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Home >> SPPD History >> National COPS Evaluation of St. Paul: 2000 – Page 16

National COPS Evaluation of St. Paul: 2000

Emergency Communications Center (ECC) and Technology (Records/Evidence)

ECC: Late in 1992 the ECC was civilianized, and all sworn police officers were reassigned to patrol functions. Sergeants remained in the ECC as supervisors, while twelve new dispatchers were hired and trained. For the next two years, incoming calls continued to increase: in 1994, there were 1.16 million incoming calls, a 6% increase over 1993. ECC generated 191,653 calls for service. By 1996, incoming calls were up 4% to the ECC, with 188,360 calls for service generated. Dispatch uses a five-tiered priority ranking system: priorities 1 (officer down, or needs immediate assistance) and 2 (crime in progress or urgent matter) for immediate dispatch; priority 3 (domestics, suspicious persons, accidents without injury) for 15 minute response time; priority 4 (offense reports with no suspect present or threat, non-emergency matters) for 45 minute response time; and priority 5 (miscellaneous requests, barking dogs, loud parties, parking complaints) for 1 hour.

RECORDS/EVIDENCE: The challenge for SPPD in decentralizing so many of its operations has been how to ensure access to information and facilitate the flow of information across districts and between the districts and centralized units, to all personnel. In 1993, terminals were placed in and computer links were upgraded with the four team houses so that each Team had a link with the CAD system (which had been put in place in 1988); a new system was also added so each team could track incidents and look up warrants and criminal histories of suspects. The tele-serve system was moved out to the team offices, making it possible for property crime victims to file a police report and obtain necessary documents for filing insurance claims there. At the same time, a system was designed for department-wide access to intelligence information. In 1994, the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department took over the management of the IDENT (Criminal Histories and Identification) Section, which was a consolidated SPPD/County Unit, freeing up SPPD officers for other assignments.

Since 1995, the Records Unit has obtained a number of grants enabling it to further develop and modernize various functions, and to move toward providing greater access to information electronically. In 1995, it received $890,000 in federal grants (BJA and COPS) to upgrade and computerize the report process over the next two years. The next year, the Unit received three federal grants to update the MDT system, develop an Internet presence, and build an "intranet" within the department.

SPPD's crime statistics are collected now in an automated Single Incident Tracking System (SITS). They are coded and entered into a database that allows queries by address, name incident type, and other subjects. The City is divided into 200 grids: advanced analysis is conducted by grid, and through combining grids, by neighborhood. All data for SITS are contained in an Oracle database, and during 1997, SPPD was completing the conversion of all inquiry commands into a Windows based Delphi graphical user interface, as well as further automating the incident reporting process, and placing more information on-line for use by city and county attorneys as well as SPPD.

What have these technological innovations meant to line officers? All SPPD Officers have access to all Department information systems—for example, master name information, complaint information, criminal history, warrant information are all easily available. Patrol officers in squad cars can use MDT terminals to obtain wanted person, vehicle registration, and stolen vehicle information. One officer who is not particularly keen on "community policing" nevertheless finds that the new systems save him work, and enable him to cooperate with his team in getting out to respond to citizens more quickly:

What's nice about the mobile dispatch terminal is that you don't have to be constantly writing down addresses…but the big thing is if you do have a little spare time and you want to clear up your calls, you can pull up the pending calls in a certain area, and you can take those before you even dispatch. A lot of us will do that. We'll pull up these calls…we can get in there, get the report, move to another call and take it before we even dispatch…. When it's a team effort and everybody is doing their share to clear up their calls…[we] have them cleared so that we're available if something happens.

