ICT and Law Enforcement

Jul 19, 2015 News

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By Lance Hinds
I was on a project some years ago where, in a requirements definition meeting, some veteran policemen

argued passionately that information technology is not the panacea for the challenges faced by the Police Force. They insisted nothing beats the work on the ground, examining the crime scene, interviewing witnesses, taking statements, searching for clues, identifying suspects, making arrests and ultimately laying charges.
They are of course, correct, although the quality of the abovementioned work may attract significant comment. It is however a reality that in the year 2015, policing is an information business with intelligence-led policing and basic information management core components of the policing function. Crime has become extremely sophisticated, not to mention deadly. It is critical that the Police Force has all the tools, in particular information technology, at its disposal.
Police must have improved information management capacity with its core offence, person and file management systems developed in an information systems environment alongside intelligence and response management systems, The creation of an underlying data repository will provide a new depth of metadata to improve operational policing, management decision-making, and justice sector research.
The vision therefore is a state-of-the-art crime information system that will effectively serve the day-to-day operations of the Guyana Police Force and also be an information warehouse for those law enforcement agencies authorized to access in support of their own investigative and prosecutorial activities. This system will address and support the following areas:
INFORMATION RECORDING AND STORAGE – There is a voluminous amount of data collected and stored by the Guyana Police Force and other law enforcement agencies. The manual storage of records currently in existence is not sustainable over the long term.  It costs too much (i.e. binding/filing, cost of physical space) and poor quality of the storage areas will ultimately lead to the destructions of records over time.
Any computerized solution must facilitate effective data entry and storage. This solution will reduce the space requirements and ensure the longevity, durability and security of the records over the long term. The system will provide electronic data entry functions that will assist the officer with the collection, editing and storing of data from a crime, accident or any other incident scene. The officer will only need to fill out one electronic report that collects all the information and will allow users to securely enter all occurrences and related information from the level of the police station all the way to Force Headquarters.
INVESTIGATION – It is envisaged that the new system will provide extensive search and retrieval capabilities that will allow users to review all information required to support investigative and querying activities crucial to the work of the Guyana Police Force and the other law enforcement agencies.   It must be designed to support reference information from agencies such as the Guyana Revenue Authority, Passport Office, General Registry Office, Maritime Administration, Civil Aviation Department etc.  The Criminal Record subsystems will be expanded to support other crime-related information from other law enforcement agencies, thus providing significantly more information to support the investigative process.
PROSECUTORIAL – The system envisaged will support the decision and workflow process required to support the preparation of cases for prosecution. The electronic decision and workflow features will provide the following benefits: 1) The elimination of isolated paper-based reporting processes, usually characterized by high costs and large-scale duplication of information. 2) Easily integrate information processes within and across departments, and 3) Improve quality of records information.
Specific functions must include the electronic routing of files to the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for advice and guidance. Ideally, the DPP should have direct access to the criminal information system to provide direction and support on the preparations of the cases by the police force and related law enforcement agencies.  Any new information systems will have an interface which will allow the Magistrates’ Courts to access and update specific cases in terms of Magistrates’ decisions and the subsequent updating over the criminal records databases.
INCARCERATION – As part of the overall data flow from the reporting of the occurrence to the final disposal of the case in the Magistrate’s Courts, the ICIS will also provide a module to support to the day-to-day operations of the Guyana Prison Service. The functions that will be supported include Prison Admissions, Parole Scheduling, Prisoner Education/Training, Court Appearance Scheduling, and Discharge Calendars and Visitation tracking and scheduling.
REPORTING AND STATISTICS – The use of an information system will eliminate the need for a specific exercise to collect data for statistical purposes. The idea is that the base data entered by the police stations will contain the necessary data elements required to generate the statistical outputs. Since the police stations will be entering data on a daily basis, it then makes it easier to generate statistical reports on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. These reporting features will be integrated so as to generate the required outputs on demand for management analysis and decision-making.
Police commanders must be able to identify criminal hotspots immediately and decide to how to allocate resources in response. Statistical outputs highlighting the prevalence of certain types of crime will support effective policy decisions. It is even possible with a well-planned integration with socioeconomic data, that it may well support the use of predictive analytics that reduce if not prevent criminal occurrences.
This is the vision of the informatics solution that I believe is necessary for the effective functioning of the Guyana Police Force. The hopeful news, however, is that over the last few years the Force has been implementing a series of information systems to support its day-to-day operations. I believe these new systems are intended to provide the same functionality that I outlined in my vision. The issue now will be the successful acceptance and adoption of these new systems.
It is important that all police ranks are trained in all operational areas of the new criminal information systems.  The nature of the disciplined services means, however, that personnel get shifted/transferred based on different needs and priorities. It is important, therefore, for the force to incorporate a permanent ICT division or department into its overall administrative structure, with specific reporting responsibilities and a budgetary allocation. This will to a large extent ensure the sustainability and continued usage of the new information systems.
During the implementation and deployment process it is critical that the cutover process from hard copy to electronic information be carefully planned. This process will take time and will more likely require changes in policy in terms of information workflow and storage, but it must be done to ensure the success of the new information systems and, by extension, the modernization of the Guyana Police Force in general.
Lance Hinds is the current President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce. He is also the Chief Executive Officer of the BrainStreet Group, an ICT consulting and information services company.

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