Case management software: features and applications

¶ … Management Software

Computers and high-tech paraphernalia are areas where police officers are getting training. Being computer literate is very important for most people in today's society, and police officers are no exception to this rule. This is especially true now, as there are more computer crimes, and more individuals that are able to figure out ways to harm others using technology. Since the tragic events that occurred in this country on September 11, 2001, much has been done in the study and implementation of counter-terrorism tactics. Because of this, information technology has applied much of its abilities toward the idea of stopping terrorist activity and finding ways to catch terrorists before they have a chance to harm anyone. This has not always worked, and people in other countries are still being killed and injured from terrorists, car bombers, and other individuals.

One of the most important computer usages in policing today is in the area of case management. Case management software is becoming increasingly more important in the corrections and criminal justice systems today because prisoner rehabilitation and transfer can be handled much more smoothly if it is used. Through case management, individuals that work in prisons and other detention facilities can find out at the touch of a button everything that they might need to know about a particular prisoner. In addition to basics like name, last known address, and social security number, case management software can also tell those that utilize it whether the prisoner belongs to a gang, which other gangs are rivals, if there are any members of those gangs in the prison, and so forth. This is important for very obvious reasons because putting rival gang members in the same cell could have disastrous results, both in the prison and on the streets where the rest of the gang members live.

For the gang members that are in the prison, there would be fighting and an active desire to kill one another. Since things that happen in prison populations are often known about on the streets, a gang war could come about from something like this and that would also endanger the lives of innocent bystanders that happen to live in the neighborhoods where these types of thing are taking place. Having good case management software could easily avoid all of these types of problems that might come about from rival gang members and from other issues where a person would not be 'safe' in a prison cell with another individual for a specific reason. The same is often true with a police officer that has broken the law and is now incarcerated, or a child molester being put in with prisoners that have children and value those children even though they may have done something awful to another adult.

Computer literacy is very important, so say both educators and the general public (Eisenberg, 1996). However, police departments and correctional facilities have only begun to realize the significance that computers can have for the rehabilitation and transfer of prisoners. According to Borglund (n.d.), records are an extremely important part of police work, and the change from standard record-keeping to electronic record keeping has caused some problems. It is believed that records can be used for specific things, and there are criteria that must be met in order for these records to be used correctly.