According to Police1’s 2024 “What Cops Want” survey, crime fighting is the most satisfying aspect of a career in law enforcement, according to nearly 3,000 respondents. Conversely, when asked what the least satisfying aspect of working in law enforcement is, testifying in criminal cases is the least objectionable of the choices given. These survey results show law enforcement officers are motivated to use their skills and talents to prevent and solve crimes, help build strong cases so wrongdoers pay for their misdeeds, and ultimately protect and serve their communities.
However, staffing shortages continue to plague the vast majority of police departments in the country. Police officers are scrambling to keep up with the increased workload, which takes its toll on officer health and well-being and also impacts officers’ ability to do the things they got into law enforcement for – such as fighting crime and ensuring the safety and well-being of their communities.
While staffing shortages and other problems will not be solved in the short term, agencies can improve the quality and efficiency of their crime-fighting forces by using modern technology integrated with AI tools to assist with some of the more tedious and time-consuming tasks involved in evidence collection and management. The efficiencies that automated processes create can shorten investigations to a successful conclusion and free time up for more rewarding, human-advantaged work – like making investigative breakthroughs, building trust in the community, enhancing community safety and making time for officers to care for their own mental and physical well-being.
The efficiencies that automated processes create can shorten investigations and free time up for more rewarding, human-advantaged work.
TAKING OUT THE TEDIUM
Investigating crime and preparing evidence for prosecuting cases are foundational responsibilities for law enforcement agencies. The tedious and time-consuming aspects of evidence collection and management are compounded by the increasing volume and variety of digital evidence gathered daily.
Not all media captured and stored in a day is even relevant or will ever become evidence in a case. But because a call for service can change from peaceful to precarious in an instant, officers must treat every iota of media as important until proven otherwise. Many departments require their officers to record every call for service and every interaction with the public, just to be safe in this heightened atmosphere.
Being able to collect digital evidence is a wonderful advancement in terms of technology but an added burden if there is no easy way to offload the media, keep and analyze what is relevant, and jettison the excess.
This is where digital evidence management technology can help agencies save time and resources and help get evidence to prosecutions more quickly.
THE PROBLEM WHEN MORE IS TOO MUCH
There is little doubt that the proliferation of community-generated cell phone and doorbell camera video has been a welcome addition to the body of digital evidence data law enforcement routinely collected with body-cams, in-car cameras, traffic cameras and CCTV recordings. Add to that the gold mine offered when law-abiding citizens upload social media posts of individuals bragging about their criminal deeds and you have a strong body of evidence to support a criminal investigation that leads to a successful prosecution.
All in all, more evidence is better than not enough, but being inundated with unstructured digital evidence can muddy the waters, making it challenging to locate, identify and surface critical, actionable information from the sea of data.
An automated digital evidence management system (DEMS) like POLARIS from Utility can help agencies manage the flood of evidence, streamline operations, enhance accuracy, gain insights and foster collaboration across the criminal justice system.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
“The proliferation of body cameras and cameras in general has driven a tidal wave of evidence,” said Clay Campbell, a retired law enforcement agent and business manager for Utility, Inc. “We wanted all this evidence and we’re getting it now. How do we handle all of it while ensuring it enhances our ability to protect and serve our communities effectively? As trusted protectors, we manage this influx with integrity and precision.”
Most law enforcement agencies have some sort of evidence management system. For some agencies, that still means offloading media like body-worn camera footage and in-car video onto a hard drive, transferring it to another hard drive, jump drive or DVD, and driving it to the prosecutor’s office. Then it will be put in a case folder box along with paper files and occupy space in an evidence room until the rules of retention have expired (if you’re lucky) or it will lie forgotten and dusty on a shelf for decades. It’s a system that still works for many agencies, but the complexity, variety and volume of digital evidence now available is overwhelming agencies’ ability to keep up manually. Especially at a time when many agencies are short-staffed, it is crucial to find efficiencies that will save time and labor.
Instead of hard drives to house the evidence while the investigation is in progress, other agencies are using more modern media collection and retention tools that often come with their camera systems and utilize cloud storage. While this can be a vast improvement over manual processes, these systems often fail to take advantage of automation that can reduce the time needed to do laborious tasks like redaction.
GAIN BOTH INVESTIGATIVE INSIGHTS AND SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
“When you have a digital evidence system management system like POLARIS, one of the key values is being able to find features within the product that have multiple uses,” said Campbell.
