NCJ Number
223191
Journal
THE POLICE CHIEF Volume: 75 Issue: 6 Dated: June 2008 Pages: 38-40,43,47
Date Published
June 2008
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This article presents an overview of the Gainesville, FL Police Department’s efforts in combining sworn officers and information technology staff’s capabilities to use its computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and records management system (RMS) to deliver accurate and timely information on sex offenders and gang members in the community; recommendations are presented to help agencies become more effective and efficient when managing these offenders.
Abstract
Working together, sworn personnel, crime analysts, and information technology (IT) staff members can develop systems and procedures necessary for sworn personnel to have the accurate and timely information they need to keep their communities safe. Even though law enforcement agencies use different computer systems and different ways of providing information to their personnel, several recommendations can help provide this timely and accurate information about sex offenders, gang members, and other offenders as attained by the Gainesville, FL Police Department: (1) consolidate information related to all types of offenders into one database, preferably record management systems (RMS); (2) commit resources in order to make sure the information is accurate and up-to-date; (3) take advantage of technologies that can make offender information more readily available to officers; (4) configure to RMS to perform several functions, from alerting officers whenever a query is conducted on a known offender to automatically query national, State, and other local databases whenever a name query is conducted; (5) provide the capability for officers to conduct real-time RMS queries for a list of sex offenders, gang members, and other offenders; and (6) take advantage of mapping technologies.