By Marisa O’Neil, The Los Angeles Times
NEWPORT-MESA, Calif. - On the television show “Cold Case,” detectives root through a massive room of file boxes and evidence from old, unsolved cases.
But real-life scenes like that will play out less frequently in local police departments as more files are in the computers and out of dusty basements. In the not-too-distant future, loose papers and file folders could be endangered species in some departments.
On Nov. 1, the Costa Mesa Police Department started the laborious switch to a new, computerized records management system for the first time in more than 20 years, civilian commander Scheralee Ford said. Once the new system is in place, and other components are added over the next year or so, information typed in by officers will flow electronically to everyone who needs it.
“When a report comes into the station, it’s entered into the system, which knows by statute where the report is to go next,” Ford said. “There are less delays getting it to the right detective to get to work, and it’s all done electronically, so we’re not doing the paper shuffle.”
Ultimately, an officer will be able to enter a report and send it for approval to a supervisor, she said. From there, information will go to detectives, if necessary, and to the records department.
Now, officers write reports and submit hard copies for approval. Then, records technicians type them into the system.
Managing the amount of records and paperwork that comes through a police department is a massive job, Newport Beach Police Lt. John Desmond said. It takes about six months to train new employees to enter and manage data in the records department, he said.
“We have someone working in records 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” he said. “They never close. The records section works every day, including Christmas.”
Police work involves volumes of paperwork and report writing, often the least favorite part of an officer’s job. With the new system in Costa Mesa and planned laptop computers that can be used for report writing in patrol cars, the process will be simplified, Ford said.
“We need our policemen in the field, not in the station [writing reports],” she said. “If they can respond in the field, the community is better served.”
Newport Beach Police already have laptop computers in patrol cars, Desmond said. Officers still print out hard copies of reports for supervisor approval, and the information must be typed in.
But that department also has a document imaging system, which allows them to scan every piece of paper into its network, Desmond said. Newport police have documents dating back to 1994 scanned in and are working on the rest, he said.
Most of the files that pre-date 1994 are on microfiche or microfilm, he said.
“We still have some hard copies, but we’re in the process of destroying the old paper copies,” Desmond said.
Costa Mesa police keep most records up to five years, but major cases like murders and rapes are kept indefinitely, records manager Ellen Herter said. Costa Mesa doesn’t have files on microfilm or microfiche, but hopes to get a document imaging system like Newport Beach’s, she said.
Until then, Costa Mesa still has thousands of files from old cases dating back half a century, Herter said. And the department had to wait until things got up and running before records technicians could enter new information into the system, meaning they have to play catch-up this week, Ford said.