How many times have you been sent to calls just so the complainant could file a report with the insurance company? How did you like doing the insurance company's work for them? How much did they pay you?
One of the things that creates a huge drain on police resources is what I used to refer to as public relations complaints. You know the kind of calls I'm talking about: private property car accidents, vandalism of mailboxes, petty thefts with no suspect, and lots of other calls where citizens think there should be a record, and you know there's no way that you'll ever catch a bad guy.
Years ago, some agencies instituted special phone lines - sometimes 311 - so that these types of public safety/public service calls could be phoned in. The idea was to reduce the drain on patrol officers' time, and to free them up for more serious calls that actually required an officer to respond.
Other departments leaned more toward a lower-tech approach than the special phone line - they just started telling people to come into the police department to file their report. Some went even further and limited the hours that "lobby reports" could be taken. My old agency did that; primarily because we were short staffed, and to have people coming into the lobby during the evening meant that the one or two officers working in dispatch had to be pulled in order to take the report.
Both of these approaches were resisted by many citizens in the beginning. Aside from the fact that these procedures were new and different, they also seemed impersonal, and appeared to be a reduction in services that citizens had paid taxes for.
However, over time these and other methods grew to be accepted, if not preferred. Most citizens are aware of the need to stretch tax dollars, and to provide expected services with fewer and fewer resources. Coupled with the public's almost universal acceptance of a greater role for technology in their daily lives, these alternative policing methods have led to a greater demand for more and more services of this type.
Now, a group of forward thinking individuals has come up with something that will make you say, "Why didn't I think of that?!"
The idea is for an on-line reporting service. That is, a service for citizens to file minor reports by logging into a website. The core element of the service will provide a method whereby many routine insurance reports can be filed from the convenience of the citizen's home (or anywhere else, for that matter) without requiring the direct intervention of an officer.
There are currently some vendors providing similar services, but this new concept will offer other parallel services, some of which aren't quite ready to be announced yet. By that, I mean the product is still in the final stages of development, and the company doesn't want to let the cat out of the bag.
What they will say is that the service will be offered via subscription to communities and other facilities, with pricing typically tied to population numbers. Once a community has subscribed, residents can begin filing reports, and officers can monitor the activity in real time, download data sets periodically, or view collective analyses of data via customizable mapping modules.
Controls are in place to reduce the potential for erroneous or fraudulent reporting. Additionally, limits will be placed on reporting capability, so that a theft report cannot exceed a certain value without referring the reporter to an officer.
The potential savings in time, money and intangible resources seems almost limitless. And there is another important element that this, and similar systems, incorporate - removal of the potential for human error in reporting. By making the citizen responsible for his or her own reporting input, the service reduces the likelihood that additional human filters may influence the collected data.
The company bringing this second generation reporting capability to market is, out of necessity, a little secretive about their plans. However, I was given enough of a peek behind the curtain to be able to tell you that, if your community or agency is thinking about ways to address smaller budgets and more demand for services, this could be an important part of your solution.
The plan is to release this new service this fall, and perhaps as soon as the next 30 days. As soon as I get the green light, I'll share a lot more detail with you.
Until then, stay safe, and wear your vest!
