Inspectorate say scrap the garda pulse system..

bravestar · 19-01-2015 8:37pm

irishrgr wrote: »

You lads nailed it, it comes back to govt policy. it seesm historically the govt attitude to crime has been "hire more gardai" as opposed to creating more capacity in the force. AGS owns part of this too, institutional resistance to any changes. In the 21st century, the lack of in IT in AGS is appalling.

Don't get me wrong, we struggle with the same issues. Our dispatching/mapping/call taking software is 15 plus years old and is being maintained by the City IT dept (not the vendor), so it's endless patches, add on's and work arounds.

But it's a sunk cost, we own it and it would cost millions to start over, so we'll keep plodding along until it becomes ineffective, then spend millions to get a less than state of the art system upgrade. It's the dilemma of public sector IT. By the time an agency decides what capability it needs, gets it approved, gets it in the budget, goes through the tender process and actually buys one, it can take three years. In the IT world it's ancient by then.

Within our system it flows like this:

- dispatched on call with one system

- enter data into database, name, address, call type, call times, various codes, etc (all manually), data base won't talk to dispatch system

- open Word, write report narrative, cut/paste onto notepad on desktop, cut/paste narrative into report system (won't accept Word docs)

- open Outlook, email narrative to SGT for approval/review, once approved, save to agency report system )which won't talk to other systems).

- enter shorter narrative into dispatch system to close call (because you can't attach anything to the dispatch system)

- email report to jail printer (in the vain hope it's working). Save report to thumb drive, take prisoner to jail.

- fill manual booking forms (pen/paper), if printer not working, use thumb drive to re-print forms for jail.

- fill out evidence forms (pen/paper), turn in to station at end of shift. If using video evidence from car camera, meet SGT at station to upload relevant video to video system (we cant access the video hard drives in our cars, only SGT's & above).

- email detective name & info of video file using Outlook (but not actual file, too big for email servers)

- bang head against wall, wash, rinse, repeat......

I'm sure there is a better way, but it's not here and I'm sure it's cheaper (not really)....

Why email a detective?

irishrgr · 19-01-2015 9:23pm

Why email the detective?

In our agency, the detectives do all follow on investigations and interface with the prosecutors. If I close the call, say a DWI, traffic offense, etc, then it goes straight to the prosecutors, civilians at CID just stich all the case evidence together (from all our systems as mentioned above) and hand it off to the DA's office (DPP in Ireland).

Lets say it was an aggravated assault, domestic violence, sort of thing, then the detectives do all the follow on investigation and get it ready for the DA's office. Pretty much any crime that is not closed out by the patrol officer is followed up by CID. Within our CID they have auto theft, property crimes (burglary, robbery, etc), white collar, cyber, family violence (includes child abuse, sexual assault, etc), homicide, narcotics, environmental and the general CID pool.

As a rule, patrol will always be the first responders to the call, and then it's handed off to the detectives. CID gets very narky if you write a crap report, miss something, don't take pictures, bag evidence properly and so on as it makes their life so much harder. Once we (patrol) close out the call, it's all CID after that. You might get a call from the case detective with follow on questions and if it goes to court, you'll testify but it's pretty much theirs at that point.

A

FGR · 19-01-2015 11:14pm

irishrgr wrote: »

Why email the detective?

In our agency, the detectives do all follow on investigations and interface with the prosecutors. If I close the call, say a DWI, traffic offense, etc, then it goes straight to the prosecutors, civilians at CID just stich all the case evidence together (from all our systems as mentioned above) and hand it off to the DA's office (DPP in Ireland).

Lets say it was an aggravated assault, domestic violence, sort of thing, then the detectives do all the follow on investigation and get it ready for the DA's office. Pretty much any crime that is not closed out by the patrol officer is followed up by CID. Within our CID they have auto theft, property crimes (burglary, robbery, etc), white collar, cyber, family violence (includes child abuse, sexual assault, etc), homicide, narcotics, environmental and the general CID pool.

As a rule, patrol will always be the first responders to the call, and then it's handed off to the detectives. CID gets very narky if you write a crap report, miss something, don't take pictures, bag evidence properly and so on as it makes their life so much harder. Once we (patrol) close out the call, it's all CID after that. You might get a call from the case detective with follow on questions and if it goes to court, you'll testify but it's pretty much theirs at that point.

