I've never had a good experience with the police. Corrupt, uneducated, unprofessional and dangerous. You should see how they patrol around my neighbourhood driving around like gangsters, smoking in their cars, not wearing any seatbelts, they look more criminal than the criminals they're supposed to protect us against.
So sorry, but I have nothing good to say about them because they have never given me any reason to.
I and many people I know have had plenty of good experiences with the police, but there are bad elements that ruin it for everyone. Having a system that reduces the ability for said bad elements to cause problems is a good plan don't you think?
I see a nice tender opportunity here:
R12 billion to install XP Pro and Office 2003 on a crapload of thin client PC's thrown out by SANLAM in 1988...
And Bern: be aware that any IT system is only as good as the input...
Sure, but why would it be any worse than the current system of paper? At least you can search quickly, files should not be able to "disappear" and before you say they can delete files I am sure they will be putting in a decently protected system.
I must agree. Will the majority of our police force have the ability and knowledge to use it?
You don't think they can handle a simple web front system for inputting text? Now you won't have to deal with spelling and handwriting issues. I can see some great simple solutions for local languages as well.
Honestly for tech forum guys you are pretty embarrassing, you should realise the benefits of digitising the systems. Let me point out a few benefits:
1 Centralised database for storage, retrieval, security and search.
2 Data mining of seemingly unrelated cases. Think how much easier it will be for detectives to start linking and seeing patterns.
3 Communications. IP telephony right to mobile phones. location based services to track police and things like response times as well as get the closest unit to a scene.
4 Data security - high grade, centralised security for all case files and related data. Right now the current paper file system cannot be any more permeable.
5 Time imagine how much time it will save being able to automate a number of functions, that and things like authorisations.
6 Auditing and forensics.
7 Community involvement - with digitised systems it will allow community watch organisations and private security to better exchange information on the fly.
8 Integration between services - Metro, traffic, emergency services etc and different police divisions can work together way more effectively when there is minimal information time lag
9 Improved accountability - if police members are tracked on things like response times (imagine how location based services will help here), work rates etc in the system and any attempts at gaming are picked up the bad apples will be much easier to pick out.
But really just some form of simple data entry system and a centralised, secured database would already make a massive difference alone.
