5 Technologies Agencies Need to “Reimagine Public Safety”

Calls to “reimagine public safety” continue to grow in volume and intensity. Leading public safety agencies are finding multidisciplinary approaches to address the concerns of the communities they serve. 

Using the right technologies to manage and support new approaches to public safety is critical because reimagining public safety requires complex, coordinated change. There are some everyday technologies first responders should use to keep improving the support they provide to the community. Here are five critical technologies that help agencies address the operational components of reimagining public safety:

Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD)

Not all emergency calls from the public require the same response. As calls for service involving individuals experiencing mental health crises increase, the one-size-fits-all approach of sending armed law enforcement may not be the best solution.

When every second counts, call-takers need a CAD system that streamlines the process of entering critical details and sending the appropriate units to respond. Effective CAD systems give telecommunicators the flexibility and information required to determine which resources and individuals should respond to calls for service. For example, Mark43 CAD recommends which units should respond based on set parameters, including caller needs and unit expertise. 

Records Management System (RMS)

Many agencies use officer notification and flagging systems to notify responders when an individual may be experiencing a mental health crisis. The proactive notifications allow individuals to share their mental health status and safety plans with responders to facilitate better outcomes.

Not all RMS products are created equal, and agencies looking to leverage individual-supplied information to facilitate better outcomes need an RMS capable of securely storing these sensitive documents and offering intuitive workflows for responders working quickly to support individuals in mental or behavioral health crises.

Analytics

It’s impossible to optimize operations without accurate insights into your agency’s everyday operations, including calls for service, field interactions, offense rates, and resource usage. Without identifying trends, agencies cannot make thoughtful, data-driven decisions or evaluate ongoing operations.

Agencies need an analytics platform that aggregates data into informative statistics, trends, and visualizations. These easy-to-understand reports help decision-makers analyze the data quickly and make actionable recommendations. Some products require significant effort and resources on the agency’s part to connect to their databases and build out their reports and data dashboards. Mark43 Analytics seamlessly integrates agency data sources and comes with out-of-the-box report templates, making it more straightforward for agencies to get comfortable working with data.

Mobile Apps

Many of the technologies used by public safety professionals offer limited usability due to a lack of mobility. Law enforcement officials in the field have limited access to essential data, like historical records associated with an address or stats on the agency’s most-wanted individuals. Limited data access decreases the effectiveness of and increases the safety risk to users in the field.

Mobile apps provide better data and increase personnel safety, which is why a functional mobile strategy is a critical component of any agency system and supports efforts to improve operational efficiency and transparency.

Use-of-Force Reporting

Organizational and operational transparency is a critical ask of law enforcement agencies, and community calls for clear stats around use-of-force events have risen significantly over the last few years. 

Whether an agency reports use-of-force incidents to the FBI Data Program or publishes the data for public consumption, they need intuitive, cloud-native software to simplify the reporting process and enable efficient data reporting. Mark43 Use of Force Reporting (opens as pdf) eliminates manual workflows and automates use-of-force reporting tasks.

Reimagining public safety encompasses so many aspects of public safety, and agencies can be overwhelmed by the feedback they receive and the options available to the community. These essential technologies, which many agencies currently use, are critical tools for agencies as they look to adapt to public safety today.

To learn more about reimaging public safety visit the Mark43 Resource Center.