44.493 Issues in Criminal Justice and Technology

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Budget radically cuts local police aid (details)

Communication
As important as communication is in any organization, it's even more so in policing, since it can mean the difference between life and death.

• History
  • 1660's: rattel wacht by up the "burgher guard," who patrolled New Amsterdam, used rattle to call for help ations, as a function in and of itself, literally stood still for the next 200 years.
  • mid 1800s: first call boxes installed in NYC for public and police use.
  • 1930s: first radios in patrol cars (but primarily 1-way)
  • Even then, most of communications abilities were strictly one way.
  • 1968: beginning of 911.
    
    "The idea of a nationwide emergency number was popular with citizens and lawmakers, but it became the local political football even after its implementation was mandated by legislation. "
    • "Some agencies had to fight the telephone company for access to numbers and addresses, a tug-of-war that brought privacy issues into play."
    • "Others could not afford to maintain the required database and were happy to let the telephone company handle it. "
    • Complicated, took 2-5 years:
      • use a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) or directly to appropriate agency?
      • assign each number in system to police, fire, etc.
      • get funds
      • hire consultants
      • buy hardware
      • test system
      • deploy system
      • publicize system.
    • Pros and cons:
      • advocates say, especially with e911 and computer-aided dispatching, improves chances for community policing (which is why 211 community information lines are, belatedly, being added).
      • critics say it consumes officers' times with non-police matters
• Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems
  • gives much more information about call
  • many variations that departments can pick and choose among. Examples:
    • match incoming call with files showing ownership of building where a call originates -- report associated hazards, (prior drug involvement, possibly stockpilled weapons)
    • complete history of calls made from location, history of domestic violence, mental health problems, numerous calls, previously occupied by drug dealers.
    • one with GPS can track every car on streets and decide which is closest (similar to Cemex cement dispatch system and other examples of "swarm intelligence")
    • car's location with relation to an incident, jurisdictional boundaries, landmarks, road networks and routing information, etc..
    • building floor plans, sprinkler systems, electrical control panels, emergency exits, and gas lines. I
    • direct interface with state and national computers for warrant checks and license plate and driver's license queries. I
    • plot water pipes, power lines, rivers, creeks, fire hydrants, and hazardous materials locations.
    • some can even plot wind direction predict where fire plumes will spread.
  • Information it can yield might include calls for service on each shift, type of emergencies on each shift, calls per officer, etc.
  • Benefits:
    • Could be used to map criminal activity, in order to delploy resources most effecitvely.
    • reduce amount of radio traffic (increasingly important with more cell phones, etc. competing for spectrum. However, new 4.9 GHz band reserved for public safety use is reducing this problem).
      "The city of Detroit, for example, integrated its E911 system with CAD, in-car mobile data terminals, and an automatic vehicle locating and mapping system. Dispatchers see a map on their screen, and zoom in for a close-up of the area. By clicking on the closest vehicle, the call is automatically dispatched to the computer terminal in the patrol car. It does not go out over the air."
    • officers can bypass dispatcher to access local, state and national dbs.
    • "Direct access to critical information, such as that needed for traffic stops, has the benefit of increasing officer safety. With the correct information, an officer is less likely to be surprised or overwhelmed by a situation."
    • avoid delays when officer must get voice access to dispatcher.
      • communications security increased: less chance of casual monitoring of unencrypted conversations, decrease errors typically associated with human conversations.

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