How Does Technology Affect The Police Department

Technology has helped police officers and police departments transmit information more easily and efficiently. In the United States a majority of police departments now rely on computer access to submit and receive information. It wasn't till recently that the departments realized it created less of a workload for their officers. When police departments streamline their officers' jobs by incorporating technology it helps officers respond instantly, keeps the public safer, and makes their jobs easier and more efficient. When officers have access to technology in their patrol cars or their station they will have better response time to calls for service. One of the biggest reasons the response times declines is because once a person calls
One of the biggest problems in police departments is that there is an extensive amount of complaints stating officers either harassed, racial profiled, or used excessive force on a citizen. With the technology now in police departments, each patrol car and police officer are equipped with some type of video camera. With the issuance of video cameras that need to be recording while an officer is either at a scene or searching anything, it cuts down on officer misconduct. While there are some cases of officer misconduct still reported, police departments have immediate access to review the video that was taking on the cameras and determine if there was any misconduct committed. Have the cameras also tends to make officers rethink the idea of committing misconduct since they know that if a civilian would sue them for misconduct that there would be video proof and the officer would get fired and go to jail. During my parent's career in law enforcement we would receive death threats or racist threats. We would constantly have to watch over our shoulders because we were afraid someone would try and attack us. This occurred about 10 years ago when police departments did equip any type of cameras so the public that my parents interacted with could just accuse my parents of anything. Now something like that would not be able to happen so frequently because the public can have access to the video
With the use of computerized systems in their everyday work, police officers can quickly fill out paper work or reports. When officers did not have access to computers they would have to fill out all the reports and paperwork by hand. They even had to write out traffic tickets and fines out by hand. Then they would have to go down to the local magistrate judge or the police headquarters and submit all the paper work they filled out. When my parents were working in law enforcement, they would have to spend excessive amounts of time after their shift to complete the paper work. With them having to complete all the paper work after their shift for numerous hours before they got to come home, I rarely got to see my parents. Then once computer systems were installed officers now don’t have to write anything by hand anymore. All officers have to do is to go into their patrol car and start typing up the report in fill in the blank template. Officers can now type out any citations as well now because they are equipped with a mobile printer in their patrol cars. This past summer I took part in a job shadow/internship with the South Carolina Highway Patrol. Throughout this amazing experience I had the ability to witness both types of systems in use. With one officer I saw them using the traditional way to write out everything on paper documents. I spent days going to