Copse

Browsing through the BBC website today, I came across this list of forms that the police have to fill in during an investigation. I've read a fair amount of the archives on coppersblog over the last couple of months, and this is the one main thing that the writers there complain about too.

The thing that strikes me most about the list of paperwork is not the volume of it (though that is clearly a factor), but the number of different mediums in which data is stored. Some information is kept in handwritten logs, some is on numbered forms, some is entered into a national database and some of it is on a local computer system, not to mention the storage of copies of video evidence, photos and audio tapes from interviews. That's a huge amount of information that may need to be recalled at any time, and which will all be stored in different formats and different places.

The problem is that none of this information-gathering is easily disposed of. If any of it was obviously redundant, then it could be removed, but it seems from the descriptions that all of the steps in the chain are recording reasonable information, either to help lead towards a conviction, or to cover the police in case of a mistreatment lawsuit brought by the arrested party. If we assume that there is no redundant information being collected (something which may not be true, but on which I can't really comment), then the only way to reduce the amount of time spent on paperwork is to reduce the amount of time filling in the existing paperwork, and minimising the occasions on which the paperwork has to be filled in.

On the former point, there must be some way of streamlining the existing systems for logging crimes and criminals into a single computerised structure. Even the time saved by having the system automatically timestamp and number everything would surely be useful. In addition, there would be time and resources saved by the reduction in paper forms. Further expansion into a national database (or at least remote access to regional databases) would be possible, to allow co-ordination between separate forces.

All of this is clearly a massive job, but looking at the BBC link above, it was the first thing that came to mind, probably at least partly because my current job involves writing software to do almost exactly this for the NHS, and I could all too easily see how much it could help in the police service.

The second point above, on minimising occasions on which this mass of information needs to be collected is another major theme that comes out of the procedural posts on coppersblog - that there is a huge amount of time lost recording and investigating crimes that are not going anywhere. Front line officers are given no room to judge for themselves what to investigate and what to leave. Clearly the police should not be ignoring crimes, but if the officer knows from experience that there is no chance of a conviction, or even a charge, shouldn't he be within his right to say so. And then to get on with investigating a case that may have a useful outcome. Is it not analogous to allowing your doctor to tell you the best course of action. If your GP says "It's nothing to worry about, leave it for a couple of days and it'll clear up", would you respond "No, give me pills, now." or "No. Refer me to a hospital. Now."? Sadly, maybe this kind of response to medical advice is becoming more common nowadays, but I would suggest that allowing the police to exercise their professional judgement in the same way as doctors is vital to avoid the justice system being clogged up with family arguments, kids fighting, and pub brawls.

As a personal example, when I was 13 or so, I was beaten up in an alley while coming home from school by a guy much older than me. When the police came round to interview me that evening, I told them as much as I could, and gave them a description of my attacker, and they said "It's really pretty unlikely that anything is going to come of this". I never heard anything else from them, and to me, that's fine. I would hate to think that they had to spend any longer than it would take to give me a crime number and record a brief description of my case on it, since, clearly, there was no way they were going to catch the guy. Even if they somehow came across him, it would be my word against his, and there would be no chance of a conviction.

I was going to talk more about government targets here, but I'll have to save that for a later post, as it's getting late and I'm starting to ramble a bit. Either way, if you consider the worst aspects of targets and paperwork, then think how far we've come from these principles, particularly the last one.