the computer went down? What happened if some rookie accidentally erased everything on your hard drive? Computers did not eliminate the problem of human error, and in fact, they could even be said to have exacerbated the problem. Unless you took a blowtorch to the stacks at the hall of records, it wasn't likely that you were going to lose everything you had. A mistake that might be minor on a handwritten or typewritten document could result in that simple mistake being repeated millions of times on a computer. Program the computer improperly and your entire filing system was screwed up. Forget your password or have a power failure and you can't even get into the darned thing. And, as police departments - like so many other contemporary enterprises - at last reached the stage of the paperless office, a new problem loomed on the horizon. This was the problem of almost total human dependence on technology. Once you get to the point where all of your records are stored on disk, and even worse, where everything you once did by hand is now done by machine, you have no other when these wonders of modern technology fail. The young policeman of today who has never conducted an analysis by hand, or who has never had to compare prints or photographs by eye is completely at a loss without all of his gadgets. And of course, we should not forget the loss of the human element in police work. The more and more our computers do for us, and the more we work with them, the less interaction we have with our fellow human beings. Policemen and policewomen, like experts everywhere and in every field, can rely too much on technology. Sometimes only good old-fashioned sweat and hard work are the only ways to solve a problem, and if we become so dependant on our beloved machines that we cannot function without them, then we have a greater problem that we ever had before.

Literature Review wide range of computer technology is now available to the typical police department. As we began our discussion with a look at the problems of communication among police officers and between departments, it might be a good idea, at this point, to take a look at some of the current developments in this area. The Internet now pervades our society. It has many benefits. It brings us closer together, it speeds up the dissemination of information, and it makes it a far simpler task to perform research of all kinds. No doubt, it is an invaluable a tool for the police officer as it is for the businessman, the government official, or the student. Yet, the Internet is also fraught with problems. It is, without doubt, the most anonymous and easily accessible form of communication ever devised. Virtually anyone can post something on a website and have it made instantly available to millions and millions of people around the world. While providing us all with exciting new opportunities for learning and for entertainment, it also functions as a back door for much that is undesirable in our society. Hate groups can plan their activities and spread their propaganda on slickly-packaged websites. Pornographies can push their smut to others of like mind, and even worse, to unsuspecting children. Dangerous or illicit substances can be bought and sold without oversight or regulation. For the policeman, however, there is a particular problem in regard to the Internet, and that is its sheer openness. While all police work is not always best done in secret, much of it does require a certain regard for security. A promising lead can be lost because a news organization picked up on a story. Amateur sleuths and busybodies can nose their way into confidential files. The World Wide Web Consortium has developed and endorsed the latest products for encrypting data that is sent over the Internet. In particular, it uses a protocol called XML. This protocol is described by Donald E. Eastlake III of Motorola, Joseph M. Reagle, Jr. Of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and David Solo of Citigroup. All three have completed their evaluation with regard to the rules of the peer-reviewed World Wide Web Consortium.

XML Signatures can be applied to any digital content (data object), including XML. An XML Signature may be applied to the content of one or more resources. Enveloped or enveloping signatures are over data within the same XML document as the signature; detached signatures are over data external to the signature element. More specifically, this specification defines an XML signature element type and an XML signature application; conformance requirements for each are specified by way of schema definitions and prose respectively. This specification also includes other useful types that identify methods for referencing collections of resources, algorithms, and keying and management information.

The XML Signature is a method of associating a key with referenced data (octets); it does not normatively specify how keys are associated with persons or institutions, nor the meaning of the data being referenced and signed. Consequently, while this specification is an important component of secure XML applications, it itself is not sufficient to address all application security/trust concerns, particularly with respect to using signed XML (or other data formats) as a basis of human-to-human communication and agreement. Such an application must specify additional key, algorithm, processing and rendering requirements. (Eastlake, Reagle, and Solo, 2002)

Most importantly, this particular protocol carries the full endorsement of the United States Department of Justice. XML is essential to the maintaining of a universal standard of data encryption across all areas of law enforcement. A single system enables the rapid exchange of information among police departments, and federal and state agencies. It also guarantees quick access to files, databases, and all other records and information available to police and other criminal justice professionals. As Mark Kindl and John Wandeldt state in the United States Justice Department Report, Structure and Design Issues for Developing, Implementing, and Maintaining a Justice XML Data Dictionary,

Collectively, rapidly growing caseloads, diminishing resources to process cases, and the increased mobility of criminals and society have combined to increase exponentially the need for complete, accurate, and timely justice system information. Justice system officials realized the need for immediate access to more information and the means to move it electronically between organizations. More importantly, they recognized the necessity of a comprehensive, strategic, enterprise-wide approach to information sharing and integration between agencies.

