Why Manual Documentation is Not a Good Strategy in Policing

Content provided by Nuance Communications 

When it comes to our personal lives, many of us are quick to embrace digital and connected devices to create and share content. Unfortunately, when it comes to business, many industries are still slow to make a move toward more automated documentation solutions. Law enforcement is no different.

A recent survey of police departments finds that many police officers still use hand-written notes or manually type reports back at the station to complete reporting. For the public safety sector, whose incident reports are the bedrock of the justice system, this might not be the right move.

The hazards of paperwork inefficiencies in law enforcement can be great. Just like with industry, inefficient documentation processes have ripple effects across departments, from inaccuracies and delayed convictions, can cost departments time and money, limits community visibility, or worse, impacts officer burnout and safety. So why is manual reporting still a go-to strategy for police paperwork? 

Driving better outcomes in policing

As a business executive, I focus day in and day out on problem-solving and driving better results. Law enforcement may want to look at their reporting and documentation as a business strategy too, and shift their focus on being more efficient, accurate, and flexible to drive better outcomes.

There is good news happening already. As I wrote in an earlier article, cities such as Los Angeles are aggressively building plans to leverage technology to help officers reduce administrative tasks and alleviate paperwork burnout in policing. And today, more departments are starting to use more robust reporting solutions like Dragon Law Enforcement to help officers build their reports in a faster, safer and more complete way, by voice.

Adopting technology as a strategy in police report writing makes good business sense. It empowers officers to complete more detailed, accurate reports in real-time and can reduce reporting inaccuracies, while also moving cases along faster to district attorney’s offices.

And this is not all speculation on our part. We recently concluded a pilot with a larger police municipality. The department reported saving their officers upwards of 50% on incident report writing, and when we extrapolated these savings into a standard ROI model, we calculated that the department could save close to $1.9 million in annual savings.

Offering a better way to produce police documentation can also help reduce the time officers spend at the station on administrative paperwork, thus increasing community visibility. And with the ability to dictate directly into computer-aided dispatch and other records management systems, officers are better able to improve situational awareness, and safety, by remaining heads up and more aware of their surroundings.  

Technology continues to play a growing role in policing and investments in improving reporting can go a long way in driving better outcomes, from improved productivity, higher accuracy, to better community service. Focusing on improving documentation processes is the right move in policing.

About the author

Mark Geremia is Vice President and General Manager for Dragon Professional and Consumer and oversees the product and marketing strategy for Nuance's Dragon speech recognition and documentation workflow portfolio. Mark has held various leadership roles within the Dragon business over the last decade, and with his team continues to expand Dragon's reach across enterprise, legal and law enforcement markets, transforming productivity and documentation accuracy for professional individuals and large organizations. Prior to joining Nuance in 2005, Mark held key marketing management positions at both large and small technology companies. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Management from Bentley College.