NCJ Number
84990
Journal
Police Research Bulletin Issue: 38 Dated: (Spring 1982) Pages: 50-55
Date Published
1982
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Computer system aims, facilities, information, and system technical details are provided for the West Midlands and South Yorkshire forces.
Abstract
The West Midlands police computer system is designed primarily as a command and control system, with emphasis on providing a rapid response and dealing with a high-incident caseload. Some management information is provided using the incident and resources data. The receipt of emergency calls is highly centralized, with 98 percent of all calls coming to the departmental control room. The control of resources is decentralized, with 32 subdivisional control rooms being used in addition to separate traffic control and motorway control. The command and control facilities cover incident logging, resource availability, street index, major incident file, and message switching, and management information includes incident data, alarm actuations, and incident and resource analysis. The South Yorkshire system is intended to provide the force with a centralized criminal information system to be used for both operational and court appearance purposes. Facilities provide for (1) direct retrieval and on-line update of information on persons, (2) retrieval of suspect list from available data, (3) the creation of a suspect list as a mini-database, (4) browsing surnames (or nicknames), (5) preparing lists for court, (6) interrupts to record updating and locating, (7) automatic listing of records eligible for 'weeding,' and (8) back record conversion. Terminal configurations are illustrated for the systems of both departments.