The establishment of a Justice XML (Extensible Markup Language) Data Dictionary is one part of a strategy designed to enable effective information sharing and communications among the many justice/public-safety agencies at the local, state, and federal levels. The development and maintenance of the Justice XML Data Dictionary is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice,

Office of Justice Programs (OJP), which works closely with the representatives of the Global Justice Information Network (referred to as Global). Global is a Federal Advisory Committee that advises OJP, and recommends courses of action related to the information sharing needs of the justice and public safety communities. (Kindl and Wandeldt, 2002)

Another concern, and one that has grown to mammoth proportions since the horrible events of September 11, 2002 is the need for a Standard Public Warning System that would enable police departments and other emergency service agency and government offices to link together in times of need. The Partnership for Public Warning, a federally sponsored organization that was incorporated in January of 2002, and is composed of experts from various federal law enforcement and emergency management agencies, together with leading experts from the private sector, came up with the following guidelines for a coordinated emergency response in Developing a Unified All-Hazard Public Warning System:

The professional, technical community (scientists, security and law enforcement personnel) who define the threat and frame warnings need to consider other issues:

Before the event (Preparedness)

1. Analyze agency data, separate evidence and intelligence

2. Be aware of other agency actions

3. Advise partners and publics on what we know

4. Identify what we do not know

5. Share information on past events

6. Help partners and publics understand hazards and how to prepare

7. Stay within expertise but appreciate consequences

8. Coordinate with partners to insure consistent message

9. Be aware of public information already distributed by media and others

10. Get information on availability of local resources

During the event (What is happening?)

1. Tell what you know

2. Stay involved

3. Qualify statements with uncertainties

4. Provide authorities with needed information for local decisions

Post event (Response and recovery)

1. Analyze agency data, separate evidence and intelligence

2. Be aware of other Agency actions

3. Provide necessary information for response recovery

4. Evaluate performance for continuous improvement

5. Conduct rapid post event data collection supporting refined hazard analysis

6. Gut reaction

7. Support uniform terminology due to mobile society

8. Community development

9. Look for evidence of secondary hazards

10. Be aware of public information already distributed by media and others

11. Get information on availability of local resources

12. Determine scope of the crime scene

Adams, Allport, et al., 30-31)

Of course, the next step in protecting the public from any hazard, whether it be a terrorist attack, a shooting, a bank robbery, or any other breach of the general peace, is keeping the hazard control personnel in communication with one another. While every incident may not indeed pose any catastrophic consequences to the general public, police nevertheless do need to maintain their communications. To this end, the laptop computer has now become commonplace in American police departments. It allows the police officer on the beat, or cruising in his car, to both stay in touch with headquarters, and to have access to law enforcement information and criminal files. The laptops used today are a notable improvement over the older one-way systems that simply connected officers to a single database. The following table illustrating the various uses of police laptop computers is from Carolyn Ball's and Kenneth Nichol's Integration of Law Enforcement Computer Technology, Vol. 1, a report from the University of Maine that was done for the Maine Criminal Justice Assistance Council.

Laptop Use

Respondents

Use the Maine Crash Reporting System (MCRS)

Word process incident reports

Enter accident reports

Send written messages to one another

Query your agency's records management database

Upload incident reports to a records management database

Append or amend records

View dispatch records

Directly enter incident calls into a records management database

Send written messages to other agencies

Invoke CAD (computer-aided dispatch) software

Access another agency's records management database (selected info)

Add software via server

View suspect photos

Access jail information

Note: Italics indicate likely real-time communication (Ball and Nichols, 8, 2001)

From this same survey, we also learn about another problem that plagues police use of computer technology. While the computer has enormously improved record keeping, and made record retrieval a relatively simple process, it does little good to streamline law enforcement operations when different police departments use different systems. "...The most widely used is Spillman (17, or 21%). CRIS (by Megg Associates) is the second most popular RMS [Records management System]. The "Other" category includes Informix, Filemaker, ITI, and USTI, privately written software, and office products." (Ball and Nichols, 16, 2001) There is a similar wide variation in the systems and technologies that are used for data transmission.

