PAX Centurion - January / February 2014

www.bppa.org PAX CENTURION • January/February 2014 • Page 9 M uch of the BPD has, over the last six months or so, attend- ed the “new and improved” computer training classes for writing reports. Initially, the “new and improved” report writing program was scheduled to begin on January 27 th , but it has now been pushed back to some unknown date inApril or May, 2014 for…er….”technical reasons…”. On behalf of virtually everyone who been “re-educated”, to borrow a North Korean colloquialism, may I humbly submit that the new and improved system sucks. The “new and improved system” is nothing of the kind. If com- puters are supposed to make report writing easier, quicker and more efficient, this system does the polar opposite. It presents to the user (that would be us ) a confusing amount of choices to decide upon, and it will obviously result in having nobody on the streets to answer radio calls or prevent crime. I en- vision each and every computer terminal in every station being occupied for hours on end by frustrated cops who cannot figure out this new and improved sys- tem. It is literally another example (similar to our new and improved detail slips) of a boob at City Hall re-inventing the wheel without regard for the consequences. Obvi- ously, no street-level patrol officer was consulted about this debacle- waiting-to-happen. Most of us were only able to complete the computer course with repeated assistance from our instructors. (I am in no way, shape, or form blaming them – they were dealt of bag of sh** and told to instruct us, and that’s what they did.) The vast majority of us leaving the class forgot what we learned five minutes after we left, and others who were taught the system back in October or November forgot it back in ….October or November. The system itself is literally a case of “too much information”; but it is information that the FBI wants us to expend hours providing for them , not the other way around. In order to glean more information on standardized forms for their UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting) system, the federal government provided millions of dollars to local police departments to “upgrade” the computer software. Of course, much like Obamacare, nobody bothered to check with the people in the street to see whether the system was practical or user-friendly. Of course, (again much like Obamacare), those in charge continue to march forward in progressive lockstep like lemmings over a cliff despite the rest of us telling them that the system sucks. A simple towed-car report comes out to three pages, and requires hours of effort in order to enter the information into the computer. Make a simple mistake on the VIN number, and the system sends you back to ground zero. Re-do the report.You now need two “CC” num- bers (a “P”# and an “I”#), where previously one sufficed, in order to Coming: Computer Chaos Conundrum “New and improved” computer system will cause delay, aggravation, frustration for patrol force complete a report, and if you forget to click on the red bar at the top of the report or get distracted, within four seconds the number disap- pears, and you have to jump through cyber-hoops to retrieve it. The booking information is not connected with the report, so everything has to be entered manually, unlike our current systemwhere we simply enter the booking number and… voila … the arrested person’s infor- mation is automatically entered. (And this is supposed to make report- writing “quicker”? George Orwell was right…. this is like his famous novel “1984”…. Up is down, left is right, good is bad, etc., etc.) We now need separate numbers for evidence and property, along with bar code tags that are supposedly going to be printed out (Ya, right, have you seen the average Boston police station’s copier lately? …In a pig’s $%#@!…..) . A simple shoplifting report can end up twelve pages long, with most of the pages being thoroughly superfluous. Front-desk clerks at area police stations, already harried by crowds waiting to make a report, will be out of their minds. A larceny report will take between 3-4 hours. If you forget to hit the “save” button, your entire report will be lost, and you get to start again. Special officers from department stores and malls will also be utterly confused, and will un- doubtedly be requiring time and assistance from equally frustrated officers. Reports that haven’t been approved by the specific attending supervisor or might contain a minor error can wait days for the reporting officer to correct them, especially if it’s late at night and the officer goes on days off. (Remember, the department is now another cycle of “cost-cutting”; the overtime budget is too high, so we are all supposed to “do more with less”, or so we’ve been told at roll calls. (EDITOR’S NOTE: “doing more with less” applies to the street patrol force, not to the command staff or suck-pumps assigned to politically sensitive units….) Somebody told me a long time ago, …“always follow the money.” I’ll lay you dollars to donuts that whoever thought this system was a good idea has been wined and dined by the software company, and that somebody is related to somebody through politics. (NO, Jim, you don’t say!? In Massachusetts!?) . Again, nobody thought to ask a street cop whether this new computer system was a good idea. And they think we’re going to pull over to the side of the road and edit reports in our cruisers?Are they out of their minds? There won’t be a cop on the streets to answer a call. I heard that NewYork City is su- ing the software company and I understand that Cleveland and other major cities have dropped the program, finding it unworkable and impractical. Let’s stop acting like those lemmings I mentioned earlier. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. And by the way, if the FBI and the Fed’s want this new system, that’s another good reason to say “screw you,” stick it where the sun don’t shine…. By James Carnell, Pax Editor