Computers in law enforcement?

Question

I have a paper, that is about technology. And its about the past 30 years what has changed the most in law enforcement.....and I choose computers.....and what did they used to use before computers for like getting knowledge about the person and information about the people and places and also communications...how has computers changed that? thank you!

Answer 1

It's not so much that they didn't use computers - information technology has been around since the 1950's.  However, the proliferation of technology means that use of computers in today's law enforcement has spread to virtually all personnel allowing anybody to undertake mundane taks that would have had to go through channels to a limited class of highly trained operators.

Answer 2

30 years ago if I needed a license, name or warrant check on the street I called the dispatcher. It took up a lot of air time and often officers needing help could not get heard. One out of every 5 cars had a mobile data terminal. Using it was rough. There were no menus and you had to enter your request and information exactly right or it threw out your request. Now there is usually a working mobile data terminal in every car.

The station had 1 computer terminal. That had a different set of codes you needed to use to enter your information request. a lot of officers could not learn it.

When fingerprints were taken they were done with ink on a number of hard cards. Getting a fighting bad guy to cooperate for 3 or 4 cards was hard. Now with "live scan" it is easy to take prints. We had to hand carry the prints downtown were a small army of print examiners looked them up. The cards were stored in huge rooms of file cabinets. It could take 24 hours to get fingerprint information. Now with AFIS  feeding directly off live scan we get tentative ID in 5 minutes and confirmed ID (a real person looking at them) in less than 2 hours.

When I needed a complete background (rap sheet) on someone I had to get there individual record number. I did that by calling a clerk with a name a birth date. The clerk then went through another large room with filing cabinets to look up any possibles. I then had to mail away for the rap sheet or go down to HQ and get a clerk to look it up and make a copy. Now it is all in data bases that I can access and manipulate.

If I needed a photo for a bad guy I needed that record number and then I could call the lab at HQ and they would have a photo ready in 4 or 5 hours. I could wait for the mail or go down to HQ and get it. In the middle of the night i had to go down and make my own black and white photos. Now I can go to the computer on my desk or any of the hundred or so scattered around my station and get the photos, in color, and get other photos a make photo arrays for identification.

If I wanted to do some research on crime patterns I had to write out computer code for the UNIX main frame and could only enter the information from one computer terminal per station, the same terminal others were trying to use to run plates and names. If the information I wanted was a little old I had to get a technician to change the tapes on the mainframe.

If I needed to review 911 tapes i had to go to HQ and get the right tapes and search millions of calls. Now I can get most of the information I need from any police computer or if i do need to hear actual voices the search takes a few seconds because it is all on hard drives and computer cataloged.

Detective's initial homicide reports can easily run 30 pages. Hard to type when you have been up 24 hours on a manual typewriter. Now all detectives have easily accessible computers with word processors an templates that move things around.

If a detective needed a report that an officer had written the d**k waited until it came in the mail or tracked down the officer. Now most of the officer's reports are done on the MDT and are available to the supervisors and detectives immediately.

When I drew a plat of a scene it was hard for anyone else to figure out what I had. Now i use a computer to draw a scene and we can even go 3d (a drawing is often better than photos or videos for an overall look).

If there was a hostage or barricade situation we had no information about a buildings layout or what or who was in the building. now within 20 minutes a command van with a large number of mobile terminals shows up and we can have aerial maps showing safe area out of the line of fire, telephone information, blueprints of the buildings interior,  information about some of the residents health, location of water and gas lines and on and on. All within minutes. Some of that stuff would have taken weeks for me to get to in the early 80's

Bottom line, most of the information was available to me back in the 80's but it could take me weeks to put together what now takes only minutes.

I can go on but that is enough for now.

Answer 3

helping alot in catching bad guys, communication out int he streets, better record keeping.  

Answer 4

a filing cabinet

Answer 5

Currently, police use "Mobile Data Terminals/Computers" that are hooked up to an Intranet which provides NCIC, State Criminal Information, Licensing information, etc.

Previously, (and currently when the system goes down or acts funny) we use the dispatchers to gather that information. The dispatchers now have access to the same system, however 30 years ago the process was through teletype systems which took a LONG time comparatively.

The computer evolution has really improved the efficiency of law enforcement, and has created new avenues for law enforcement to approach situations. MAny jurisdictions have Computer Aided Dispatch, which actually allows officers to select a pending call, and receive all of the information in their computer screen. This includes criminal information on the parties involved, and recent history at the address. This helps the officer to be prepared for the situation, more thoroughly than with prior systems. Hope this helps.  

Answer 6

There are so many things that computers have changed in law enforcement it would be hard to recount all of them.

1) Cops can now access DMV in their cars.  They know if your tags are expired, if you have insurance, or if your drivers license is suspended.  As well as access a picture of the person.  All of that had to be done by the dispatcher before.

2) Information from across the country is now accessible through the computer; such as the car they are pulling over is stolen.

3) Cops can now type their reports right into computers; cuts the down time with having to write reports

4) Cops can now pull up the arrest records of anybody from their laptop and find pictures of them from across the country

5) We use computers to track items that are pawned.  The pawn shops have to input the information and the detectives can access it from their computers...saves time from having to go to all of the pawn shops.

6) I use computers to track the sale of sudafed; which leads me to finding meth labs.

These are but a few things that computers has done for law enforcement.