By Jason Shueh
Government Technology
When the Great Recession struck in 2008, it dealt police a hard blow. State and city budgets were starved of tax revenues, and law enforcement staffing stagnated as a result. Layoffs, furloughs, unfilled positions — it all mounted as roughly a quarter of American cities, surveyed by the U.S. Department of Justice, reported cuts to public safety budgets.
Even though the recession has passed and the economy is recovering, law enforcement levels are more slowly making gains. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the 5 percent growth in police jobs is dramatically lower than the national average of 11 percent, from 2012 to 2022.
Despite this, technology may serve as support for police. California’s Palm Springs Police Department is piloting a new mobile app called SceneDoc that securely digitizes paperwork and slashes reporting time for incidents by more than 45 minutes. So much time is saved, and Palm Springs Sgt. William Hutchinson said that testing indicates the potential to put more police on the ground and keep current officers out longer — instead of bogged down in paperwork.
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