Information Technology at Police Departments



Information Technology at Police Departments

Application of Information Technology (IT) to Optimize Police Department's Performance

There is no doubt that the information system proved to be a Critical Success Factor for the performance of police department. These days, the importance of IT has increased a lot in many firms because it assists companies in performing their tasks. The speed of the work even increases with the usage of Information System. The criminal transactions are performed at a much quicker rate after the installation of Information System. Data management and execution is one of the major activities of any IT firms. This is the reason why it can be said that information system proved to be a Critical Success Factor for them. It even created a positive impact on the organization in terms of financial and operational activities. When various software is installed in the law enforcement organisation, they help in decreasing the costs associated with the operations. Although heavy investments are carried out for the installation of various software's, but they create lots of benefits for the crime prevention in the future (Foster, 2005).

The new technologies of communication and information are the expression of a movement from the "disciplinary society" to "control society", a different social order. Today, the classical representation of power, based on the idea of ??the panoptic on-way, and does not explain how it is exercised surveillance. The police as an institution and as an activity have been forced to incorporate new techniques and technologies, in line with the new rationality. Along with the concerns and discussions it has generated tension between the effectiveness of new technologies in the field of security and legitimacy of its use, there are other consequences of this incorporation to be taken into account. The most widespread discourse on the integration of technology to the police and, in general, security refers to the increasing social complexity and criminal practices. It is argued that the effectiveness depends on the incorporation of resources to be able to cope and manage the increasing complexity and sophistication, and very often their effects are evaluated almost exclusively to the explicit level of manifest functions.

The past decade has seen a proliferation of security cameras in public places. According to the Security Industry Association, a trade group, surveillance cameras in the U.S. number in the millions. Video surveillance cameras by the law enforcement agencies are now so commonplace--in stores, shopping malls, parking garages, on city streets and above automated teller machines (ATMs)--that most people barely notice them. While some cameras are privately owned, others are owned and operated by police or government agencies. Police at a command centre in Washington, D.C., monitor footage from surveillance cameras mounted around the city.

At the same time, a vocal movement of privacy advocates, led by civil liberties groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has been questioning the increased presence of surveillance cameras. Using a term from George Orwell's novel 1984, which imagined a future in which the government monitored and ...