Online reporting adds to efficiency

One of the interesting dynamics of law enforcement is the incredibly wide spectrum of issues and problems we face each day. The stuff you see in the news is usually either sensational, like a murder, or unusual and aggravating, like the vandalism to the soccer fields in unincorporated King County last week. But, as you would expect, the vast majority of the calls we take are neither highly sensational nor unusual. However, they are highly significant and important to the people involved.

This business has always been a balancing act between efficiency and service. A truly efficient police department would be fast, crank out investigations and reports with blazing speed, and would not “waste” any time talking to residents because it does not create a quantifiable line on a spreadsheet. A department oriented completely toward service would take lots of time on each call, expend a lot of resources on some calls that will very likely never be solved, and take lots of time responding to emergency calls, since the officers will always be tied up. Obviously, the two extremes make no sense, and each department falls somewhere in between — it’s just a matter of where you fall on the bell curve.

This brings me to the issue of property crimes with no suspect information. These crimes, while important to the victim and to our department, have a low likelihood of resolution. Those that are solved will usually be the result of data analysis and identifying patterns, which are really driven by the information received in the reports rather than the interaction between the officer and person reporting. In other words, yes, we need the information, but the time spent by both the resident and the officers is expensive.

Traditionally, law enforcement has viewed this as a necessary expense. Even though a report of mailbox vandalism will likely only be solved by either overall data analysis or if the reporting person knows who may have done it, we still place a high value on service, so the 60 to 90 minutes spent on taking the report and doing the follow-up paperwork was still seen as important. We always remember that the mailbox vandalism may be the only time the resident has ever called the police.

Expectations of service and respect for residents’ time are changing that dynamic a bit, however. We used to assume that the face-to-face service provided even in these kinds of cases was so important that the inefficiency was a necessary trade-off. But now, as we all have time constraints and are growing more accustomed to using the Internet to do business, we have seen a change. Many residents actually prefer the opportunity to report these types of incidents via the Internet. We call it E-Reporting. It can be faster; it still provides the quantitative and pattern data we need to solve some of the crimes; and it frees up officers to do active patrol and problem solving. The important point here is that it is a choice — residents still can choose to ask for an officer and we are happy to provide one.

How does E-Reporting work? Simply go to the Kent Police Web site at www.ci.kent.wa.us/police and click on “File an online police report” and go from there.

Since the system went live this past summer, we had 131 online reports in July, 124 in August and 137 in September. If you estimate, conservatively, 60 minutes of driving, follow up, and report writing for each incident, that totals 392 incidents filed online in those three months. That is 392 hours of additional patrol time available for neighborhoods, which is roughly equivalent to a little less than one full-time officer. Those are measurable outcomes that make us both more efficient and able to provide better service.

It’s important to note that a staff member still checks each report, they are still investigated to the extent possible, and the data is important to see trends and areas of focus for our patrol and special investigations teams. We will keep working hard to provide service that is respectful of the taxpayer.

Have a great week.