Research and Development/Grants (COPS Grants)

The Research and Development Unit has several major tasks within the Department. First, it is responsible for staff work essential to the development of Departmental policies and procedures. Unit staff write grants, oversee the implementation of some grant-sponsored projects, and coordinate local collaboratives in which SPPD is the lead agency. "R and D" also compiles Departmental statistics that are used by management and line units as an aid in decision making, and planning, and conducts and publishes crime analyses based upon statistical and non-quantitative information for planning and other purposes. As examples of these various functions, in 1994 the Unit began a collaboration with the St. Paul School District, Ramsey County and non-profit agencies to deliver crime prevention services to at-risk youth. It was also instrumental in generating $2,215,500 for the City with an additional $670,000 in pending grants. The collaborative effort (along with other law enforcement and youth-oriented agencies) has created a comprehensive package of programs. During 1996, the Research and Development Unit submitted 25 grant applications and received 12, totaling nearly $4 million. It also responded to 1535 requests for crime statistics and coordinated several community-based collaboratives—the Weed and Seed Program on Railroad Island, and the Ramsey County Truancy and Curfew Center.

Research and Development has been an important resource to Chief Finney, as it was to Chief McCutcheon before him, for gathering information on innovative policing practices around the country. Chief Finney has used the Unit much more, however, for successfully obtaining grant funding—from federal, state, local, and private philanthropic sources. Through the end of August, 1997, SPPD had applied (during that year) for 27 grants totaling over five million dollars, and had already been awarded 14 (totaling nearly 2.5 million), denied 3, 11 were pending.

GRANTS: COPS funding began in SPPD in 1993. The primary grant writers were the civilian heads of Research and Development--Stacey Becker, later replaced by Carrie Wasley—guided by Deputy Chief Ross Lundstrom, who also did the strategic and group planning for community policing. COPS grants (along with BJA grants) have provided resources to SPPD to support development in several areas: hiring of additional personnel for community-oriented policing; support for technological infrastructure development (that results both in enhanced communication and information management, and in freeing up officer time for greater involvement in problem solving and other activities associated with community policing); directly funding problem-solving activities; and training.

The following BJA/COPS federal grants have been received:

In addition to receiving these grants, in 1997 SPPD (through the City of Saint Paul) received $995,000 in COPS funding, along with the Minnesota League of Cities and the Minnesota Community Policing Institute, to establish a COPS Regional Training Institute, thereby expanding and enhancing the activities of the existing Minnesota Community Policing Institute, which offers statewide training and technical assistance program. Former SPPD Commander Don Winger left SPPD late in 1997 to assume the directorship of the Institute. SPPD also received $1,000,000 in funds as a designated COP Demonstration Center.

Grant funds have proved significant for allowing Chief Finney flexibility, discretionary action, and the opportunity to try out new ideas and programs that have enhanced SPPD's development and reputation as a center for community oriented policing regionally and nationally, as well as locally. Grants enable him to develop the Department in line with his own priorities, independent of funding from the City; at the same time, raising grant funds indicates to the City Council and Mayor that SPPD is making a good faith effort to minimize the burden placed upon the taxpayers by policing operations. Chief Finney states unequivocally that he could not have done what he wanted to without these grants. First, the additional monies available to supplement hiring has been crucial: "They have been absolutely indispensable: I could not have developed the Department or been flexible in terms of designing my vision for service in the City without the money that's been there." Finney notes that when Norm Coleman became mayor, Coleman's stated goals were to increase services while cutting costs and reducing personnel. Bill Finney contends that without grants, he would have been unable to conform to the constraints imposed by these goals without sacrificing community-oriented policing programs in the City.

I could not have done it or been responsible at all. The first casualty would have been FORCE. It would have been gone, which would have created a greater crime problem inside the City of St. Paul. I would not have had the additional police officers. Police officers are expensive…. I'd probably still be standing at 512 or 519—I still feel St. Paul should be somewhere around 650 or 700 police officers…. FORCE is absolutely crucial in terms of doing patrol servicing in depth. Street officers that answer calls, 911, don't have the time to go out and work on problems. FORCE, even though it's a small unit, works on problems and has such a large impact on neighborhoods.

But Finney also recognizes the importance of grant funding in developing the technology that is required to support COP, and ultimately, to fulfill his vision of community-oriented policing: "If you are going to have any kind of coordinated command and control—in terms of the philosophy of the Department, to be more reflective of and responsive to the community we serve—the only way you can do it is to have the technological means to communicate that simultaneously."

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