police

tBits in Police Department!!!!

Posted on May 12, 2007. Filed under: bombay, complaint, government, issue tracking, police, report, software, workflow management |

This was with reference to the recent news article that Bombay Police has decided to go digital. It is a well known fact that it is one of the best police force of the country. Now lets just think, what if Hyderabad police decides to become digital. Would it be of significant value addition to the people? And the most important question is whether tBits would be of help to them in that case.

Lets understand what do the police do? Well, as everyone knows, they track and solve issues of people. Now lets understand what does tbits do? tBits tracks issues. (tBits is primarily an issue tracking software). So probably we are really close on what the police and tBits do. That means both have a common purpose ie. tracking issues.

Now lets get into the details further. Lets go in a step by step procedure. First i will give the normal course whenever people file complaints with the police. And below it will be given what will the process be, if tBits is installed in the police department.

Step 1:

The aggrieved person comes with his complaint or issue and files an FIR with the police. All the details are manually noted down by the police.And a copy of the same is submitted to the person raising the complaint.

Step 2:

Police start tracking the case (in addition to the number of pending cases they already have). In the meantime the person who raised the complaint has to continuously follow up with the police for the progress on the case.(which is extremely frustrating)

Step 3:

Now the outcome would be obviously be if the case is solved or no. If it is solved the belongings are returned (if a case of robbery) or appropriate punishment is awarded to the culprit (by the court) in cases like kidnapping, murder etc. Or the other option is when the case remains unsolved or pending.

whatever be the outcome of the case the aggrieved party has to go through the following pains:

• Continuous follow up with the police on the progress about the case
• There is no concerned authority to answer all the doubts and queries
• Lot of scope of irregularities as there is extremely less accountability
• Even if the case is solved, sometimes the time taken is so long that solving the case becomes useless.

Now lets think from the police department’s point of view also. Lets see what are the pains that they have to undergo:

• Most of the cases are lost in the heaps of files being added year after year.
• Whenever they decide to know about the status of any case it becomes a tedious task to search from the heap of files.
• As the newspapers say, there are no special incentives for going the extra mile and cracking the case in a better way. In short, since there is no transparency it is difficult to monitor individual performance. This is one of the major causes of frustration in them.

Now lets see how the entire process changes if tBits is installed in the police department:

Step 1:

The aggrieved party logs a complaint with the police station in his area. Now there would be a thing like single window; there would only be a single person to log all the complaints. He will enter the issue in tBits the details of which will include the following:

• Name of the person registering the complaint
• Date of crime
• Date of logging the complaint
• Severity of the complaint (entered by the police personnel)
• Category of the complaint (like robbery, murders etc)

Now a print out of the same is given to the aggrieved party along with a login id and password.

Activities Internal to police department:

Step 2:

The concerned person will route the request to the concerned official depnding on the type of crime and the number of cases he is handling. He will be given a specific time frame to solve issue, failing which the issue will automatically be escalated to the next level above. The officer will however will need to update the actions taken by him in the particular issue and also any particular noting. These will be available to the complainer through his login id either on internet or also on phone).

Step 3:

The process will go on until the entire issue is tracked and solved.

Advantages:

• You will have a detailed analysis of each and every case
• You will have a track of how has the particular officer handled the case
• You can have a success rate of number of cases solved
• All the police stations in the state can be linked to each other so that sharing of information
• The citizen is extremely happy because he knows what is going on with his complaint.

In short, not only will tBits dramatically reduce the need for follow-up with the police as the system itself will do, but will also increase the productivity of the police mechanism to a great extent

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