POLARIS automatically captures data directly from sources like body-cams, in-car video cameras, automated license plate recognition devices and fixed cameras and integrates with third-party computer-aided dispatch and records management systems. POLARIS can also ingest media like CCTV from businesses and community-generated smartphone, doorbell camera and social media videos uploaded via the citizen upload feature, enhancing the overall safety and security of the community.
Once all the digital evidence is collected into a single, CJIS-compliant cloud-based platform, the evidence can be classified and organized into case files available for immediate viewing and video playback anytime, anywhere. POLARIS even allows for multiple videos to be shown from different devices in the same interface, along with GPS data from each device. This allows investigators to view an incident from multiple perspectives at once, alongside a live map view that shows exactly where and when each piece of field evidence was collected and how the incident unfolded.
Using the POLARIS platform, command staff can also start recording remotely on connected devices and initiate live streams to gain situational awareness during an ongoing event in the field.
“There was an officer-involved shooting where one of our client agencies had an officer shot,” Campbell recounted. “Command staff were able to watch his body camera video remotely, and within 10 minutes of being alerted by the body camera that he needed help, they were able to review the video, take screenshots within POLARIS to aid in identifying the suspects. This capability not only helped in swiftly apprehending the suspects but also ensured the safety of the community and provided critical support to the officers on the scene. We make sure every second counts.”
MAKE EVIDENCE ACCESSIBLE, SHAREABLE AND SECURE
POLARIS includes other built-in intelligence tools that can speed up investigations by making the evidence more usable and accessible. Audio and video recordings as well as document files can be automatically transcribed, translated and searched and analyzed for keywords and locations, saving hours of work. Critical evidence can be quickly and automatically redacted of sensitive personal information before being shared internally or externally with prosecutors or the public.
To ensure that evidence collected adheres to legal standards and is admissible in court, police departments also have a responsibility to ensure that digital evidence has not been tampered with or accessed by unauthorized persons. POLARIS provides a secure chain of custody by seamlessly transferring information between all devices. Agencies can configure the system according to policy, manage access and maintain an accurate audit log.
At the end of a case, instead of a hard drive or DVD taking up valuable space in an evidence or file room – or an officer taking time to locate and manually dispose of it – POLARIS can also be configured to automatically retain and delete evidence according to department policy or legal requirements.
SHORTEN THE TIME BETWEEN INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION
POLARIS integrates with another Utility solution, HELIOS, which is a companion DEMS for attorneys. This native integration makes case files easily shared between the law enforcement agency and prosecuting and defense attorneys. Attorneys can view the evidence, download their own copies, transcribe, translate and redact as needed for presentation in court. If a party should change, it’s a simple matter to reassign permissions. It also prevents the loss or misplacement of evidence, alleviating the law enforcement agency from the need to re-export, recopy and resubmit to the judicial system more than once.
“The integration of our systems allows law enforcement agencies to seamlessly share digital evidence with the DA’s office, giving them full control to perform necessary tasks such as transcription, translation, and redaction, ensuring the evidence is court-ready,” said Campbell. “This allows the DA’s office – being the final consumer of that evidence – to have complete control and chain of custody, ensuring the integrity of evidence and enabling quicker response to requests. This supports more efficient judicial process that ultimately protects community interests. As thoughtful partners, we ensure that the system is seamless and reliable.”
GIVE POLICE RESOURCES TO DO WHAT THEY DO BEST
Law enforcement officers want to spend more of their time fighting crime, investigating cases and getting criminals off the street – duties citizens want them spending their time on as well. Providing officers with the tools they need to get the job done more efficiently and effectively will not only benefit officers but also enhance the safety and well-being of the communities they serve.
Providing officers with the tools they need to get the job done more efficiently and effectively will not only benefit officers but also enhance the safety and well-being of the communities they serve.
“Law enforcement at every level is fundamentally about leadership and community service,” said Campbell. “If we’re going to be good leaders, we must open our minds to what’s possible. POLARIS and other Utility products are not only agency-changing technologies, they are lifesaving and community-protecting. As confident guides, we hope agencies will look to the future and adopt innovative technologies that alleviate burdens on officers, allowing them to focus on their primary mission – fighting crime and making their communities safer.”
This article originally appeared in What Cops Want in 2024.
