Assessing the full cost of traditional means of storing images, videos, and voice recordings is difficult, because many of the costs are born invisibly. Whereas we go to the web to find out all sorts of information, on demand, the traditional practice of storing digital evidence is anything but one of “on demand.”
The detective or prosecutor has to contact the property room where the media are stored. The property room has to burn copies and send them through interoffice mail, or as we experienced in one California evidence, a legal assistant had to drive 10 miles from the DA’s office to pick up a DVD for a “hot case.” An administrative assistant to a large county in Oregon, complained that the stack of DVDs on her desk was nearly impossible to keep track of.
These costs are hard to measure, but wouldn’t it be nice if all the investigator or prosecutor had to do was run a simple query and to be able to see all of the digital evidence on a case? Both would have one less clerical problem to deal with. DVDs would not be misplaced, requiring a replacement be burned.
Some costs are more easily measured and documented in terms of hours and positions. First Lieutenant (Ret.) Ross Randlett Commander of the Forensic Services Bureau of the Prince William County Police Department avoided having to hire someone in the Criminal Evidence Unit and saved half time of a digital analyst. Given the growth of digital evidence, this is a significant saving.
The costs of media (DVDs) is not insignificant. However, the wait time that is involved, while officer burn images, videos, and voice recordings to DVDs is not insignificant. Laura Thornquist in the Vancouver (WA) Police Department (185 sworn) estimated that moving from burning, storing, and copying DVDs (they were organized and stored very neatly in a separate section of her property room) would save $28,000 per year in time and media costs.
When the Police Department in Carlsbad California had to justify purchasing both QueTel’s Evidence TraQ, physical evidence management system and its Digital TraQ, digital evidence management system, the IT unit estimated that it would save one and one-half person years of time. From a business perspective this was an ROI (return on investment) of two. Most companies would be willing to put money into an investment if the ROI were three.
Add the intangible benefits from time saved by investigators and prosecutors the real and estimated costs of managing physical media and pretty soon the benefits from a digital evidence management system, such as Digital TraQ, beg the question “Why doesn’t our agency have a secure, CJIS security policy compliant system such as this?
About QueTel:
QueTel’s software saves time and increases accountability for law enforcement agencies. The TraQ Suite family of applications encompasses evidence management, digital evidence management (including redacation), forensic laboratory management (LIMS), and quartermaster inventory. For 25 years, we have served agencies with implementation services, consulting, and, recently, BWC video redaction services.