PhillyPolice&Tech

Philadelphia Police Departments and Use of Technology By Kyle Lauff The Philadelphia Police department did not show up overnight, it took a long time for it to come to the point where it is today. Philadelphia started out as a colony and needed some law and order, so they first had the watchman that looked after the city. After that it went to the constables and as the city grew in the 1850s they decided to start the Philadelphia police department. This has created great growth in the city and cause for the police department to use newer resources and technology and newer tactics to combat crime in the city. Technology for police officers has changed a lot from what the original officers were issued when they first hit the beat. The police officer of today is very well equipped with everything that you could imagine. Instead of just having a whistle to try and get help from other officers in the area they have radios. Instead of just walking around everywhere there are police officers on patrol with cars or motorcycles. These are both tools that work to help make their jobs easier and safer. Then the police cars were even more advanced and began having their own computer hookup installed in them so that information was easier to obtain for crime prevention. In the mid 20 th  century the countries police forces went through a change in how police work was done. This was a shift across the board when it came to police forces in large cities. This change was the idea that if we have patrolling officers in cars they were able to get around the large cities faster and more efficiently. Also the patrol car became not only a holding area for criminals but it was also a mobile workstation with the new use of mobile laptops. These new advances aided the job so that the police are able to get the information faster and are able to respond to whatever situation they encounter. But its predecessor for information relaying is the CB radio, which is still in use today. The radio was a tool that law enforcement agencies’ across the country employed to make it easy for their officers to keep up with the crime in the city. The radios revolutionized how fast response was to a crime. Before the radio was put into use it would be a very long time before an officer would respond. Before the radio, the police force would have needed more personnel to police a city if they wanted to have fast response to a crime and you had to hope that a police officer was close by the scene of the crime. There were also a couple more things that have helped cops perform their jobs and help prevent crime in the cities. Was the use of the patrol car, radio use, and real time information retrieval worth the personal aspect of police work? Did the use of these three new technologies really make police work easier or just make it more convenient? This seems to be the issue with some technology; it makes things easier for the user but then makes the interaction between people less personal and creates a more outcast feeling. The police officer of the past was very well known by the people in his patrol area since they saw him day in and day out. It was always the same guy that made them feel safe. And comfort was provided because they knew that a cop was there watching. By the department switching to using patrol cars and not walking the beat it took the personal security aspect away from all the people of the city. People believe that once the Police officer went from being a walking patrolman and became a motorized squawking police officer they lost their community outlook on the city. That caused a large change in Community Policing when the patrol car had been introduced as a major part of the police force. The use of the Patrol car symbolized the end of the local police officer that was here for the safety of the community. This added to the growing dissatisfaction with police practices because the community feels that they have alienated themselves from the community. There are many people that say that the police forces should be doing less with a patrol car even though it shows presence of the police. They feel that more “Emphasis on face-to-face Interactions” build better community togetherness and acceptance of the police force (Alpert and Piquero, 2000). This criticism has caused them to start more foot patrols of the city to help get their presence known and builds their relations. Foot patrols were started along with adding on the use of bike patrols so that the police officers were more able to cater to the needs of the community. These steps created a big change from the beginning thoughts of people that the police car gave the cops an advantage on crime. This may be the case, but it also builds a wall between them and the people they were trying to help. The Radio has had many great affects on the police ability to respond to the crime out in the city by making them more aware and easy to get a hold of. The radio, unlike the increased use of the patrol car did not have any real adverse affects on the crime prevention. Except when criminals would get a hold of police scanners which made it possible for them to know what the cops were doing most of the time from the CB traffic. This means that they could commit crimes and be able to get out of there before cops would arrive. This could wage a major problem for police officers because they do not have any element of surprise when responding to a crime. Also with scanners in the hands of the criminals it means that the use of the radio once on the scene needed to be coded or not used to relay messages. That means that the cops had to go back to using less high tech means of communication in hostage or special situations. This could affect how efficient a job can get done since the lines of communication had been compromised. This could put the police officers in great danger from the assailants by causing them to have a lack of strategic edge that they look for and in most cases need in those situations. But there are other problems when using radios all the time. There may be many places that you might not get good enough coverage by the signal and could unintentionally not have any way of communicating with other police officers, which again causes an issue. The uses of mobile interfaces are helpful for the police department on all aspects of the job especially when it comes to traffic stops and warrant look-ups. They make it so that the police officer can have everything they need at their fingertips when it comes to a suspects history of crime and driving record. These computer stations in cars may also cause a problem with how police do their job such as not going through all the procedures and just relining on what the system tells them to do. This is turn can take the police work out of policing. There have been many things that have been brought up in this discussion such as are the use of patrol cars and the question of whether or not they really are the best thing for police departments. Well we have seen that there are many factors that prove they have taken away the effectiveness of a police patrol. There use has taken away the personal aspect to police work that people had loved and counted on for so long. That is why departments have gone back to walking the beat or biking the beat. That use of old technology with the new is the mesh that needs to be done in respect to building back up the community acceptance of the police. Then there is the fact about the use of the radio, which has been known to be listened in on by criminals and by people that want to over turn justice. They have taken measure to combat that such as the use of cell phones and better-protected bands with encryption on the radios. Also they have been figuring out ways so that cops do not ever get into situations where they have no signal or ca not get a hold of other police officers to relay information. Also on the fly, information retrieval has gotten better and better and will forever improve because the use of technology will never stop and the advancement of it will go on and on. All of these facts have shown that sometimes new technology is not always the best way of doing things. With the new and upcoming advancements seen like the patrol cars, radios and computers you need a good combination of old technology with the new in order to get the best outcome. The Philadelphia police department has become aware of this. It is evident by their meshing of their use of bike patrols and more foot patrol, and also the use of a cell phone and radio. These combinations have been seen to provide better communication and all around efficiency. This allows for the police to do their job the best while leaving room for them to re-gain acceptance by the community.   Alpert, Geoffrey P., and Alex R. Piquero. __Community policing contemporary readings__. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland P, 2000. Hahn, Harlan D., and Judson L. Jeffries. __Urban America and Its Police : From the Postcolonial Era through the Turbulent 1960s__. Colorado: University P of Colorado, 2003. Hassell, Kimberly D. __Police Organizational Cultures and Patrol Practices (Criminal Justice: Recent Scholarship)__. Grand Rapids: LFB Scholarly LLC, 2006. Kelling, George L. "How to Run a Police Department." __City Journal__ [New York] 1995. __Philadelphia Police Department :: Headquarters__. 09 June 2009 <http://www.ppdonline.org/>.
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