44.493 Issues in Criminal Justice and Technology

home > Unit 1: history of criminal justice technology

• Modern or Community Policing Era (1970-current) -- continued
  • The President's Commission made 5 technology recommendations regarding radio communications, as well as ones on fingerprints, field investigations and other topics. Most important recommendations were:
    • 911
      • AT&T resisted at lst (one of arguments against it was that big companies would want a single number nationwide [clearly weren't thinking of 800 numbers)]
      • however, at that point, in emergency, everyone dialed O, spoke to operator, which was very costly for them
      • first ones introduced in January, 1968, and became common nationwide in a decade. Police departments began complaining of overload (interestingly, it has only been in the last year or so that 211 and 311 numbers have been added for non-emergency information.
      • around 1980, a few departments added primitive e911, which showed location of in-coming calls. Making this mandatory is still a matter of contention...
      • 2 important lessons to be learned regarding technology and criminal justice from the 911 experience:
        • "..if private industry can forecast an assured profit, it is quick to provide the police with a technology created or adapted to their needs. The dilemma is that there are relatively few instances where industry can anticipate a fairly
          immediate and steady profit stream by providing a new technology to the police. The
          911 system was able to overcome police agency jurisdictional boundaries and provide a
          potentially universal service endorsed by a high-powered, presidential commission. It
          may have helped that AT&T was a monopoly at the time 911 was inaugurated. Typically,
          industry must try to sell its technologies one agency at a time to the nation's 17,000 police departments. In this fragmented marketplace, no sales are assured, and there are seldom, if ever, high-powered imprimaturs of the kind the Crime Commission could bestow."
          
        • "as in other areas of life, new technologies for the police can bring new problems with them. Rules of unintended consequences apply. The 911 system has become essential to summon emergency police, fire, and medical services.
          It also has created new headaches for many administrators of large urban police departments."
          
    • computerization
      • President's Commission urged computerization of police departments to help in functions such as patrol, criminal investigations, manpower deployment, the arrest process, and budgeting.
      • Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (established 1968; abolished, 1982), started to fund computerization.
      • FBI National Crime Information Center (NCIC) "was the first contact most smaller departments had with computers,"
      • around 1500 departments had some computerization by 1982, according to a study at the time -- but few really used them: "G. Thomas Steele, a civilian computer consultant to the Washington, DC, police dept.. in the early 1980s and a frequent visitor to other depts...., recounted, 'A lot of computers were bought with LEAA money. Many were still in their packing crates, not even installed, when I saw them.'"
        
        "experts say that police in most jurisdictions have made little attempt to make effective use of them, using them instead as expensive, elaborate adding and filing machines.Some depts..... have spent millions buying and installing elaborate data processing machinery, but have spent years trying unsuccessfully to get their systems programmed and 'online' - in operating order. Others bought the systems with federal funds and never attempted to make efficient use of them. The heart of the problem, say the experts, is that many police executives are intimidated by computers, *and that others have made no effort to integrate data processing into day-to-day police work. -- Police Magazine, 1982
        *my emphasis
      • other reasons cited included police officers' conservatism, public fears of big brother, computer industry's lack of interest in cj market, and complexity of systems. "the police market, with only 17,000 scattered components, is too small to pursue when there are much larger and potentially remunerative markets to exploit."
        • even though LEAA was abolished due to inefficiency, computerization continued, in part because some useful software was written under LEAA grants.

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