The Problem
In response to several national civil unrests, the State of Colorado passed the Law Enforcement Integrity and Accountability Act (Senate Bill 20-217).
The bill changed several laws regarding law enforcement, their use of deadly force, and requires officers collect specific data related to police contacts. The required data must be reported to the Division of Criminal Justice in the Department of Public Safety for the creation of an annual report. Upon signing, parts of the bill went into effect immediately, and officers are required to report on interactions with the public.
The City of Westminster needed to implement a solution that would provide a comprehensive reporting structure to meet this new demand. All law enforcement agencies in the state must adhere to these new regulations. The city is one of the first agencies to adapt and streamline this new requirement.
The Solution
The Westminster Police Department is already using Laserfiche for document management and has started to do more with electronic forms to streamline processes. When the bill came up, and management needed to a way to handle this change, Laserfiche was a natural fit. In just a few days, the city configured an electronic form to accommodate this need and made minor tweaks to the process within a week. Their innovative use of Laserfiche Forms and Workflow streamlined the process and accuracy of the data. They were able to customize the form to reflect the different category requirements with the following features:
- Electronic form built with data required for state reporting
- Database lookup functionality to save on additional data entry
- Workflow to help file, name, and auto-fill necessary metadata in Laserfiche
The process begins when an officer completes a Laserfiche Form from a mobile device or the computer in their squad car. Thanks to the user-friendly solution, it was very easy for officers to learn and use immediately. Once completed, Laserfiche Workflow saves the record in Laserfiche, assigns a template, and auto-populates the metadata fields. This metadata is used for advanced searching and reporting needs required by the state.
Many of the requests they receive include mental health and welfare checks. With Laserfiche, they can redact sensitive information and monitor any cases routed for further review.
The Future
The City of Westminster will continue to leverage Laserfiche and improve state-mandated processes. For example, they plan on using Laserfiche Forms to replace their current Use of Force form. This form is used to maintain compliance for the state. The workflow will notify internal affairs for investigation and streamline the police report process.
While the State of Colorado hasn’t imposed any specific reporting guidelines regarding Bill 217, The city expects to be sending reports to a third party by 2021. The entire State of Colorado currently uses Crime Insight, a crime data collection and management service. They anticipate the need to send mandated reports, which the city can utilize workflows and digital workers to save time and staff-restraints. The city was delighted that Laserfiche allowed them to respond quickly to a process while continuing to serve their community.
