Police Information systems

This diagram is one I have devised to represent police information systems. The little stories, that I have persauded are not suitable for my thesis, that are posted below are design to explain this diagram. I hope some will find the information useful. The number of hits continues to grow on this blog much to my amazement, so I am confident that there is some interest out there.

A working day in the life safer neighbourhood team PC Khan

 

At 9.45 am PC Khan arrives at the locker room at the police community office which is a unit on a small trading estate which is shared by two ward safer neighbourhood teams. He switches on his radio and listens to the radio traffic as he changes into his uniform. He is particularly interested in anything that is happening on his ward as he or one of the two PCSOs on that day may not be the first officer to any incident but it will be their responsibility to deal with any matters that cannot be dealt with immediately by the response team. He walks into the office, logs onto one of the computer terminals that are free, he does not have his own computer, he hot desks with the other PCs and PCSO’s, the two sergeants try to maintain a system of their own desks and computer terminals but these are also up for grabs when they are not on duty. His life is very much ruled by his emails from supervisors, colleagues and members of the public and his calendar of his appointments. He prides himself that he knows what has been going on his beat whilst he has been off duty and has a system of searching various databases such as CRIS, CAD and CRIMINT to see what is relevant. He books on duty over the radio so the CAD operator can add him to the list of resources available for deployment. He is told there is a scheduled appointment to report burglary on his ward at 1130hrs, he says he will deal with it and gets the address and silently curses to himself, he knows that the burglary is a repeat victimisation, this is something he really needs to get to the bottom of. Last time it was just cash and a few computer games so it is likely to be kids who have done it. He decides he will walk down to the burglary address and take one of the PCSOs with him. On the way he will try to see the local park keeper to make sure that he is going to cut back the undergrowth around the trees like last year so that it is easy to see into the park from the road and hopefully discourage it being used as a place where some local youths to smoke cannabis; hopefully this will make it a safer environment for mums to bring their toddlers to use the play ground. He also needs to find time to visit one of the Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators on his ward to discuss crime prevention leaflet that that neighbourhood watch wants to put through residents doors about the recent spate of burglaries. Who knows he may even be able to nab that disqualified driver who seems to be still driving his car. He has put an information report on the PNC and created a CRIMINT entry but no luck yet.

A working day in the life of response team PC Jones

PC Jones arrives in the locker room in the basement of the police station at 13.40 hrs and changes into his uniform and clips on his personal radio on his belt. On the way upstairs he collects a charged battery and switches on his radio. His radio is now transmitting regular (at least once a minute) signals to a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) of his location. This signal is not being logged on any computer but if he pressed the emergency button on his radio the last signal of his radio will be flashed up on the screen of CAD terminals at the MPS call centre that covers his area. PC Jones knows from the duties database, Computer Aided Resource Management System (CARMS), that his posting for this month is to drive a response car and he knows there is a new one that is better than the rest so he wants to grab the keys and logbook before his colleagues. He saw it in the station yard as he walked in and sure enough the early turn driver is in the custody suite dealing with a prisoner. After a bit of banter that included a warning that there were new road works in the high street he managed to get the keys and quickly goes out to the station yard, checks over the vehicle and puts his bag of equipment inside, making sure that the early turn had taken all their stuff out. He rushes upstairs to the briefing room, arriving just in time for the late turn parade.

The parade is being taken by the section sergeant with about 15 of PC Jones’s colleagues present with the Duty Officer Inspector Shetty watching on. There are no surprises on the postings; he is posted to XX21 with PC Smith as the operator, refreshments at 6pm. The sergeant talks through the power-point briefing that has been prepared by the Borough Intelligence Unit (BIU) which has pictures of suspected active criminals and their modus operandi, maps of crime hotspots and officer safety instructions and advice. A short discussion takes place about missing child that the team had dealt with the previous day and which PC Smith had completed the necessary paperwork that included a Merlin entry and a referral to social services via the Borough’s community safety unit. Even though the parents had come into the police station to report the nine year old girl missing a CAD incident was created because it involved a number of urgent enquiries. Inspector Shetty thanked the team for their good co-ordinated work and said that fortunately the child had been found at a friend’s house by night duty. The parade ends and the section sergeant rings through the postings to the CAD operator at the MPS call centre so that the CAD system can be updated with who has been posted to which vehicle (by call-sign) and those that have been assigned to walk beats. She enquires which safer neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers are on-duty so she knows what resources are available if the need arises.

