Law enforcement

New AI-powered tools help officers improve incident reporting

Transparency is important in law enforcement, and earning the trust of the citizens we serve is one of our most important tasks. Edward F. Davis, a 35-year veteran in law enforcement and former Police Commissioner of the City of Boston, talks about why reporting accuracy is so crucial.

Almost every police officer you’ll meet joined law enforcement to protect and serve citizens. That’s our mission and goal.

A major part of what we do behind-the-scenes is documenting what happened in our communities. Every word, every decision and every action can be subject to scrutiny and hindsight.

Transparency is important in law enforcement, and earning the trust of the citizens we serve is one of our most important tasks. This is why reporting accuracy is so crucial to what we do – everything we say and do can make a difference.  It can also end up on video, in the news, or as part of a high-profile court case or insurance claim.

A poorly worded or badly organized report can mean the difference between a criminal being brought to justice or going free. When we want to ask city and town officials to spend resources on new equipment or personnel, we need to be able to produce solid facts to back up the ask.  The statistics our departments collect are often how crime statistics are compiled, and how government agencies determine funding for law enforcement personnel and grant awards.

It’s no surprise, then, that police officers not only need – but seek – tools that will support and enhance their ability to quickly file accurate and complete reports. In fact, according to a recent survey 77% of law enforcement professionals say they are interested in exploring new technology to help with incident reporting and other police paperwork.

I am excited about new technologies that can help; a new category of tools backed by artificial intelligence (AI) that are using the power of voice and language to work with police technology rather than compete with it.

Speech recognition solutions like Dragon Law Enforcement, allow officers to use their voice to dictate reports instead of manually producing them.

According to the product team at Nuance*, this technology uses machine learning and adapts to and learns more as you use it.  The product has 99% recognition accuracy.

It’s these types of tools, ones that support successful policing, that can help officers produce detailed, accurate reports – quickly and efficiently – so they can focus more time on the people they serve.

*Edward Davis, LLC is a security consultant to Nuance

Paperwork in Police Work Survey

2018 Role of Technology in Law Enforcement Paperwork Annual Report finds inefficient documentation impedes report accuracy, officer safety and time in the community. Learn more.

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