NCJ Number
215246
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 54 Issue: 7 Dated: July 2006 Pages: 108-110
Editor(s)
Ed Sanow
Date Published
July 2006
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article describes the addition of a wide-area imaging application system to the Courts and Law Enforcement Management Information System (CLEMIS), which involves a consortium of more than 100 law enforcement agencies from 5 counties in the greater Detroit metropolitan area.
Abstract
CLEMIS' goal is to implement an intelligent approach to information gathering and sharing within the consortium to better support investigative and operational needs of the participating agencies. The legacy imaging application initially used by CLEMIS had significant limitations. First, mugshot image quality was unreliable, which undermined their admissibility as evidence. Other disadvantages were the vendor's, not CLEMIS', proprietary control of external access to the captured images, as well as the operation of the imaging application as an isolated system that provided limited integration with the other information systems used by the CLEMIS agencies. Also, the imaging application system required expensive desktop licensing that prohibited the agency from installing it on as many desktops as CLEMIS had planned. Finally, there was limited investigative support in the legacy system. In order to address these problems, CLEMIS selected PictureLink, a wide-area imaging application system designed to work in conjunction with an agency's jail and/or records management systems. PictureLink is an enhancement to, rather than a replacement of, CLEMIS' other systems. PictureLink provides a full suite of imaging tools and investigative access to those images, along with the arrest and offense information associated with each person arrested within the consortium. Using PictureLink in the field gives the investigator access to thousands of images for searches in developing suspects on the scene and in providing identification more quickly to road patrol units searching for the suspect. It is a networked application that can be accessed by any desktop at a CLEMIS agency.