PC Jones is just settling into thinking there is time to have a quick cup of tea and a check of his emails when a call comes on the radio, “fight in progress, knife involved” and a location given as Acacia Avenue W13 outside The Eagle Public House. He acknowledges the call on his radio and shouts out to PC Smith and they both run down to the station yard and PC Jones jumps in the driver’s of the vehicle. PC Smith jumps into the front passenger seat and switches on the mobile data terminal. The mobile data terminal now if linked up to the CAD system and is transmitting GPS signals of the vehicles location, speed and direction every 15 seconds. This is logged and retrievable at a later stage. The call they are going to has been recorded on the CAD system by a CAD operator after a member of the public who has witnessed the fight has phone 999. The call has been graded “I” which means it is an emergency which warrants using blue lights and sirens. The target time is 12 minutes, which is measured as from the time the call was made. The operator has shown the type of call as “1” meaning violence against person and “69” meaning suspect armed and enters “knife” in comments field, the location is entered as “o/s Eagle Pub, Acacia Ave, W13; the computer confirms that as a unique location in London and automatically provides northing and easting coordinates of the centroid of 250 metre by 250 metre grid square that the Eagle Public House is located in. The callers details are enter and XX21 is shown assigned along with X4 and XX3. The free text of the incident is updated with the description of the suspects. PC Jones and Smith arrive at the scene of the Eagle Public House, there is no fight going on outside. PC Smith says “on scene” on her radio for the information of other units and the CAD operator who then updates CAD. Both PC Jones and Smith go into the Pub and look round, no fight. PC Jones says “All quiet on arrival” on his radio and then asks the CAD operator to phone back the caller asking them to make themselves known to police at the scene. This is all updated on the CAD system. The caller is found who explained that there had been a bad tempered row between three men who had just come out the public house; it looked like they were fighting over something that could have been a knife. Meanwhile the crew of X4 have stopped a person who meets the description of one of the suspects and are searching him for the knife. Another witness then is found by PC Jones who says all three men were seen to drive off in a vehicle and supplied the registration mark. PC Smith does a PNC check of the vehicle and obtains the registered owner details; there is an information report saying the owner of the vehicle is a disqualified driver. This information is circulated on the radio by PC Smith and unit is assigned to attend the home address. The end result of this incident is that the fight outside the Eagle Pub was for the car key, which was mistaken for a knife by the witness. The disqualified driver was not driving the car when it arrived at the owner’s house with police waiting. X4 let the person they stopped go after completing a search form, which would later be entered on the Stops database. The incident is resulted with “1” to show that the violence against the person had occurred and “77” entered to show that no offences had been disclosed; a comment “no knife” is also entered.

PC Jones and PC Smith attend various other incidents in their day’s work including a burglary for which PC Jones enters a crime report on CRIS. PC Smith arrests a shoplifter who it turns out has given a false name. The true name is identified after fingerprints are taken and reveals when a PNC names check is done that the person is wanted for failing to attend court on assault charges. There is a credit card in the arrested person’s possession that requires further investigation regarding his ownership.  The custody computer is updated by the custody sergeant, case papers completed, wanted missing report cancelled on the PNC, CRIS record updated regarding the assault and a new entry regarding the shoplifting: the credit card will be entered on the property computer and PC Jones helps by entering a CRIMINT report regarding the false name that the prisoner gave and tried to use the credit card to verify it. Lastly PC Jones obtains authorisation to claim overtime for himself and PC Smith so that all these information systems can be properly updated!