GPS Car Tracking Improves Police Dispatching

Police dispatchers – the brains, eyes and mouth of the police force – are a crucial link in increasing police effectiveness. If the dispatcher can receive, process, and communicate information more quickly, then the police have a greater chance of getting to a crime scene in time to stop the crime. Police departments who have installed GPS tracking devices in their patrol cars give police dispatchers a tool so powerful that police can stop crimes that would otherwise occur too quickly for them to intervene.

Let’s illustrate the power of this tool with a walkthrough of relatively common crime: home burglary. First, we’ll look at how a police district that has not installed GPS car tracking in their police cruisers handles a home burglary.

A scared, frantic lady makes the call to 911, reporting the crime. The dispatcher spends 2 minutes recording information from to the call, before sending a radio call to officers on patrol. The dispatcher looks up the caller’s location on a map. 30 seconds later, the officers respond with their locations. The dispatcher frantically finds the officers’ positions on the map, and takes another 60 seconds to figure out which units to dispatch to the crime scene. The dispatcher then gets back on the radio, and dispatches the closest units to the scene. In 30 seconds, the called units confirm the dispatch. The police officers then take the next 60 seconds to look up the location on their own map, figure out the quickest way to get there, and start driving to the scene of the crime. If the police department is lucky, all necessary units are less than 8 minutes away from the crime scene.

In this scenario, the police who had no GPS car tracking were able to arrive and secure the situation in 13 minutes. While admirable, the thieves left a full 3 minutes before the police arrived, giving them a chance to get miles away from the crime scene.

Imagine the same scenario with a police department who has GPS car tracking installed in their police cars. The dispatcher still spends 2 minutes talking with the caller and records the situation information. This time, however, the dispatcher automatically finds the caller’s location on a map. The GPS tracking system allows the dispatcher to instantly see the locations of the officers in relation to the crime scene. Within 30 seconds, the dispatcher sends the GPS coordinates to the onboard navigation systems of the officers near the scene. All those officers have to do is follow the navigation directions, and 6 minutes later, arrive at the scene. Total time is 8 minutes, 30 seconds, which is enough time for officers to make it to the crime scene and apprehend the criminals.

GPS tracking allows police dispatchers to quickly and effectively coordinate police forces with zero guesswork, and zero wasted time. All of this means that police departments with GPS car tracking can provide a much safer place for all of us to live.

Read more about GPS Tracking Devices on my blog.