Law enforcement communications principally involve these purposes: incident reports, suspect descriptions, protection orders, warrants and warrant updates, arrest information, bail sheet information, complaints, Division of Motor Vehicle (DMV) data, and court documents.

Depending on the type of information, the information may be transmitted to or from law enforcement officers using a range of communications media - direct electronic transmission, email, fax, voice via radio or telephone, postal service, and hand delivery. Electronic transfer and hand delivery are the two communications media cited frequently. Court documents are among the least likely to be electronically-transmitted. Among the most likely to be electronically-transmitted communications are DMV data.

More than half of all law enforcement agencies (i.e., 48, or 53%) report using electronic data transmission (that is, beyond voice communication). Some indicated multiple methods of transmission. Roughly one agency in two employs radio (alone or in combination); one in four employs CDPD (cellular digital packet data); and four have their own virtual networks: Kennebec County, Somerset County, and Yarmouth, and Swan's Island.

Respondents' comments indicated a lack of availability of certain methods (such as CDPD) of data transmission. (Ball and Nichols, 24, 2001)

Though reporting similar results to that of the Maine Report, Illinois Law Enforcement and Technology in the 21st Century, a report by Robert James Fischer, PhD of the Illinois Law Enforcement Executive Institute, also brings in another, and quite interesting category. Computers and the Internet have not only transformed the way police communicate with each other and the way in which they find, process, and send information, they have also created a whole new way of training both new and experienced police officers. Satellite transmissions, once the stuff of future fantasies, now play a role as high-tech classrooms.

Only 172 respondent departments indicated participation in law enforcement training offered through satellite television. The majority of this training has been provided by LETN. Eighty three agencies indicated that they had participated in satellite training offered by the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board through their Mobile Teams.

Although only 172 departments reported participating in satellite training, 282 responded that they believe satellite training is effective. A partial explanation of this disparity is found in the apparent lack of knowledge about satellite downlink sites within 25 miles of the department. (Fischer, 2002)

Similar support for nontraditional training is found in the response to departmental participation in computer-based training. More than 50% of the responding agencies have participated in computer-based training of one type of another.

Computer technology has even invaded the evidence room. Computers now offer numerous and much improved methods of handling, and cataloging evidence collected in connection with criminal investigations. Judy O'Brien of Westminster Police Department in Colorado lays out some advantages of the new technology in "Evidence Management and Computer Technology."

Bar code technology was adopted to allow for fast and accurate entry of articles. With scanning devices and commands attached to identify and document the direct flow of evidence, personnel had greater flexibility in setting up programs enabling query capabilities by name, case number, location, status, and descriptors to mention a few. Bar code systems greatly aid in the inventory function by increasing the speed of operations, saving budget funds and lowering liability. (O'Brien, 2002)

In addition to the above information regarding bar codes, O'Brien also gives a checklist enumerating what a department's information system should ideally contain.

Document responsibilities;

Establish continuous custody records;

Prevent loss or unauthorized release of evidence;

Document accurate descriptions of each piece of evidence and location;

Document unique or unusual circumstances regarding release or transfer;

Record date, purpose, and signature(s) of individuals checking property out;

Document destruction, auction or any other movement of property. (O'Brien, 2002)

Analysis Central Systems produces software for specialized police use. A package called Police Resource Optimization System, or PROS, is designed to bring the world of high-tech into deployment of personnel and resources.

PROS is an integrated state-of-the-art officer and vehicle deployment system capable of near-perfect timing, placing, and directing of officers and vehicles. Officers have more time when they need it and less time when they don't.

PROS optimizes call-answering and proactive problem-solving services. Improves time to respond, frees time for proactive problem-solving, and...provides tools to identify and help solve problems.

PROS runs on cost-effective and powerful microcomputers and notebooks. Most major CAD vendors offer packaged downloads to ACS software.

PROS is the result of over 30 years of mathematical research on optimizing the deployment of resources. The system was honored with the Franz Edelman Award for management Science Achievement for its breakthrough technology that created police agency benefits worth $14 million per year.

