The Focus of Frontline

Welcome to Frontline where I will be discussing the latest trends in policing, security and emergency responder technology.

I am investigating the latest gizmos, gadgets and software in professions that are not necessarily early adopters or the most up to date on technology.

My focus will be on the trends, the success stories and the misfires. As Peter Manning, the sociologist and author of The Technology of Policing -- Crime Mapping, Information Technology and the Rationality of Crime Control,  noted in a recent interview, the police, for one, are like the rest of us -- "subject to fads and fashions, and anxious to be up to date."

He argues that policing in the 21st century continues to be largely a face to face occupation where the emphasis is on talking to people and getting a handle on what is happening on the street.

Maybe it is not surprising that paper file folders predominant in the cop shop when it comes to maintaining case details. The problem is that in areas like vice and drugs, what gets stored can be very partial (based on what interests the individual officer) and is generally not part of any centralized repository of accumulated knowledge in the police operation, observes Manning

At the same time mobile digital terminals, keyboards and screens are standard in squad cars across North America and connected to the office and various internal operational databases.

Where IT can really work is in the sharing and communicating of information inside law enforcement and emergency responders. Sadly, this remains scandalously a rather undeveloped area in the US because of incompatibility of systems both within individual policing operations and among the various forces including the FBI.

"National databases are not updated. They are not cleaned up; they are not organized in any systemic fashion," says Manning.

Indeed, there is great emphasis at times on more questionable solutions. One example cited by the professor is an audio system that is planted by the local police in selected neighborhoods in Boston, for instance, to capture the sound of gun shots. But some suspicious sounds are not easily traceable. The result, he reports, is an overloading of false positives of what turn out to be not guns shots in the police communication centers and hence greater aggravation for the patrol officers in the field.

Invariably, most cops have some kind of college education and are familiar with personal computers. Same situation exists with the senior brass, says Manning.

But it is the sergeants in the middle management in the police who actually run things that are least amendable to computers or fail to apply hardware and software in a systematic manner.

"They are a little frightened, a little worried. They don't want to look stupid," says Manning. "It may be age or previous educational level."

Like a lot of us who only use a portion of Microsoft Word the police will underutilize the technology thrown their way.

"The everyday police work of the detective, the patrol officers and special squadrons have not changed one iota. The technology is embedded in the practices of the occupation. Maybe it makes [the work go] faster," the professor concludes.