Connecting the dots with investigation management software

By Peter Duffy, Detective (retired), Australian Federal Police
Special contributor to PoliceOne

Law enforcement agencies worldwide are under constant pressure to find ways to share information between jurisdictions as well as across language and cultural boundaries. The sheer volume of personal information (thanks to Internet search engines and an increasingly wired populace) makes it easy to overlook just how difficult it can be for law enforcement agencies to effectively share and use intelligence. Potentially useful information remains trapped in silos, resistant to computer systems and protocols that promise to make greater use of this data.

In my experience, law enforcement agencies struggle with designing intuitive computer applications that reflect the true operational nature of investigations. I’ve observed various development models, each with mixed results. These include attempts to fully outsource development to a contractor as well as those projects at the other end of the spectrum which solely use internal resources. I believe the approach taken by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in developing an investigation management system called Jade Investigator was successful because it focussed on operational needs first, and technology requirements second. It’s important to note also that the solution was designed by police for police in close collaboration with an established software company.

Some U.S. police forces are about to begin trials of Jade Investigator, which is already operational (in six different languages) in 13 countries in Asia-Pacific and Europe, and is being used to help investigators solve crimes.

Building a regional intelligence capability
The AFP is Australia’s international law enforcement and policing representative and the chief source of advice to the Australian Government on policing issues. With an extensive network of liaison officers in more than 20 countries, the AFP works with other Australian and international law enforcement bodies to improve regional and global safety and security. Part of its remit is to help strengthen the capability of overseas law enforcement agencies to gather information and evidence in relation to trans-national organized crime.

In 2002, the AFP started looking for an investigation management system to supply to other police forces in neighbouring countries in order to bolster their own capacity to record and share information concerning trans-national organized crime.

While the AFP had an existing computerized case management system, it wasn’t suitable for international deployment, particularly into forces with limited resources. Critically, the system had to be able to be used without a large amount of training support, and also allow extra features to be easily added to meet the specific requirements of each force. The AFP tasked a federal agent to design a system in collaboration with Jade Software Corporation, attracted by the latter’s flexible ‘object oriented’ database technology which is particularly suited to managing relationships between complex sets of data.

During my time with the AFP, it became apparent that a major advantage of JADE Investigator’s powerful database is the way it automates many of the processes that underpin an investigation, allowing team leaders to easily manage tasks, people and investigations. For the first time in my policing career I felt that some of the information silos – which hamper the best intended law enforcement efforts – may actually be broken down.

The result of the partnership between the AFP and Jade Software is an investigation management system that is easy to use by front line investigators, designed to meet law enforcement needs of the 21st century and quickly able to be configured to individual agency needs. The AFP’s experience in developing JADE Investigator provided so successful that the system is now available off the shelf for other law enforcement agencies as well as private sector organisations with an investigative function. The software is already available in English, Thai, Serbian, Chinese, and Indonesian, with plans to develop versions in other languages including Spanish.

Improving the overall investigative process
Another Australian agency using JADE Investigator with positive results is the Corruption and Crime Commission of Western Australia (WACCC). The Commission has two main purposes; to combat organized crime and to reduce misconduct in the public service. Its jurisdiction covers the more than 115,000 Western Australian public officers in some 550 plus agencies.

JADE Investigator has been the WACCC’s principle platform for the management of complaints, allegations, investigations and intelligence since January 2007. Today all active and new complaints of misconduct are being managed within the system, along with all investigations approved following its implementation, and according to Nick Anticich, WACCC’s Director of Operations, this has enhanced the management of the entire investigative process for its officers, from initial notification through to completion and subsequent analysis of statistical data.

“The real power of Jade Investigator lies in its ability to manage case activities and visually identify connections between seemingly unrelated information, including all the data captured during past and current investigations. We suddenly gain a 360 degree view of a piece of information, confident that we can quickly assess its relevance and importance to the investigation.”

It is clear from speaking with investigators using the system that it enables a fundamental shift from simple records management to more proactive investigative case management. The benefit for officers is that finally they are in control of the data during an investigation and not the other way around.