PROS is used by many of the 50 largest departments in the U.S., and in England. Police agencies such as Colorado Springs, El Paso, Fresno, Fort Lauderdale, Dallas, Los Angeles Sheriff, Mesa, Midland, Nashville, Richmond (CA), Virginia Beach and Bedfordshire England are using PROS with DCOPS to help conserve resources worth tens of millions of dollars per year, while improving officer morale and safety. (Analysis Central Systems, 2000)

PROS is a computerized resources management tool that even has the capacity to generate graphs charting patrolling efficiency and other aspects of police work. The system has a companion piece of software called Dynamic Community Policing System.

DCOPS uses the Pareto principle, "The most important problems should be tackled first, because solving them will yield the largest benefits." DCOPS provides "holistic analysis" to do automatic hunch and pattern generation by simultaneously examining every piece of CAD and records data. Each week (or day, or shift if desired) DCOPS automatically reads all your CAD and your officer report (or Records) data. It analyzes, searches out and ranks all crime trends and patterns. It pinpoints recurring problems that when solved reduce call workloads. It automatically produces beat and neighborhood profiles, unattended. Each week supervisors and officers receive progress reports for evaluating past work and planning their next efforts for solving the most pressing, and "patrol time consuming" neighborhood problems. This constantly focuses the agency's thinking on local neighborhoods and their problems.

Community and Problem Oriented Policing

Compares communities to communities and problems to problems.

Identifies patterns across 81 problems in 200 communities.

Pinpoints community problems by block, addresses, and times.

Measures progress weekly.

Automated evaluation of trends in each neighborhood or beat.

Map with instant "drill-downs" to addresses and offenders.

Optimally forecast and schedule officers to solve neighborhood problem(s).

Design special neighborhood areas or beats (Analysis Central Systems, 2000)

Various other systems currently on the market also supply software that does such things as coordinate information form different police departments. ATAC, or Automated Tactical Analysis of Crime, employs a simple Graphic User Interface, or GUI, to quickly and easily extract information form otherwise incompatible databases. A tool for analyzing data, ATAC's

Trend Hunter, a powerful data scanning utility that can finds trends hidden in your data, even when you don't know where to begin looking! Built around a simple but powerful Artificial Neural Network, easy enough for anyone to understand and use, the Trend Hunter can compare every combination and permutation of tens of thousands of crime records, finding hidden links and similarities, then generating an easy-to-read report of results. (Bair Software, 2002)

Indeed, there are many different software packages available for the state-of-the-art police department. Not all of them can be discussed here, but suffice it so say that there is a computer application for almost for imaginable aspect of police work, from communication to record-keeping, and from crime scene analysis to personnel and resource deployment. We haven't quite reached the stage of RoboCop, but we're getting there.

Method

Of course, now that we've looked at the gradually increasing influence of technology on police work over the years, and seen how far today's technology has come, and what a profound impact it has on modern day law enforcement, it is now time to ask the big question - does it work? For the purpose of discovering the answer to this all-important question a study was constructed that surveyed two groups of police officers in the Miami Dade Police Department in Florida. Miami Dade, a major metropolitan area that includes the City of Miami and its environs, is also one the nation's high crime areas. According to the national survey conducted by Morgan Quitno, and released on November 26, 2002, the Miami Dade Metropolitan Area ranks as the twenty-first most dangerous in all of the United States. (Morgan Quitno, 2002) For the purposes of this study, two groups of police officers were selected. The first group consisted of ten Detectives/Investigators, and the second group of ten Road Officers. Each individual officer was asked to fill out a questionnaire that asked him or her to evaluate how effective he felt computer technology was in helping him or her in each of the following five areas:

Patrol Duties

Number of Cases Handled

Preparation of Case Reports

Court Related Functions

Receiving Current Crime/Incident/Perpetrator Information

Each area was rated on a scale of one to ten, with a rating of one indicating that the officer felt that his performance in the particular field had been least enhanced by the help of computer technology, and ten indicating that in that field his performance had been most enhanced by use of computer technology. It was thus a subjective evaluation-based entirely upon the police officers' own impressions of how they had benefited from the new technology employed in each of these areas.