It makes sense but you'll never see it here. The powers that be want their cake and want to eat it, too. According to the Inspectorate report the vast majority of crime is fully investigated by uniform guards - and people wonder why they don't see them out patrolling.

Victor · 19-01-2015 11:41pm

irishrgr wrote: »

- email detective name & info of video file using Outlook (but not actual file, too big for email servers)

Due to their size, only the shortest / lowest resolution videos should ever be sent by email. Many email systems have limits in the order of 10MB.

Emailing the link means the video is always kept and the detective can find it again, without it clogging his in-box.

flutered · 19-01-2015 11:44pm

POGAN wrote: »

I wrote a paper in college about getting rid of the pulse system. It's wouldnt that much work to port system to cloud based encryptd system
Problem would be the cost of this would take 3 years to do atleast

judging by eircode it would be a tad longer

bravestar · 20-01-2015 12:32am

irishrgr wrote: »

Why email the detective?

In our agency, the detectives do all follow on investigations and interface with the prosecutors. If I close the call, say a DWI, traffic offense, etc, then it goes straight to the prosecutors, civilians at CID just stich all the case evidence together (from all our systems as mentioned above) and hand it off to the DA's office (DPP in Ireland).

Lets say it was an aggravated assault, domestic violence, sort of thing, then the detectives do all the follow on investigation and get it ready for the DA's office. Pretty much any crime that is not closed out by the patrol officer is followed up by CID. Within our CID they have auto theft, property crimes (burglary, robbery, etc), white collar, cyber, family violence (includes child abuse, sexual assault, etc), homicide, narcotics, environmental and the general CID pool.

As a rule, patrol will always be the first responders to the call, and then it's handed off to the detectives. CID gets very narky if you write a crap report, miss something, don't take pictures, bag evidence properly and so on as it makes their life so much harder. Once we (patrol) close out the call, it's all CID after that. You might get a call from the case detective with follow on questions and if it goes to court, you'll testify but it's pretty much theirs at that point.

A

Thanks for the reply mate, a system like that would make life a lot easier and have us out on the street more here.

irishrgr · 20-01-2015 12:53am

Yeah, the cloud thing is getting passed around by a lot of vendors here too. With the increased attention to body camera's, it opens a huge data storage issue if you think of every uniformed officer keeping 8-10 hours of video stored for at least a year.

The powers that be seem to be afraid of cloud systems, according to our IT lads, the clouds are not secure enough, could be hacked, etc. I think there is also some IT institutional resistance to it as well. if we source it out to SAP or whoever, they lose all control too.

The car camera's are always on (in our system), they start recording if you go over 65MPH, turn on your emergency lights/siren or officer activation (manual). That way it manages data storage, but the body cam thing is a different animal, a lot of commentators want them on all the time.

Still, in the 21st Century, AGS can hardly call themselves a forward thinking agency with out this kind of backside IT support. As cumbersome as our "string & Band-Aid" system is, I still prefer it to the old 100% paper days, that was brutal, hand writing pages of reports, awful.

Didn't know the patrol Gardaí conduct investigations, interesting that. I mean we investigate too, but at a basic level. I get a burglary call, take report, do fingerprints, take piccies, victim statement, then pass it on. If I get a description of the suspect and happen to find him (say with stolen property) later in the shift, then I'll arrest him, write it up but CID will still take a look. They'll want to see if it's liked to other cases, maybe a drug/gang connection, that's why they do it that way. I'll have done most of the report writing for the detective (and other legwork), so it's a simple one for them.

All our new detectives start in the drudgery of property crimes, the majority of which are car break in's, simple burglary, stolen property (nicking bikes, lawn mowers, etc). A mate of mine did it after he promoted, said it was mind numbing but he did have the satisfaction of locking up some career burglars. He's much happier now, he's in auto-theft....closing down chop-shops & car theft rings (a lot of our high end stuff ends up in Mexico) working with the state & feds.....

AGS really needs some basic reforms.....I can see a point where if they don't do it, it'll get imposed on them through the EU....

pah · 20-01-2015 2:23pm

I would say that if they are going to invest then they should at least do it right and concentrate on integration of systems. The cycle of call taking and dispatching calls should be integrated with the creation of incidents and mapping of vehicles.

