NCJ Number
93617
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 32 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1984) Pages: 191-197
Date Published
1984
Length
7 pages
Annotation
The Dallas Police Department's (Texas) system for improving the efficiency of the criminal case filing process permits all auxiliary criminal case filing documents to be automatically generated from the field officer's initial report, circumventing the traditional practice of sending the case to an investigator for followup.
Abstract
This integrated and automated criminal case filing system goes several steps beyond the advantages offered by word processors. Using several online computer subsystems, key documents are automatically assimilated and generated for direct processing, negating the redundant input of data. The direct filing concept was introduced with driving-while-intoxicated offenses (DWI), because it is the largest-volume offense category processed by the department, DWI arrests tend to be similar and therefore amenable to standardized formats, and the public's clamor for a crackdown on DWI behooves expediting prosecution. With direct filing, all the required documents now print out in the Legal Liaison Division immediately after the DWI arrest scenario is entered into the computer by the field officer. This process circumvents the delay and duplication associated with relaying preliminary case assignments to an outlying police facility for so-called followup review and additional procedures. Now, Legal Liaison Division personnel simply tear-off the documents from the printer, assemble them, and carry them to a city magistrate for a determination of probable cause. Other major categories of cases are being incorporated into the system. The benefits expected from the system are faster processing, reduction in loss of misplacement, greater accuracy, simplification, better use of resources, greater pride by field officers in their work, and the facilitation of management decisionmaking.