Community Policing Bureau - Garden Grove

Since its formation in 1957, Garden Grove Police Departmenthas employed manual processes to prepare crime incident,arrest and information reports taken by police personnel.Reports were duplicated for dissemination to authorizedpersonnel for further investigation, court filing, or in response tosubpoenas and Public Records Act requests. Beginning in 1978,the Department began utilizing computers to manually enterdata from those reports into a centralized records managementsystem. The massive volume of documents has been physicallystored within secured areas of the Police Department.In 2011, the Department utilized grant funding and contractedwith a vendor to begin development and implementation ofa customized, multi-phase automation process for writing,disseminating, and electronically storing reports. The newautomated report writing system (ARWS) will have the mostsignificant impact upon Department daily operations since theintroduction of mobile computer terminals (MCTs) in policevehicles in 1986. The ARWS is literally revolutionizing how theDepartment conducts business.The ARWS integrates with the Department’s jail booking,evidence tracking and records management systems, expeditingthe workflow processes and making data more readily availablefor use in identifying suspects and evolving crime patterns, andsolving crimes. Phase Two, to be accomplished in 2012, willenable automation of additional report forms, computer tabletsfor field reporting and an online citizen reporting system. Allof these advances will then set the stage for future electroniccitations and electronic filing of cases with the Orange CountyDistrict Attorney’s Office.In June 2011, the Police Department completed the transitionfrom its old DVD-based In-Car Video System (IVS) to newwireless technology. This new system resolved several reliabilityand functionality issues that were experienced with the oldsystem. With the new system, all video and audio is transmittedwirelessly from the patrol unit onto the Department’s maincomputer system when the vehicles pull into the rear parkingarea of the police facility. Besides the increase in video andaudio quality, being able to nearly eliminate the purchaseand use of large quantities of DVDs for storage has resulted insignificant cost savings to the Department. This same systemwas also installed on the Department’s nine new BMW trafficenforcement motorcycles. The entire cost of the new IVS systemwas paid for by grants, including funds awarded through the2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.