1. A call is created at station level / radio control room - it is assigned an incident number. eg 123456

2. Control room dispatcher allocates a resource. This could be done manually or if integrated with Vehicle location systems then they could pick the nearest available resource from their screen / map. They can then decide whether to give the call OTA (For a beat unit or to keep all units informed) or send the call to a terminal in a patrol car.

3. Unit arrives at call (Having followed gps if neccessary) and as everything is integrated with location/gps then arrival/response times are recorded for incident number 123456

4. After dealing with the call the unit will close the call with an outcome for incident number 123456. At this point it should be possible to add details to the incident from the terminal in the car - injured party - property stolen - suspects. Also an option to send that info back to control room to circulate descriptions, vehicle reg etc and/or send info to other mobile terminals at local/regional/national level depending on the incident.

Incidents can also be flagged for further attention to be automatically sent to other dept heads for follow up as neccessary

*No Further Action
*Detective Branch
*Immigration
*Community Policing - etc

Terminals should also be able to receive flash messages such as stolen vehicles, missing persons including description/photo

As far as legacy stuff goes all the PULSE data is in database format. It shouldn't be too hard to convert or even to flag incidents as being from the old system. I know there are some incidents on the system that happened before PULSE was introduced and they are flagged as such.

PULSE is essentially already a cloud based system working with databases stored on servers.

Just my 2c, no idea of the cost but if you're going to spend big might as well try and get all your systems on the same page.

irishrgr · 20-01-2015 4:46pm

Yep, spot on. As mentioned above, this is the standard really and pretty much how our system works. Calls get sent to closest unit, can be prioritized (active assault over the barking dog next door), additional units assigned and so on. Our system is "joint" in that we share the same dispatching program with Fire & EMS and it works very well.

On the call text on your screen you see updates from other agencies, know which and how many others are responding, etc. Responding to a traffic accident, I (and dispatch) can see an update from say Fire that says "fatality collision", then we know to send a traffic unit, notify homoscide, crime scene and get them going too.

The system compartments certain info (data protection), so any LEO info (when we run names, number plates, etc) cannot be seen by the non-LEO agencies and of coourse they don't have that capability.

I'm sure the concept of AGS sharing anything with anyone would get heads spinning at Dublin Castle, but it's routine over here and effective. At the end of the day, we're all public safety.

Lots of systems out there, just a matter of pulling them all together.

Incidentally, we have almost no sworn officers who run this other than an overall supervisor. All our call takers, dispatchers, data admins, terminal operators are civilians. No need for a "badge" to take calls & type, give it to a vetted civvie to do and put badges on the street. This is common practive over here....now I bet that would get some AGS management heads completely spinning around.....shock, horror, civilians....goodness :-)

BaronVon · 20-01-2015 9:52pm

irishrgr wrote: »

Incidentally, we have almost no sworn officers who run this other than an overall supervisor. All our call takers, dispatchers, data admins, terminal operators are civilians. No need for a "badge" to take calls & type, give it to a vetted civvie to do and put badges on the street. This is common practive over here....now I bet that would get some AGS management heads completely spinning around.....shock, horror, civilians....goodness :-)

Indeed it would, and, worse still, with no Garda administrators, the promotion pool would dry up quickly too :pac:

TheNog · 21-01-2015 10:16am

Too much common sense and forward thinking here. Thread should be closed imo

carzony · 24-01-2015 4:34pm

looks like it's here to stay...

http://www.thejournal.ie/pulse-garda-1898851-Jan2015/

Potential-Monke · 24-01-2015 8:40pm

God, wouldn't it be lovely to have a system like irishrgr has. Imagine that, crime units investigating crime calls!!! And you would see more Gardaí on the streets/beat.

voter1983 · 25-01-2015 5:19pm

How many more Gardaí would be needed to introduce such a system

25-01-2015 7:35pm

voter1983 wrote: »

How many more Gardaí would be needed to introduce such a system

0. It would just change the investigation process which would keep the inspectorate happy.

That's not taking away from the lack of Garda numbers. Still need a serious increase to cover the streets.

Inspectorate say scrap the garda pulse system..

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