County squads coming more into computer age
Photo
Walworth County Sheriff's Deputy Bill Mortlock scans in a driver's license with a computer program called TraCS.
ELKHORN — “Just like at Wal-Mart,” Walworth County Deputy Bill Mortlock said as he showed a reporter his squad car’s new barcode scanner.
In December, the sheriff’s department upgraded its squad computers with TraCS, an electronic data collection system.
With barcodes on newer driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations, the program can automatically import driver and vehicle information and load it into a ticket or report form.
With a few clicks of a keyboard, deputies can print warnings, tickets and other information from a small printer in their squad.
That saves the officers time in the field by not having to write out tickets by hand. It’s especially useful when a driver has multiple offenses and officers don’t have to re-write information on each ticket.
“It’s really designed to take less than a minute,” said Sgt. Mark Roum, who put together the plan for implementing the software.
He now can write a ticket in about 90 seconds. A second ticket would only take moments longer.
The program can send accident reports to the state Department of Transportation via the Internet. It is also integrated with the state’s court record tracking system, the Circuit Court Automation Program (CCAP).
With everything stored on a computer, there is less of a paper trail for clerks in the sheriff’s department and at the clerk of court’s office, Roum said.
“Before, you’d go to a crash, write down information in your notebook and you’d clear. You’d come in at the end of your shift, do your accident report and take 20 minutes to fill in bubbles,” Roum said. “Then you’d turn it in to central records, and it would take one to four days before it was ready for pickup.”
Now, that information is ready in about a day, maybe less.
“The goal here is to get officers to finish reports at the scene while waiting for wreckers. Eventually we’ll have it ready for the people at the scene,” Roum said.
Deputies still are catching on to the new technology, but they see the timesavings.
“It was a little hard to get used to,” Mortlock said. “It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. But now we’re in the computer age. It seems like since the bugs are worked out of it, it’s quicker.”
Mortlock noticed he is able to stay on patrol longer instead going to the station before the end of his shift to fill out his reports.
“That’s nicer. It keeps us out of the office and out on the road more,” he said.
The Wisconsin State Patrol has had the program for some years and Elkhorn Police Department has used it for about a year.
Officers there love it, Elkhorn patrolman Mike Nigbor said.
“Because we have a police chief who is aggressive with being on top of things, we’ve had it and we use it a lot,” Nigbor said. “I think every department should follow (suit).”
Feb 11, 2008 at 11:41 p.m.
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Just for the sake of discussion, even though quotos are illegal, they do exist in an indirect way.
Just ask any officer, if when receiving job performance evaluations, whether citation numbers ever play into how they are evaluated as to meeting expected standards or not.
And those evaluations are considered during the promotion process.
Feb 11, 2008 at 8:23 p.m.
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Sorry I started this..... and to respond to Mr Black,No I have never been ticketed in Darien (although I had to argue my way out of A U-Turn ticket as I had parked on the left side of the road downtown and when pulling back out was heading the opposite way out of nowhere the Darien police were there to tell me that was illegal, when I pointed out that the car had pulled into A parking spot and then backed up before moving foward again at worst what I in fact had done was A legal Y Turn as taught in all drivers ed corses, at that point Barney Fife said I was lucky he was feeling nice and would just give me A verbal warning.) If I get A photo speeding ticket, can I just send them A picture of the money?
Feb 11, 2008 at 8:55 a.m.
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People this article is about a police department that is using information technology to become more efficient. Quit hijacking the board with complaining about your darn speeding tickets.
Feb 11, 2008 at 5:15 a.m.
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There are no quotas, people. Speeding is speeding, whether it be 2 over or 20. Stop looking for someone else to put the blame on your lack of regard for the law.
btw, the speed limit in Darien is 30, not 25.
Feb 10, 2008 at 7:33 p.m.
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What's your proof there bjordan?
Feb 10, 2008 at 7:23 p.m.
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Yeah quotas are illigal. However when the Administration (Sheriff / Chief) tells the deputies / police officers to write at least 2 tickets during thier shift, thats a quota in my book. It may be illegal but it is been done. Some cities even say you have to write so many parking tickets per shift.
Feb 10, 2008 at 4:46 p.m.
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Go ahead and keep using your excuses, but last I read, some cities are looking into different ways to catch you doing things wrong without actually pulling you over. Like cameras at intersections that photograph license plates of those who run red lights. Follow the law and quit complaning!
Feb 10, 2008 at 4:43 p.m.
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I believe (I could be wrong) police 'quotas' are illegal. And if you don't speed or do anything illegal, you won't have anything to worry about.
Feb 10, 2008 at 3:31 p.m.
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Quota is the "reason" people give for getting the speeding ticket. It doesn't matter that they were speeding in the first place. Maybe the new computer system will make you think the next time you think about speeding. Or at least it won't take you as long to wait for the ticket!
Feb 10, 2008 at 1:45 p.m.
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helly27 theres no departments around here that Im aware of that has quotas
Feb 10, 2008 at 7:45 a.m.
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For you speeders - the Webster's dictionary explains the meaning of LIMIT;the utmost extent, something that is intolerable. If the speed limit is 25, it means that is the limit. If you are going 26, that is too much. Take some personable responsibility! You can't get mad at the police when they catch YOU doing something wrong. You should be mad at yourself.
Feb 10, 2008 at 7:22 a.m.
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It takes you 2 minutes to drive through Darien. You're complaining about going the speed limit? You obviously have gotten a ticket there before. If you go 30 instead of the posted 25, what is that going to save you about 20 seconds?
Feb 10, 2008 at 5:18 a.m.
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Thats the whole point!! All police officers in every department has a ticket quota. Now they'll make their quotas quicker! Watch out I'm sure Rock County will be next!!
Feb 10, 2008 at 12:58 a.m.
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Hey if I'm only going 5 miles over the limit IN DARIEN (I only use this so wisconsinheat won't come down on me too hard as anyone can tell you 2 miles over will get you pulled over, IN DARIEN WI) I think he should have to do all of his steps, all this is going to do is fasttrack him to his next ticket!
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